Management and Performance [antikvár]

Preface The factors contributing to the success or failure of an organization are seemingly limitless. The external environment can ofíer significant opportunities, or it can be quite hostile; governmental activities can facilitate or constrain an organization's operation; raw matenals can be mexpensive or scarce and costly; or other organizations may provide society with better products and services. No one factor is more important to organizational efíectiveness than the performance of managers. Managers influence everything the organization does, from analyzing the environment to planning and controlling the work of employees. The link between the activities of managers and the level of efíectiveness of the organization is the theme and title of this book-Management and Performance. Focus of the Book As a look at any management professor's bookshelf will attest, there are many ways of presenting management in a first course. Somé texts take a behavioral or situational approach, others believe that a quantitative orientation is necessary in these computer times, while still others focus on the different schools of management thought. While each of these approaches has merit, your author believes that there is no one best way to manage or to present the topic of management. Rather than build on any one approach, the focus of this book is on what the manager actually does-in other words, the manager's job. By learning what managers do, future managers will be able to develop an approach that works best for them. The manager's job orientation is presented throughout this book in a fourfold manner: 1. First, managers perform similar functions in their work. They plan what needs to be done and organize work flows, communication, and people. In addition, they lead employees toward goal accomplishment and attempt to control efficiently the resources of the organization. 2. In performing these functions, managers act out certain roles. They are superiors to groups of employees, they are themselves subordinates to other superiors, information flows through them from sources internál and external to the organization, they represent the organization to other organizations, and they make decisions that influence how well the firm achieves its goals. 3. Success as a manager is highly dependent on whether the individuals acquire important managerial skills. These include how well they know their work, proper relationships with other employees, the degree to