Managerial Works in the Modern Era - Literature review Example

Managerial Works Introduction “The ical view says that the manager organizes, coordinates, plans and controls; the facts suggest otherwise” (Mintzberg, 1990, p.163). The role of managers is changing day by day because of the evolutions of scientific management principles and the huge changes taking place in the organization world for the last few decades. Majority of the prominent companies are currently operating in a multicultural environment. The workforce is extremely diverse in most of the companies and hence managers and facing lot many problems. Traditional management principles are difficult to implement in the modern day organizations because of the rapid changes taking place in the organizational world. “For too many years, the students of management avoided empirical research referring instead to accept Fayols fifty year old description of managerial work as planning, organizing, co-ordinating, and controlling” (Mintzberg, 1970, p.87). Planning, coordination and control were the earlier views about the functions of the managers. However, modern views say that managers should act as a leader rather than a planner or coordinator. Managers were seen in the past as a bridge between the organization and the employees. The role of a modern manger is much more complex than the role of a manager in the past. Many organizations Managerial work has been researched through a large number of studies using a wide range of methods over the last four to five decades. Plenty of conclusions were made by different scholars about the role of a manager in a modern day organization. However, these conclusions have lot of similarities and differences because of the differences in the contexts of these studies. This paper analyses some of the most important findings of researchers with respect to managerial works in the modern era. Managerial works in modern day organizations Lots of myths associated with the managerial works in current organizations. One of the major myths about managerial works is that managers are reflective systematic planners. Mintzberg (1990) questioned this myth and argued that “Managers work at an unrelenting pace and their activities are characterised by brevity, variety, discontinuity and that they are strongly oriented to action and dislike reflective activities ” (p.164). It is difficult for a manager in the current era to function based on pre-planned principles. The challenges and threats arising at the workplace and market are constantly changing. That is why management theories are undergoing rapid changes quite regularly. It is almost impossible for a manager to function as a democrat or an autocrat always. He should evaluate the situations properly before taking any actions. In other words, situational management styles are more common in the organizational world at present. A manager who reacts aggressively on one occasion may react cool on other occasions because of the situational difference he may face. Another myth about the managerial functions is that an effective manager need not have regular duties to perform. Mintzberg questioned this argument also. In his opinion, “Managerial works include lot of regular works including rituals and ceremonies, negotiations and processing of information” (Mintzberg, 1990, p.165). Information processing is vital for the success of current organizations. Information are processed by the managers rather than the employees. Current managers should give more focus to what is going in the market and what the competitors are doing. Knowing the strategies of opponents or competitors are important for an organization to take precautionary actions. For example, while most of the mobile phone manufactures concentrated in adding more features to their existing products, Apple Inc thought differently and introduced an entirely new product (iPhone) in the market at the beginning of 21 st century. The rest is history. Nokia, the leader in mobile phone industry has lost its place and market share they are currently struggling for survival. Had Nokia managers were smart enough to know the plans of Apple in developing touchscreen phones earlier, they could have challenged Apple more effectively now. In short information collection and processing are routine managerial functions at present. Some people argue that management is quickly becoming a science. However, Mintzberg mentioned that “manager’s program to schedule time, process information, make decisions and so on remain locked deep in their minds” (p.167). If management is a science, then there should be some proven theories and principles. However, experiences from the organizational world show that managers forced to take different actions even while facing similar problems. In other words, many modern managers work on instincts rather than principles or theories. There are plenty of situations in which theories and principles may not help the managers in taking decisions. Under such circumstances, managers rely on instincts and logics. For example, during the initial phases of globalization, Parker Pen Company managers thought that same marketing strategies are enough for selling their pen products everywhere in the world. But, they failed miserably in promoting their products across the world. On the other hand, Samsung used different marketing strategies at different parts of the world even for the same product. They tasted immense success. These facts clearly suggest that proven principles and theories may fail at times whereas instincts and logic excel most of the times. In short, managers should use proven principles and instincts judiciously. “A small group of managers devote much of their energies