Management Fundamentals - Term Paper Example

 Table of Contents Discussion 2 Functional areas within an Organization 2 Role of Managers in an Organization 3 Conclusion 5 References 6 Introduction A manager has various roles within an organization and performing this goals form the basis of a manager’s role. The concept of management is described as the role of an individual who is responsible for the supervision and coordination of all activities in the employees to ensure that all assigned activities are accomplished effectively within a given time period (Drucker, 2012). The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the utility of managers within the functional areas of an organization. Discussion Functional areas within an Organization Most of the companies have mainly four functional areas comprising of production management, marketing and sales, finance and human resources management. These four functional areas are subdivided into a large number of narrow business functions specific to each functional area. It has been observed that business organizes their structure according to business functions. The business functions which are associated with production management includes the management of material, carry out research and development for refining existing product lines or developing new products. It also includes the task of conducting various quality control tests to ensure customer satisfaction. Thus, the functional area of production management deals with planning the plant layout and deciding about plant locations for different products (Elsy, 2009). The functional area of marketing management includes the business functions of marketing a product to the targeted consumer segments, sales forecasting, providing customer support and conducting promotional activities, taking sales orders and customer relationship management. Marketing management also involves the responsibility of conducing market research to collect and analyze data about the demand for the products and also the marketing strategies of competitors in similar markets. This also helps the management to design effective marketing mix to promote new products in existing markets or to introduce the existing products in new markets (Lussier, 2011; Boldi, Santini & Vigna, 2009). The accounting and finance functional area includes the business functions of financial accounting, allocation of funds for various activities and projects, planning, budgeting and control of funds and cash-flow management. It also deals with the various direct and indirect taxes that the organization needs to pay. The functional area of human resource management deals with the effective utilization of manpower. Human resources personnel are involved in the processes of recruitment and selection, training and development, maintaining organizational culture and wage administration (Robbins et al, 2014). Role of Managers in an Organization A manager must be a complete business person who understands the operational, strategic and tactical responsibilities in an organization. According to Henry Mintzberg, managers spend most of their time by engaging in ten specific roles which are classified into the following three groups which are as follows: Interpersonal: These roles allow the manager to interact with his or her subordinates in order to achieve organizational goals. There are three roles related with interpersonal roles which include figurehead, liaison and leader. As a figurehead, the manager has certain social and legal responsibilities that his or her subordinates expect him or her to fulfil. Thus, the manager acts as a source of authority and inspiration for the followers (Mintzberg, 1989). When a manager acts as a leader, his responsibility is to direct and manage the performance of his employees. For this, the manager must train the follower, communicate their targets at work, appreciate the efforts of the employees and motivate them to achieve higher efficiency level. As a liaison, the manager communicates with other members and also the customers of the organization, to know about their outlook about the organization and incorporate changes in the work process for improving the performance of his employees. Informational: Informational roles include those roles in which a manager must generate and share knowledge in order to accomplish organizational objectives. The three roles under informational responsibilities include disseminator, monitor and spokesperson. The monitor role of a manager comprise of the task of researching, generating and identifying functional knowledge. Thus, the manager needs to be updated about the current internal business and external industry environments. This also includes monitoring the performance of his employees. Once the manager gathers the information, his next step will be to disseminate the valuable knowledge among the subordinates. Without the presence of managers, the employees are not able to access the information due to the lack of vast network of contacts that managers possess. In addition to disseminating information to those internal to the organization, managers also sent information to people outside the business. This may include the meeting of the stakeholders, interactions with suppliers, investors, creditor and government institutions (Mintzberg, 1989). Decisional: Due to their informational roles, managers have access to what is needed to make decisions. As decision makers, the managers also serve as an entrepreneur, disturbance handler, negotiators and resource allocators (Mintzberg, 1989). As entrepreneurs, managers seek to utilize the information they gathered as monitors to improve the organizational performance. As disturbance handlers, managers are responsible for responding to circumstances that are beyond their control. This includes declining economic problems, increasing labour strikes, competitor actions, natural disasters and even product issues (Mintzberg, 1989). The impact of these events is significant and thus requires actions by the managers as disturbance handlers. As resources allocators, the managers decide who in the organizational subunit performs the specific tasks. This includes money, time, equipment and also facilities. Apart from this, the manager also establishes an organizational structure for their teams and authorise decisions before implementation. Due to their authority to command resources as well as their access to information, managers are uniquely positioned to negotiate on behalf of the organization. They regularly negotiate about labour contracts, supplier contracts and employee grievances (Mintzberg, 1989). Conclusion There is a need for management in all the functional areas within an organization and mangers need to coordinate among the business functions belonging to each of the functional areas. The dissemination of information effectively within functional areas and business functions leads to more efficient business operations. Thus, integration of business functions is extremely important to achieve the overall organizational objectives. Moreover, it is possible only if the managers perform their specific roles efficiently to facilitate business operations. References Drucker, P. (2012). The Practice of Management. London: Routledge. Elsy, P.A. (2009). Approaches to Management. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House. Lussier, R. (2011). Management fundamentals: Concepts, applications, skill development. Boston: Cengage Learning. Mintzberg, H. (1989). Mintzberg on management: Inside our strange world of organizations. New York: Simon and Schuster. Robbins, S. P., Bergman, R., Stagg, I. & Coulter, M. (2014). Management. London: Pearson. Boldi P, Santini M, & Vigna S. (2009). PageRank: Functional dependencies. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 27 (4), 1-23. Read More