Manager Interview (Evolution of Management Class) - Essay Example

Manager Interview (Evolution of Management Table of Contents Introduction 3 The Interviewee 3 List of Duties 3 List of Duties and Theories 4 Comparison with Fayol’s Theory 5 Relevance of Fayol’s theory 5 References 6 Introduction This paper is attempted to represent the major responsibilities of a manager who is associated with one of the most reputed organizations in the world. The paper also includes the demographics of the manager. All the information regarding the responsibilities and demographics of the manager are based on the outcome of the interview of the manager.

In addition to these all the findings are analyzed with respect to theories of management. The Interviewee The name of the interviewee is Subroto Dawn who is the store manager of a famous retail chain which is based in United States. Mr. Dawn has been working in the retail sector for more than 8 years. He is a MBA from Wharton University. Being the store manager, he has to work from 9 A.M. to 8 P.M. As a result, it is very difficult to catch him for an interview. However, he was called on this Sunday and a telephonic interview was taken.

List of Duties As he is the store manager of one of the most popular retail stores in the country, Mr Dawn has lot of responsibilities and duties to perform. When he was asked about his duties, he told that the most important duty is to manage all the staffs who are working in the store and develop and implement various strategies successfully. Being the head of the store, Mr. Dawn is responsible for developing various marketing and financial strategies for the store. Furthermore, he has to ensure that these strategies are in alignment with the overall corporate strategies of the organization.

In addition to this he has to implement all those strategies that are adopted at the corporate level of the company. During the interview he also said that he has the responsibility of recruiting and providing training to the newly joined employees. He has to maintain co-ordination with the higher authorities as well as with his sub-ordinates. As per the conversation with Mr. Dawn, one of the biggest responsibilities of him is to deal with unhappy customers as well as dissatisfied employees. Being the store manager, he is expected to provide solution to all the major issues regarding customer satisfaction as well as employee satisfaction.

List of Duties and Theories List of duties and responsibilities of a manager like Mr. Dawn can be analyzed in the light of various management theories like Fayol’s theory. Henry Fayol who was a famous French industrialist and writer, identified five major managerial functions. These are planning, organizing, coordinating commanding and controlling (Cassidy, Kreitner, and Kreitner, 2009). According to Fayol, these functions are the main denominators of most of the managerial jobs. As a result, any manager and his duties can be analyzed in terms of degree of these functions.

In addition to this, Fayol stated that there are 14 principles and they can be used to describe a manager and his responsibilities. These are division of work, discipline, authority, unity of direction, unity of command, centralization, remuneration, stability of tenure, equity, order, initiative, scalar chain, individual interest and esprit de corps (Gupta, 2007). The aspect of these principles was discussed during the conversation with Mr. Dawn. According to him, some of these characteristics can be found in him as well as in his jobs and responsibilities.

Characteristics like ‘equity’, ‘order’, ‘discipline’, ‘proper division of work’, ‘initiative’ can be observed at his work. However, he admits that it is very difficult to control the aspects like remuneration and stability of tenure, as the final decisions regarding these are usually taken at the higher level of the organization. Comparison with Fayol’s Theory After the interview of Mr. Dawn it is quite clear that Fayol’s five principles of management function are actually practiced in the real world.

Being, the store manager Mr. Subroto Dawn is responsible for making plans of various strategies, organizing and coordinating different activities inside the store and commanding and controlling his juniors. However, the degree to which these functions are performed is dependent on various external factors like time, work pressure etc. As far as the 14 principles are concerned, some of them are followed and some of them are not. It is already mentioned that the principles like ‘equity’, ‘order’, ‘discipline’, ‘proper division of work’, ‘initiative’ are followed, while remuneration and tenure are not in the hand of managers like Mr. Dawn. Relevance of Fayol’s theory Fayol’s theories and principles are still very much in practice.

However, according to experts like Olum, principles of unity of direction and unity of authority cannot be properly followed in today’s organizations. The main reason behind this is the fact that in most of the modern organizations system of ‘matrix management’ is followed and in such system ‘authority’ and ‘direction’ are often channelized (Olum, 2004). However, the other principles of Fayol are still greatly practiced by the today’s organizations as they find them relevant enough even in the changing business environment.

References Gupta, 2007, Business Studies Xii 4/E, Tata McGraw-Hill Cassidy, C., Kreitner, B. and Kreitner, R. 2009, Supervision: Setting People Up for Success, Cengage Learning Olum, Y. (2004). Modern management theories and practices. Retrieved from: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/AAPAM/UNPAN025765.pdf