to by passing the system. They believe that managerial objectives can be achieved more effectively by alternative means”(Marshall & Stewart, 1981, p.184). Blind belief on management principles or instincts alone may not bring success always. In most of the cases, proven principles would help managers in taking decisions. Managers should seek alternate methods only when it is actually needed. It should be noted the chances of failure is more while opting for alternate methods. At the same time alternate methods might bring more success also. It is jurisdiction of the manager to decide whether he would go for the established methods and processes or for alternate methods and processes. According to Hales (1986) “Acting as a leader of an organizational unit, the formation and maintenance of contacts (Liaison), Monitoring and filtering of information, allocating resources, handling disturbances, negotiation, innovation, planning and controlling of subordinates” are some of the managerial functions (p.95). Managers are perceived as leaders in modern organizations. In fact leadership skills are tested severely while an applicant seeks a job in a managerial position. Even though an organization has many resources such as money, material, machine etc, human resource is the most important one. It should be noted that all the organizational resources can be mobilised properly only with the help of the human supervision. Therefore management of human resources or employees is the vital organizational function. It is frequently argued that, as a consequence of radical organizational change, the role of first-line manager (FLM) has shifted from supervision to team leadership/co- ordination or business unit management. Changes to the FLM role have been as much towards a strengthening of the supervisory core as a broadening into business management responsibilities. It is argued that the persistence and prevalence of the supervisory core stems from the continued location of FLMs within systems of external, hierarchical supervision (Hales, 2005, p.471). Managing and leading are different things even though many people perceive both as the same thing. Managers often try to get the things done through others whereas leaders often try to show the way of doing things. Managers manage employees whereas leaders lead followers. In other words, a leader gets more emotional attachments from the followers than a manager gets from employees. An emotional attachment in between the organization and the employees would definitely help both. Therefore, modern organizations try to post leaders more than the managers. When a manager becomes a leader, employees develop more faith his abilities. On the other hand, when a manager tries to manage, employees develop lot of likes and dislikes. In short, transformation of a person from manager to leader is encouraged by modern organizations. Studies of managerial work have shown that the focus of many of the modern day managers is upon differences of individual behavior or group allegiance, and not upon managerial work (Willmott, 1987, p.249). Team work is encouraged in modern day organizations because of the immense benefits it brings to the employees as well as to the organization. Job stress would be considerably less when employees work as part of a team. For a manager, the performance of the team is important rather than the performance of the individual members of the team. Individual performances are important for the team leader. Unwanted and unacceptable behaviours from the employees often cause big problems to the managers. It should be noted that no two individuals are alike. The interests of the manager and that of the employees may not travel always in parallel direction. The manager has to safeguard the interests of the organization along with that of the employees. However, managers give more importance to the interests of the organization. Employees may not accept such behaviours and the result would be conflicts between the manager and the employees. For example, majority of the employees dislike overtime works. However, managers forced to ask the employees to stay back to complete pending works. Employees who were compelled to do overtime work often blame the manager for lack of work-life balancing. In all these situations, the skills of the managers will be tested severely. Control is another managerial function. It should be noted that mangers are controlling organizational resources including human resources. In fact, all the employees wait for the instructions from the manager before they begin their works. “Control is an aspect of administration for which talk is a key resource”(Gronn, 1983, p.1). Managers use verbal and written media to communicate with the employees. Hales & Klidas, (1998) defined four types of managerial control: 1 ex-ante control (operating before the event and focusing on inputs in the form of knowledge and skills of those carrying out the work); 2 concurrent control (operating during the event and focusing on processes in the form of methods used for carrying out work); 3 ex-post control (operating after the event and focusing on outputs in the form of the material, financial or informational results of the work process) and 4 meta control (operating “above” the event and focusing on values in the form of notions of what is important and desirable held by those carrying out the work (Hales & Klidas, 1998, p.90). The difference major between a good manager and an excellent manager will be in their ability to control problems. Managers with ex-ante control can be termed as excellent managers whereas managers with concurrent control can be labeled as good managers. Excellent managers have the ability to forecast