Management Thought and Practices
Introduction
Management is the process of getting things done by utilising the resources available. It is the optimal way of accomplishing the tasks and achieving the business goals, using different functions like Staffing, Planning, Organizing, Controlling and Directing. The concept of management and its functions has evolved over the years and several theories have been propounded (Robbins et al., 2017). These when comprised are known as Management Thought. It integrates the available resources in an effective manner, directs the team efforts to achieve pre-determined goals (Wren and Bedeian, 2020).
In this study of Management though and practice, the conceptual frameworks and theories of the discipline of management is discussed. It will provide a critical and detailed awareness of different contexts of Management functions and skills through a case study of Allstyles department stores.
1.What management functions and or roles did Rebecca perform in the case and why is it important for Allstyles department store and businesses alike
Functions of Management
The process of management involves a responsibility for effective, economical planning and regulation of different operations of an organisation for given purposes. This dynamic processes is comprised of various functions and activities as mention in the case study. Here are some of the major functions of management;
Planning
Planning is the fundamental function of management that outlines upcoming action plan, and decides the most appropriate actions for achieving business goals. It is important to utilize the human and other resources. In the given case study, the manager of Allstyles department stores, Rebecca, attends a planning meeting with the senior executives of the store to accord to stores’ sales targets for the coming year. This intellectual function of the manager avoids confusion, wastages, uncertainties, and risks. In the same meeting, she explains the strategy for pricing and promotion for the coming end of season sale’.
Organising
This is a process of bringing together financial, physical, human resources and developing productive relationship to meet the organizational goals. Organizing function of the managers involves determining as well as providing non-human and human resources to organizational structure. Here, Rebecca asked the managers of different departments to inform the entire staff regarding the price deduction that is allowed and how their products have to be presented in upcoming sales in order to help consumers understand the promotion clearly.
Directing
This function of management accentuates the organizational methods to operate for achieving the organizational purposes (Al Khajeh, 2018). In order to do so, it is important to direct the employees regarding the course of action. Rebecca here explains that the opening of a competitors store near to her store should be taken into account. She further explains the way goods should be presented in the end of season sales.
Coordinating
The coordinating function ensures that different departments of the company work in harmony (Lloyd and Aho, 2020). Rebecca, the manager at Allstyles stores scrutinised the poor performance of electrical department manager. She spoke to the manager regarding the absence of staff and how it had contributed to the existing problems. Coordination among the employees and the mangers is necessary to achieve the business goals. Thus she recommended the manager to attend the extra training sessions on monitoring staff performance and staff motivation.
Reporting
This function enables the effectiveness of the operations and can be used to motivate the employees. In the given case study, Rebecca presents the three shop workers with stars badges for their outstanding sales record of the previous month. She clicked pictures with them to publish it on the internal newspaper. This helps in maintain the records and evaluation of performance.
Roles of Management
Integration of the individuals in the organisation requires knowledge about the behaviour of human resources. In order to achieve the goals, the mangers performs different roles. Some of the major roles include;
Leadership
Leadership is one of the major roles of the manager. Managing the team members and other employees of the organisation is important to engage the performance and revenue of the company (Tovmasyan, 2017). The right leadership can pave way for the success of an organisation. In the given context, Rebecca leads her employees by instructing how to promote their products for the upcoming sales. She also suggests the manner of electrical department to undergo training sessions which will help in managing the performance of the employees.
Communication
Managers represent the organisation and thus are responsible for conveying any information regarding the strategies and goals to every employee so that they give their best in order to achieve the objectives (Skrynkovskyy et al., 2017). Rebecca, the manager of Allstyles department conducts meeting with senior executives of the head office to put forth the marketing strategy to be followed. She communicated with builders, planners and architects to discuss the extension of their new store extension.
Critical thinking
Critical thinking is a disciplined and intellectual process of skilfully conceptualizing, analysing. Synthesizing, applying, and/or evaluating information that is gathered. It acts as a guide to action, problem solving and improving the operations (Seshadri and Elangovan, 2019). In order to achieve the business goals and enhance the performance of employee, Rebecca performed certain activities. She reviewed the poor performance of the employees of electrical products with its manager. She identifies that the cause for this is the poor staff absence and thus suggested the manager to attend training sessions on staff performance and motivation. Additionally, she also threw light on the impacts the competitors store opening nearby and how it should be handled while promoting their products.
