Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources and natural resources. Since organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a system. This view opens the opportunity to 'manage' oneself, a pre-requisite to attempting to manage others.
Nature of Management.
In
for-profit work, management has as its primary function the satisfaction of a
range of stakeholders. This typically involves
making a profit (for the shareholders), creating valued products at a
reasonable cost (for customers) and providing rewarding employment opportunities
(for employees). In nonprofit management, add the importance of keeping the
faith of donors. In most models of management/governance,
shareholders vote for the board of directors, and the board then hires
senior management. Some organizations have experimented with other methods
(such as employee-voting models) of selecting or reviewing managers; but this
occurs only very rarely.
In
the public sector
of countries constituted as representative democracies, voters elect
politicians to public office. Such politicians hire many managers and
administrators, and in some countries like the United States
political appointees lose their jobs on the election of a new
president/governor/mayor.
1.
Universality:
Management is an universal phenomenon in the sense that it is common and
essential element in all enterprises. Managers perform more or less the same
functions irrespective of their position or nature of the organization. The
basic principles of management can be applied in all managerial situations
regardless of the size, nature and location of the organization. Universality
of managerial tasks and principles also implies that managerial skills are
transferable and managers can be trained and developed.
2.
Purposeful:
Management is always aimed at achieving organizational goals and purposes. The
success of management is measured by the extent to which the desired objectives
are attained. In both economic and non-economic enterprises, the tasks of
management are directed towards effectiveness (i.e., attainment of
organizational goals) and efficiency (i.e., goal attainment with economy of
resource use).
3.
Social process:
Management essentially involves managing people organized in work groups. It
includes retaining, Developing and motivating people at work, as well as taking
care of their satisfaction as social beings. All these interpersonal relations
and interactions makes the management as asocial process.
4.
Coordinating force: Management coordinates the efforts of organization
members through orderly arrangement of inter-related activities so as to avoid
duplication and overlapping. Management reconciles the individual goals with
the organizational goals and integrates human and physical resources.
5.
Intangible:
Management is intangible. It is an unseen force. Its presence can be felt
everywhere by the results of its effort which comes in the form of orderliness,
adequate work output, satisfactory working climate, employees satisfaction etc.
6.
Continuous process: Management is a dynamic and an on-going process. The
cycle of management continues to operate so long as there is organised action
for the achievement of group goals.
7.
Composite process: Functions of management cannot be undertaken
sequentially, independent of each other. Management is a composite process made
up of individual ingredients. All the functions are performed by involving several
ingredients. Therefore, the whole process is integrative and performed in a
network fashion.
8.
Creative organ: Management
creates energetics effect by producing results which are more than the sum of
individual efforts of the group members. It provides sequence to operations,
matches jobs to goals, connects work to physical and financial resources. It
provides creative ideas, new imaginations and visions to group efforts. It is
not a passive force adopting to external environment but a dynamic life giving
element in every organization.