The Management Concept – An Overview
MEANING OF MANAGEMENT
The word management means different things to everybody. It does not see that there is any definition of management that command universal acceptance or applicable to all situation.Often we find that the author defined management as the way that reflect their experience or suit their circumstances.
According to Ejiofor (1985) practices of management defined management as the art of science of working in an organization through being directed by and directing and coordinating the activities of people to achieve common goals of objectives.
Nwachukwu E. (1990) management planning defined management as all those activities towards achieving organizational goals.
According to Ile Norbert (1990) management organizational theory defined management as planning, organizing and controlling all effort directed to attain objectives or goals.
VARIOUS SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
This school of thought believes that management is both art and science. Those who believe that management is art emphasis that it is an action oriented. In their opinion, management practices a professional and is not really engaged in reflection or thinking.According to the school of thought they stated that it is only those who devote all their time to systematic thinking research about management can be regarded as being concerned with theory and science of the subject matter.
At a more fundamental level some people argue that management can be meaningful conceived as art means that is not and cannot be science. This school of thought argue that requirement of controlling experiment and measure observation which are replicated and tested as difficult if not possible to the management.
In final analysis the distinction between theory and practice art and science are only significant when the extreme interpretation of two terms used.
FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT
One of the most durable contributions of administrative theorist is the study of management as set of functions.Fayol was advocated of this approach in the idea that can be the best way to understand an organization is to study its administrative apparatus in its management.
FAYOL ACTIVITIES ARE AS FOLLOWS
- Technical (production, manufacturing and adoption.
- Commercial (Buying, selling, exchange)
- Financial (Sourcing use of capital)
- Security (of persons and properties)
- Accounting (including statistics)
- Managerial (planning organizing and controlling)
FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT
Planning: Planning means deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, who to do it and when to do it. It bridges the gap between from where we are and where we want to go. It makes it possible for things to occur which will not otherwise happen. In designing an environment for effective performance of individual working together in group the most essential task is to the purpose, objective and method of attaining them. If group effort is to be effective, people must know what they are expected to accomplish. This is the function of planning. Planning implies that managers think through their goal and action in advance that their action is based on some method; plan logic rather than a lunch. Plan gives the organization its objective and set up the best basic managerial function.
Organizing: This is another function of management. All other function is based on what is planned. Organizing means bringing together material money machine. It involves dividing task to be performed as to achieve the objective of the organization. Finally, it is the process of arranging all allocating work authority and other resources such as material, money and machines so to achieve organizational goals effectively.
As we have already set out the functions of management namely planning which we outlined to involve the setting of objectives, policies and procedures, method set through planning, work has to be set for execution by men and machine in order that the objective will be achieved.
The setting out of work to be done is to organizing function of management.Thus, organizing is done in three important activities. The first factor is to bring money, material and machine necessary for the work to be done. The second factor in organizing is the determination of the appropriate organizational design, organizational design is the determination of the organizational structure that is most appropriate for strategy, people, technology and tasks of the organization. Managers must match an origination structure to its goals and resources a process called organizational design. The structure of an organization is done by identifying, grouping and sharing of work to do.
It involves divisions of work into main line activities by which organization can achieve its goals or objective and then breaking the mainline into unit accomplishable as job or jobs.The third activities of an organizational function in establishment of organizational relation. This involves delegation of authority to the work, the assignment of responsibility and creation of accounting.Organizing function therefore produces the hierarchical nature of organization and establishes the superior subordinates relationship by which managers do things through and with others.
Staff: Staffing involves filling and keeping filled positions provided for by the organization structure. The managerial function of staffing involves effective recruitment, selection, placement, appraisal and development of people to occupy the roles in the organizational structure. Recruitment involves seeking out prospective employee through advertisement or personal contact and receiving applications.
Selection concerned with screening application, testing and invitation for interview and interviewing and selecting the best candidate. Placement deals with writing appointment letters, reporting for work and orientation of employees. Employees must be appraised for promotion, trained and development so as to enable them to perform present and future jobs effectively and efficiently.
Staffing involves people. The manager function of planning, organizing and controlling can be viewed as essentially objective tasks, which may even have some important features.
Functions of staffing and directing are concerned almost exclusively with people.
Directing: Directing means guiding and supervising the performance of duties and responsibilities of subordinates. It is the process of initiating the organization according to predetermined plans. It involves activating the organization what is been directed is the human resources that is to make use of other resources to achieve the goal of an organization.
Directing activates, personnel into action directing provides a sense of direction for behaviour at work that is perceived to be necessary to achieve accomplishing organizational goals. Communication in the directing function close relates to responsibility and authority relation established during organizing action. While planning and organizing deals with the more abstract aspect of management process the activity of directing is very concrete to involves working with people. By establishing the proper atmosphere managers help their employee do their best.