the problem before it actually occurs. Such abilities will help excellent managers to take remedial actions well before the occurrence of the problems. On the other hand, good managers operate only at the time of the occurrence of the problem. For example, an excellent manager forecasts the possibility of an employee conflict and takes remedial actions to prevent it. On the other hand a good manager tries to solve the conflict at the time of occurrence of the conflict. On the hand an average manager tries to deal with the problem only after its occurrence. In other words, average mangers have ex-post control. Managers with meta control acts only after the analysis of all the dimensions of the problem. They will react quickly when the problem occurs. Modern organizations need managers with ex-ante control. Some people argue that managers are born whereas others believe that managers are developed. It is a fact that some managers have inborn traits or qualities for leading a group of people. However, managerial skills can be developed with the help of suitable training. Sims (1993) pointed out that “The development of top managers may be best achieved by placing those managers with care so that they can build on the qualities developed in their upbringing, rather than attempting the development of new qualities at a later stage” (Sims, 1993, p.68). It is easy to develop the inherited qualities more rather than trying to cultivate new qualities in human mind. Imagine a person has good communication and problem solving skills. These qualities can be developed further if proper training is given to that person. On the other hand, these qualities cannot be developed beyond certain limits if the person does not have these traits inherited. The process whereby individuals enter managerial work and learn how to manage managerial work have to be understood in the light of their life, identity and biography as a whole. Management is not a clear cut occupation with either with an established body of knowledge and operating principles or a clearly specified set of tasks (Watson, 2001, p.221) Managerial behavior is a function of culture change, empowerment and customer focus (Tengblad, 2006, p.1440). In other words, American management principles cannot be implemented in Chinese organizations. It should be noted that China is culturally different than America. China is ruled by communism and religion is not prominent there. On the other hand, America is ruled by democracy or capitalism and religion is prominent there. Human rights are well respected in America whereas in China such things are not much respected. Employees in China are working just like machines whereas employees in America are working life humans. In short, an American manager may fail to manage Chinese employees. Same way, a Chinese manager may face lot of problems while managing American employees. Customer focus is another managerial function. Organizations in the past were concentrated more on selling the product and services. After sales service was not a big area of concern for such organizations. However, current organizations are well aware of the importance of after sales service. They realized that retention of existing customers is as important as finding new customers. Mouth publicity or word of mouth is believed to be the most effective advertising channel for modern organizations. Only the satisfied customers help organizations in getting more popularity through word of mouth. In short, relationship building with the customers is a vital organizational function at present. Managers are responsible for building relationships with all stakeholders of an organization. Conclusions Management is not a science or art. It is much more than that. It is a mixture of scientific principles along with psychological principles. It is the duty of the manager to know the needs of the employees as well as the needs of the organization. A successful manager will be able to blend these things together so that both the organization and the employees will be happy. On many occasions, managers work on intuitions rather than principles because of the complex nature of managing modern day organizations. Written principles or the theories learned from academics may not help managers always to solve problems. Creativity, decision making and problem solving skills are important for a manager rather than academic qualifications. Current managers are acting as leaders rather than managers. In short, managerial functions have changed a lot in recent past because of the huge changes taking place in the organizational world. References Gronn, P.C.1983. Talk as the work: The accomplishment of school administration. Administrative science quarterly. 28, 1983 p.1-21 Hales, C.P. 1986. What do managers do? A critical review of the evidence. Journal of management studies. 23:1 January 1986. Hales, C. 2005. Rooted in Supervision, Branching into Management: Continuity and Change in the Role of First-Line Manager. Journal of Management Studies 42:3 May 2005 Hales, C & Klidas, A. 1998. Empowerment in five-star hotels: choice, voice or rhetoric? International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 10 Iss: 3 pp. 88 - 95 Mintzberg, H. 1990. The manager’s job: Folklore and fact. Harvard Business Review. March- April 1990. Mintzberg, H. 1970. Structured observation as a method to Study managerial work. The Journal of management studies February1970 Marshall, J & Stewart R. 1981. Manager’s job perceptions. Journal of management studies. 18, 2, 1981. Sims, D.B.P. 1993. The formation of top managers: A discourse analysis of five managerial autobiographies. British journal of management. 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