business 3

• Management

  A process designed to achieve an organization's objectives by using its resources effectively and efficiently in a changing environment
• Managers

  • Make decisions about the use of the organization's resources
  • Are concerned with planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling the organization's activities
• Resources needed by organizations

  • People
  • Raw materials and equipment
  • Money
  • Information
• Employees are one of the most important resources in helping a business attain its objectives
• Successful companies recruit, train, compensate, and provide benefits
• Management Functions


  • Planning
  • Organizing
  • Staffing
  • Directing
  • Controlling
• Levels of Management


  • Top
  • Middle
  • First-line
• Areas of Management


  • Production/Operations
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Human Resources
  • Information Systems
• Skills Needed by Managers

  • Technical Expertise
  • Conceptual Skills
  • Analytical Skills
  • Human Relations Skills
• Leadership


  The ability to influence employees to work toward organizational goals
• Leadership Styles


  • Autocratic
  • Democratic
  • Free-rein
• Autocratic leaders


  Make all the decisions and then tell employees what must be done and how to do it
• Democratic leaders


  Involve their employees in decisions, encourage them to express opinions and contribute ideas, and then consider the employees' points of view before making the decision
• Free-rein leaders


  Let their employees work without much interference, set performance standards, and allow employees to find their own ways to meet them
• For the free-rein style of leadership to be effective, employees must know what the standards are, and they must be motivated to attain them
• The free-rein style of leadership can be a powerful motivator because it demonstrates a great deal of trust and confidence in the employee
• Managers make many different kinds of decisions, such as the hours in a workday, which employees to hire, what products to introduce, and what price to charge for a product
• Decision making is important in all management functions and at all levels, whether the decisions are on a strategic, tactical, or operational level
• Effective managers pay attention to signals such as declining profits, small-scale losses in previous years, inventory buildup, and retailers' unwillingness to stock a product
• If managers pay attention to such signals, problems can be contained