Disturbance handler
Handling the disturbances within the organisation is one of the major roles of the manager. As a manager, it is often necessary to acts as problem solver. The goal of handling disturbances is to ensure no problems transform into bigger hurdles for the company. In the given context, Allstyles department stores has a dispute between managers of different departments regarding who should stock new electronic goods? Rebecca, as manager, took the matter into consideration and analysed the problem. It was then agreed that it was not possible for both the departments to store the goods due to limited space. She decided to stock the goods in sports department for six months, adjacent to gym equipment. In case the sales did not give better results, the goods wold be relocated.
Importance of management roles and functions
Planning
Planning determines objectives for each department of the organisation and helps the manager to prioritise the operations depending on relevance towards the goal. It sets the standards for performance assessment and draws an action plan (BUC??A and Rotariu, 2017). In the given context, Rebecca put forth the planning for upcoming end of season sales, which gave a clear idea to employees on how to plan their product promotion and achieve the targets.
Organising
Organising splits the work into smaller activates that give a clear idea on the course of actions to be followed. This ensures that no task is left out and everything is performed as per the requirements. It helps in utilising the resources in an optimal manner. Here, Rebecca prioritised the achievement of better sales during the end of season sales and drew an action plan on what factors to be considered and how the employees should work accordingly.
Directing
Directing not only conveys but also motivates the employees to work in a determined way to achieve the business objectives. Without direction, other functions like organizing, and planning become ineffective. Rebecca directed the manger of electrical goods department to undergo additional training to enhance the performance of his staff.
Coordinating
Coordinating restores teamwork and balances the inequalities present. Individual opinions can create imbalances, making it tough to achieve organizational goals. Through coordination the manger can enforce teamwork, and balance unequal factors. Rebecca did exactly the same by meeting heads of all departments, explaining the strategy and motivated them to achieve the business goals.
2. Identify and discuss two management theories that are applicable to this case
Management theories
Management theories are considered as a collection of concepts of management that suggest general rules of managing an organisation. These theories address how managers can implement different strategies to achieve organisational goals, motivate their employees and push them to give their best (Ghuman, 2010). There are several management theories that exist.
Systems Management Theory
Systems management theory gives a different approach of planning and managing an organisation. The theory considers that any business, is made of multiple sectors that work together harmoniously such that the organisation as a whole entity can function effectively. As per the theory, the growth of an organization relies on key elements like interdependence, interrelations, synergy and other subsystems.
Employees form the major the component of an organisation. Other crucial components that aid in the success of the company include departments, business units and working groups. In the actual practice, the managers of the organisation should evaluate patterns as well as events which approach of management is the best (Teece, 2018). This allows the mangers and employees to work collaborate on different projects as one team instead of isolated units.
Features:
The theory analyses the organisational system at various levels and integrates them into a single functioning unit. Right from individual objectives to the organisational goals, the theory synthesizes them and converges into a global economy.
System approach creates a framework for impactful interaction of different units of the organisation in a particular way to achieve common goals. The focus of the managers here is distributed equally on all the units.
According to the System management approach organisation is dynamic body and all the other parts are the sub-units that keep the system going. Each part of this dynamic body has its own role to play.
Effective and continuous interaction amongst the subsystems help the organisation to achieve its objectives. Thus, every unit is dependent on the system and system is dependent on all its sub-units.
The system management approach considers the effect of organisation environment on its success and vice versa. Interaction among the external and internal environmental factors on the organisations success has the significant impact of systems theory (Gaitanides, 2019).
System approach, thus, analyses the nosiness as dynamic as well as adaptive entity. It synthesizes the behavioural and classical theories to resolve managerial problems.
