1. The Management
Environment
Module 1
LIS 580: Spring 2006
Instructor- Michael Crandall
2. Roadmap
• Why do we care?
• What do managers do?
• Where did management come from?
• What kinds of management are there?
• What’s happening today?
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 2
3. Why Do We Care?
• “… modern society has become a society of
organizations… In a society of organizations,
managing becomes a social function and
management the constitutive, the determining,
the differential organ of society.”
Drucker, 1986
• In other words, you’re in it whether you like it
or not, so better to understand how it works in
order to use it to your advantage
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 3
4. Organization Defined
• Organization
– A group of people with formally assigned
roles who work together to achieve the
stated goals of the group.
– Characteristics:
• Common purpose/goals
• Organizational structure
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 4
5. Management Defined
• Manager
– A person who plans, organizes, leads, and controls
the work of others so that the organization
achieves its goals.
• Is responsible for contribution.
• Gets things done through the efforts of other people.
• Is skilled at the management process.
• Management Process
– Refers to the manager’s four basic functions of
planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 5
7. The Manager as Innovator
• The Entrepreneurial Process
– Getting employees to think of themselves as
entrepreneurs.
• The Competence-Building Process
– Working hard to create an environment that lets
employees really take charge.
• The Renewal Process
– Guarding against complacency by encouraging
employees to question why they do things as they
do—and if they might do them differently.
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 7
8. Types of Managers
FIGURE 1–1
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 8
9. The Managerial Skills
• Technical Skills
– The need to know how to plan, organize, lead, and
control.
• Interpersonal Skills
– An understanding of human behavior and group
processes, and the feelings, attitudes, and motives
of others, and ability to communicate clearly and
persuasively.
• Conceptual Skills
– Good judgment, creativity, and the ability to see
the “big picture” when confronted with information.
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 9
10. The Foundations Of Modern
Management
• The Classical and Scientific School
– Frederick Winslow Taylor and Scientific
Management
1. The “one best way”
2. Scientific selection of personnel
3. Financial incentives
4. Functional foremanship
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 10
11. The Foundations Of Modern
Management (cont’d)
• The Classical and Scientific School (cont’d)
– Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and Motion Study
• Analyzed physical motion and work processes to
improve worker efficiency.
– Henri Fayol and the Principles of Management
• Defined the functions of management
• Published “General and Industrial Management”
• Advocated “chain of command”
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 11
12. The Foundations Of Modern
Management (cont’d)
• The Classical and Scientific School (cont’d)
– Max Weber and the Bureaucracy
• A well-defined hierarchy of authority
• A clear division of work
• A system of rules covering the rights and duties of
position incumbents
• A system of procedures for dealing with the work
situation
• Impersonality of interpersonal relationships
• Selection for employment, and promotion based on
technical competence
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 12
13. The Foundations Of Modern
Management (cont’d)
• The Behavioral School
– The Hawthorne Studies
• Researchers found that it was the social
situations of the workers, not just the working
conditions, that influenced behavior at work.
– The Human Relations Movement
• Emphasized that workers were not just “givens”
in the system. Workers have needs and desires
that organizations have to accommodate.
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 13
14. Douglas McGregor: Theory X and
Theory Y
• Theory X
– Most people dislike work and responsibility
and prefer to be directed.
– They are motivated not by the desire to do
a good job, but simply by financial
incentives.
– Most people must be closely supervised,
controlled, and coerced into achieving
organizational objectives.
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 14
15. Douglas McGregor: Theory X and
Theory Y (cont’d)
• Theory Y
– People wanted to work hard.
– People could enjoy work.
– People could exercise substantial self-
control.
– Managers could trust employees if
managers treated them right.
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 15
16. The Foundations Of Modern
Management (cont’d)
• The Behavioral School (cont’d)
– Rensis Likert and the Employee-Centered
Organization
• Less effective organizations have a “job-
centered” focus: specialized jobs, emphasis on
efficiency, and close supervision of workers.
• Effective “employee-centered” organizations
build effective work groups with high
performance goals.”
• Participation is an important approach
employed by high-producing managers.
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 16
17. Bridging the Eras: The
Administrative School
• Chester Barnard’s “Zone of Indifference”
– A range of orders that a worker will willingly accept
without consciously questioning their legitimacy.
• Managers have to provide sufficient inducements (and
not just financial ones) to make each employee’s zone of
indifference wider.
• Herbert Simon and Managerial Influence
– Use the classicists’ command and control
approach.
• Foster employee self-control by providing better training,
encouraging participative leadership, and developing
commitment and loyalty.
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 17
18. The Quantitative/Management
Science School
• The Management Science Approach
– Operations Research/ Management Science
• Seeks optimal solutions to management problems
through research and the use of scientific analysis and
tools.
– The Systems Approach
• The view that an organization exists as a set of
interrelated subsystems that all contribute internally to the
organization’s purpose and success while interacting with
the organization’s external environment.
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 18
19. The Situational/Contingency
School
• Contingency View of Management.
– The organization and how its managers
should manage it are contingent on the
company’s environment and on technology.
– Tom Burns and G. M. Stalker
• Mechanistic organizations
• Organic organizations
G.Dessler, 2003
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 19
20. Multi-Ontology Sense Making
• David Snowden
proposes that we
look at the
problem through
multiple lenses
• Clearly more
complex space
than most
management
systems take into
account
Kurtz, C. F.; Snowden, D. J. “The new dynamics of
strategy: Sense-making in complex March 24, 2005.
From Pollard, D. How to Saveathe World. and complicated
world”. IBM Systems Management Journal.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/03/24.htmlVolume 42,
Number 3, 2003.
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/423/kurtz.html
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 20
22. Two Books to Read
• Reich, Robert B. The Work of Nations:
Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century
Capitalism. Vintage, 1992.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679736158
• Friedman, Thomas L. The World Is Flat:
A Brief History of the Twenty-first
Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux ,
2005.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374292884
July 21, 2005 LIS580- Spring 2006 22