Controlling: Controlling means to ensure that the performance in the organization takes place in accordance with planned performance. It is measuring and correcting the activities of the subordinates so as to ensure that event conforms to plans. It checks and monitors the performance against goals and plans shows where negative deviation exist a putting in motion action to correct deviation help to assure accomplishment of plan. Since plan proceeds controlling, plan guide managers in the use of resources to accomplish specific goals or objectives.
Under controlling activities are monitored to determined whether they conform to planned action. As management function controlling is defined by Akpala (1990:138) as the regulation of work activities in accordance with predetermined plan so as to ensure accomplishment of organizational objectives or goals. According to him it operate through established standard set as part of the planning function compare actual work performance against standard and correct deviations from the standards.
Coordinating: Coordinating involves the harmonization of the individual or group effort to achieve organizational objectives or goals. It involves seeing that all groups and person work efficiently and economically in harmony towards the common objective. It is the process where group synchronizes effort so that the desire goal is obtained.
Coordination function can be of two main reasons.
- To remind manager that the responsibility for coordination does not rest mainly with the board of directors and chief executive but also among the managers.
- No matter how a firm is organized, its functions must be effectively or coordinated. Thus the need for common purpose or goal is necessary since there is more than purpose in peoples minds.
Finally, coordination according to Stone and Freethan is the process of integrating the objective of activities of separate work units in order to realize organizational goals effectively.
MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS
- Poor funding
- Bad management
- Obsolete equipment
- Unreliable power supply
- No job satisfaction
1. POOR FUNDING: This is due to poor capitalization and it is one problem of management in Nigeria. Without adequate materials. Money and machines etc. cannot be purchased and plans may not be implemented. Finance will be needed to solve the problem.
2. BAD MANAGEMENT: Management should mange the establishment well, government should interfere in the right way and take proper care of establishment. Management has the responsibility to use resource available effectively.
3. OBSOLETE EQUIPMENT: Sound equipment should be needed to keep the establishment fractioning time.
4. NO JOB SATISFACTION: The employees looses inter in their job due to all these problems mentioned above. They also lack staff but which makes workers especially the junior ones feel relaxant to come to work and at this they come only to be disappointed by NEPA failure. And this will make them to remain idle and tired, the worst is that they cannot leave the office until their working hour is ever.
Fifthly, The relationship between workers and the management has not been very ordinary, this has seriously affected their jobs, some deliberately decided to come late to work and are already to receive query from their immediately supervisors a from the management.
Finally, fear of blame presents the workers from using their initiates in doing something and to trivialize it, the economic situation has not helped matter at all.
MANAGERIAL ROLE
Actually, every manager takes on a much wider range of roles to move organization towards its objective. In a broad sense a roles consists of the behaviour patterns expected of an individual within a social unit.
For the purpose of managerial thinking a role is the behaviour pattern expected of some one within a functional unit.
Roles are thus inherent in function. Managerial can be of three types.
1. International roles: it can be of three types.
(a) Figure Head: As a figure head, the manager perform ceremonial duties as a head of the unit greeting visitors, attending to subordinate, wedding taking customers to lunch, more importantly managers are symbols and personify for both organizational members and outsider observed an organization success and failure.
(b) Leader: Since managers work with and through offer people they are responsible and accountable for their subordinate actions as well as for their own. Infact their subordinate success or failure is direct measure of their own success or failure. Because manager has subordinate and other resources they are accomplished
(c) Liaison: Like politician manager must lean to work with everyone inside or outside the organization who can help them achieve their organizational objective or goals.
All effective manager play politics in the sense that they develop network of mutual obligation with other manager in an organization.
2. Informational Role: Receiving and communicating information Mintzberg suggests are the most important aspect of a manager job. Managers need information to make intelligent decision and other people in the organization depend on information receive from managers.
Mintzber identify three information roles.
(a) Monitor Roles: Managers are constantly looking for useful information both within and outside the organization.
(b) Spokeman: managers always transit information to the people outside their own work unit. Keeping superior well informed is one important.
(c) Dissemination: They distribute important information to subordinates. Some of those factual information concerned in staff meeting and memos.
(d) Decision Making Roles: It involves entrepreneur the originator of new business venture or manager who tries to improve an organizational unit by initiating productive changes. Managers try to improve their unit. For example managers get hold of good idea they might launch a development project to make it reality.
—This article is not complete———–This article is not complete————
This article was extracted from a Project Research Work/Material Topic
“THE MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT PARASTATALS IN NIGERIA
(A CASE STUDY OF HOTEL PRESIDENTIAL ENUGU)”
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