In the given context of Allstyles department stores, the manager follows a system management approach as she brings together the head of all departments while discussing the strategy for upcoming end of the season sales. Here are the activities performed by Rebecca that clearly show how Allstyles organisation uses System management approach for its business;
Rebecca schedules a meeting the managers of all departmental to inform them about the stores promotional and pricing strategy for their upcoming end of season sale’. During the meeting she informs the managers to convey to their staff regarding the price reduction that is allowed and the way of presenting the goods in the sales such their customers have an informative message on promotion. This style of management where all the sub units of the organisation come forward to achieve the common gaols of the company, represents system management approach.
The next activity of Rebecca is attending a meeting with the head office senior executives to accord to the predetermined sales target for their store in the coming year. She further explains that the competitors opening their store close to hers is a serious factor to be considered while pricing and promoting their products. This shows that the manger focuses on critical thinking and considers the opinions of seniors executive while taking decisions. It does show the features of system management approach.
Contingency Management theory
The prime concept behind this theory of contingency management is that not one single management style can best suit all organisations. According to the theory different management theories are best for different organisations. In case of contingency management theory, there are many factors that affect the approach. There are various external as well as internal factors that have major impact on a chosen approach. However, the contingency theory picks three variables that can possibly influence the organisation’s structure. The variables include the size of the business, style of leadership chosen and technology employed in the organisation.
The theory contingency management is advantageous to companies because it holds the possibilities for learning from different situations and using those lessons to impact the future management required for same or similar situation. The theory provides the ability to cope with external pressures as well as changes. This turns out to be an advantage for the organisations. As mentioned above, there are external and internal factors affecting how leaders of the organisations approach this theory. Amongst the factors influencing the theory, some cannot be handled and others must be approached in different manner. They have to be handled internally. Along with size of the company, number of employees the external factors like customer behaviour and marketplace trends also impact the theory.
Fred Fiedler came up with this contingency management theory. The author proposed that the characteristics of a leader influence the effectiveness of the ways he chooses to lead. According to the theory, for every situation (Maleti? et al., 2018). This means the leader of every organisation must be able to adapt to the changing situations and be flexible in taking decisions as per the market trends. The entire theory can be summoned up in three parts as follows:
There cannot be one single best theory of management for all organisations.
A leader of the organisation should be flexible and quick to recognise a management style that suits the particular situation.
The major component of the contingency theory is the LPC; the Least Preferred Co-worker. LPC used by the manager can be used to evaluate how well he/she is oriented.
Limitations of Contingency theory or management
Inadequate Literature:
Contingency is not supported by adequate literature. Thus there are no adequate or effective action types that can manage different challenging situations. However, it is not enough to say every managerial action is dependent on the situation.
This approach of management does not provide any set of reliable actions to be followed in different scenarios. Unless such steps are provided, this approach cannot be of much help in management situations (Mendy, 2020).
The suggestion stated I the approach is quite simple. However, the manager cannot practice this approach in reality as it becomes complex. This practice is not feasible in every situation. Determining the managerial action to be involves a large number of variables that are multifarious in dimensions (Huihui, 2018). Thus offering a possibility where managers who do not have enough time will tend to ignore the complete analysis of required variables and choose a easier and short cut method resulting in ineffective outcomes
Difficult Empirical Testing:
Contingency theory of management is complex, and brings problems while testing different precepts of it. Empirical testing of this theory, is not possible as it will need some methodology already existing. Even if a methodology is available, since it involves multiple variables it becomes really difficult.
Reactive:
Contingency approach is reactive and not proactive in nature. It nearly provides any suggestions for what a manager can do in any given situation. For any given organisation, super system comprises environment as well as management that can be applied to its supra-system. Hence, managers are responsible for managing the environment such that undesirable aspects of environment are avoided.
Conclusion
From the above discussion of management functions and roles, it can be inferred that the managerial roles play a significant role in the success of an organisation. The given case study of Rebecca, demonstrates the different roles and functions carried out by a manager in any given organisation. Furthermore, two major management theories are studied. In can be concluded that Allstyles department stores uses Systems management theory and it is more optimal and feasible when compared to the Contingency theory of management. Lastly, the study of management thought and practices has demonstrated that appropriate solutions to Management issues cannot be through one just management theory that suits all organisations.
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