Part 4 THE NATURE OF MANAGEMENT 11 The Role of the Manager 12 Managerial Behaviour and Effectiveness 13 Human Resource Management The Nature of Management Visit www.uk/mymanagementlab to access the online video case study that complements Part 4: The Nature of Management. Offering an insight into what managers actually do, this video case ONLINE VIDEO CASE STUDY study explores how managers help an organisation achieve its aims by looking at the nature of management and leadership in two very different companies. Featured are Danny Potter, Managing Director of Inamo restaurant and Kevin Kerridge, Head of Direct and Partnerships at insurance company Hiscox UK. 11 THE ROLE OF THE MANAGER Organisations achieve their goals and objectives through the co-ordination of activities and the efforts of their members.
Management is fundamental to the effective operation of work organisations. It is by the process of management and execution of work that the activities of the organisation are carried out. Management is an integral part of the people–organisation relationship. It is essentially an integrating activity that permeates every facet of the operations of an organisation.
Learning outcomes After completing this chapter you should be able to: ■ explain the meaning and main activities, or functions, of management; ■ analyse the essential nature of managerial work; ■ contrast management in private enterprise and public sector organisations; ■ outline empirical studies on the nature of managerial work and behaviour; ■ debate the attributes and qualities of a successful manager; ■ review the changing role of managers and the future of management; ■ evaluate the importance of management for effective organisational performance. Critical reflection ‘Managers do not really have much influence. They follow where the organisation appears to be going, and avoid upsetting other people or making serious errors. People regarded as good managers are usually those who are remembered as not being bad managers.’ How far do you agree with this assertion? What is your experience of a good manager? CHAPTER 11 THE ROLE OF THE MANAGER THE MEANING OF MANAGEMENT Management is a generic term and subject to many interpretations.
A number of contrasting ideas are attributed to the meaning of management and to the work of a manager.1 There are also different ways of viewing the study and knowledge of management. For example, Shafritz observes that today’s cultured managers could find answers to many business prob- lems from the work of Shakespeare. For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it. It is the same with Shakespeare.
Most managers have read at least some of his plays, but have yet to realize that they have been studying management.2 Knights and Willmott refer to managing as an everyday activity that involves interactions between people that ‘are not unrelated or entirely dissimilar to other spheres of life, except perhaps in the rhetoric and hype that surround management’. They contend that most estab- lished textbooks about management and organisation provide little that enables practising managers to make sense of their particular problem or dilemma, and in order to appreciate the living of management draw on a number of contemporary novels.3 In certain respects everyone can be regarded as a manager, at least to some extent. We all manage our own time and everyone has some choice whether or not to do something, and some control, however slight, over the planning and organisation of their work. However, we are concerned with management as involving people looking beyond themselves and exercising formal authority over the activities and performance of other people.
Manager as a job title Even within a work organisation you cannot identify a manager necessarily by what a person is called or by their job title. In some organisations there is a liberal use of the title ‘manager’ in an apparent attempt to enhance the status and morale of staff. As a result there are a number of people whose job title includes the term manager but who, in reality, are not performing the full activities of a manager. Yet there are many people whose job title does not include the term manager (for example, group accountant, head chef, chief inspector, captain, head teacher, production controller, district nursing officer, company secretary) but who, in terms of the activities they undertake and the authority and responsibility they exercise, may be very much a manager.
Management as making things happen For our purposes, therefore, we can regard management as: ■ taking place within a structured organisational setting with prescribed roles; ■ directed towards the attainment of aims and objectives; ■ achieved through the efforts of other people; and ■ using systems and procedures. At its most basic, management may be viewed as ‘making things happen’. Management is active, not theoretical. It is about changing behaviour and making things happen.
It is about developing people, working with them, reaching objectives and achieving results. Indeed, all the research into how managers spend their time reveals that they are creatures of the moment, perpetually immersed in the nitty-gritty of making things happen.4 Recall also the discussion on the nature of leadership (Chapter 10). Whereas leaders are not necessarily managers it could be argued that all managers should be leaders. Managers born or made? Management an art or science? There is frequent debate about whether managers are born or made or whether manage- ment is an art or a science.
Briefly, the important point is that neither of these is a mutually 425 PART 4 THE NATURE OF MANAGEMENT exclusive alternative. The answer to either question is surely a combination of both. Even if there are certain innate qualities that make for a potentially good manager, these natural talents must be encouraged and developed through proper guidance, education and training, and planned experience. Clearly, management must always be something of an art, especially in so far as it involves practice, personal judgement and dealing with people.
However, it still requires knowledge of the fundamentals of management, and competence in the application of specific skills and techniques – as illustrated, for example, with developments in information technology. The trouble is that, for all the techniques at their disposal, managers generally act at a very intuitive level. Managers may have absorbed the latest thinking on core competencies, but are more likely to base a decision on prejudice or personal opinion rather than a neat theory.5 The discussion of management as an art or a science is developed by Watson who suggests that in order to make sense of the complex and highly ambiguous situations in which man- agers find themselves, management can be viewed not only as both art and science but also magic and politics (see Figure 11.1 Management as art, science, magic and politics Source: From Watson, T. Management, Organisation and Employment Strategy, Routledge and Kegan Paul (1986), p.
Reproduced by permission of the publishers, Routledge, a division of Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 426 CHAPTER 11 THE ROLE OF THE MANAGER The emergence of management Peter Drucker, who is widely regarded as the guru of management gurus, has written about the significance in social history of the emergence of management: The emergence of management as an essential, a distinct and a leading institution is a pivotal event in social history. Rarely, if ever, has a new basic institution, a new leading group, emerged as fast as has management since the turn of this [20th] century. Rarely in human history has a new institution proven indispensable so quickly; and even less often has a new institution arrived with so little opposi- tion, so little disturbance, so little controversy.7 Drucker sees management as denoting a function as well as the people who discharge it, a social position and authority, and also a discipline and field of study.
‘Management is tasks. Management is a discipline. But management is also people. Every achievement of management is the achievement of a manager.
Every failure is a failure of a manager.’8 Other writers, however, take the view that management is not a separate discipline. The problem is identifying a single discipline that encompasses the work of a manager, or agreeing the dis- ciplines that a manager needs in order effectively to carry out this work. Note, however, the discussion on the changing role of managers at the end of this chapter. Significance of cultural influences Schneider and Barsoux contend that trying to define the meaning of management shows up differences in beliefs and values.
Cultural influences are a significant feature of management. Managers in some countries might have more concern for the ‘spiritual’ aspects of manage- ment, while in others there would be greater concern for the business sense. Developing people through work could be seen as an intrusion of privacy, and others may perceive empowerment as another name for manipulation.9 According to Francesco and Gold, if inter- national managers are to perform successfully in the global economy they need to under- stand the effects of different cultures on organisational behaviour. Reliance on theories developed in one culture is not sufficient.10 Management and administration There is often confusion over different interpretations of the two terms ‘management ’ and ‘administration’.
One of the main reasons for this confusion would seem to result from the translation of Fayol’s book Administration industrielle et générale from the French into English. In the original (1929) English edition there was a direct translation of ‘administration’, but in the wider republication of the book in 1949 the term ‘management’ replaced ‘adminis- tration’ in the title. In the introduction to the revised edition, Urwick indicates regret at this change and also expresses concern at the possible division between management being seen to apply only to business organisations, and (public) administration as applying to the same functions in public service organisations.11 Dictionary definitions tend to see the two words as synonymous. Management is some- times referred to as ‘administration of business concerns’ and administration as ‘manage- ment of public affairs’.
However, the term ‘management’ is now used far more widely within the public sector. There is clearly an overlap between the two terms and they tend to be used, therefore, in accordance with the convenience of individual writers. This confirms the feel- ing that although most people perceive a difference between the two terms, this difference is not easy to describe. (A comparison of management in private enterprise and public sector organisations is to be found later in this chapter.) Administration part of management There appears, therefore, to be growing acceptance of the term management as the general descriptive label and administration as relating to the more specific function of the imple- mentation of systems and procedures instigated by management.
Administration can be seen as taking place in accordance with some form of rules or procedures, whereas management 427 PART 4 THE NATURE OF MANAGEMENT implies a greater degree of discretion. For our purposes, management is viewed as applying to both private and public sector organisations; and administration is interpreted as that part of the management process concerned with the design and implementation of systems and procedures to help meet stated objectives. Systems of communication and procedures relat- ing to information technology are particularly important today. THE PROCESS OF MANAGEMENT The nature of management is variable.
It relates to all activities of the organisation and is not a separate, discrete function. It cannot be departmentalised or centralised. With the possible exception of the board of directors, or similar, an organisation cannot have a department of management in the same way as it can have a department for other functions, such as research and development, production, marketing, accounting, or human resources. Management is seen best, therefore, as a process common to all other functions carried out within the organisation.
Through the execution of work, the central focus of management is on achieving the goals and objectives of the organisation, and satisfying the needs and expect- ations of its members. Management is essentially an integrating activity.) But what does the process of management actually involve and what activities does it encompass?