Chapter 1: The Management Process Today
Strategy
A cluster of decisions about what goals to pursue, what actions to take, and how to use resources to achieve goals.
Top Management team
A group composed of the CEO, the COO, and the VPs of the most important departments of a company.
Organizational Performance
A measure of how efficiently and effectively a manger uses resources to satisfy customers and achieve organizational goals.
Efficiency
A measure of how well or how productively resources are used to achieve a goal.
Effectiveness
A measure of the appropriateness of the goals an organization is pursuing and the degree to which the organization achieves those goals.
Leading
Articulating a clear vision and energizing and enabling organizational members so they understand the part they play in achieving organizational goals; one of the four principal tasks of management.
Organizations
Collections of people who work together and coordinate their actions to achieve a wide variety of goals or desired future outcomes.
Outsourcing
Contracting with another company, usually abroad, to have it perform an activity the organization previously performed itself.
Restructuring
Downsizing an organization by eliminating the jobs of large numbers of top, middle, and first-line managers and non-managerial employees.
Controlling
Evaluating how well an organization is achieving its goals and taking action to maintain or improve performance; one of the four principal tasks of management.
Planning
Identifying and selecting appropriate goals; one of the four principal tasks of management
Global Organizations
Organizations that operate and compete in more than one country.
Essential Managerial Tasks
Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling
Organizing
Structuring working relationships so organizational members work together to achieve organizational goals; one of the four principal tasks of management.
Competitive Advantage
The ability of one organization to outperform other organizations because it produces desired goods or services more efficiently and effectively than they do.
Conceptual Skills
The ability to analyze and diagnose a situation and to distinguish between cause and effect.
Human Skills
The ability to understand, alter, lead, and control the behavior of other individuals and groups.
Turnaround Management
The creation of a new vision for a struggling company based on a new approach to planning and organizing to make better use of a company's resources and allow it to survive and prosper.
Empowerment
The expansion of employees' knowledge, tasks, and decision making responsibilities.
Technical Skills
The job-specific knowledge and techniques required to perform an organizational role.
Management
The planning, organizing, leading, and controlling of human and other resources to achieve organizational goals efficiently and effectively.
Innovation
The process of creating new or improved goods and services or developing new ways to produce or provide them.
Core Competency
There specific set of departmental skills, knowledge, and experience that allows one organization to outperform another.
Middle manager
A manager who supervises first-line managers and is responsible for finding the best way to use resources to achieve organizational goals.
Organizational Structure
A formal system of task and reporting relationships that coordinates and motivates organizational members so they work together to achieve organizational goals.
Self-managed team
A group of employees who assume responsibility for organizing, controlling, and supervising their own activities and monitoring the quality of the goods and services they provide.
Department
A group of people who work together and possess similar skills or use the same knowledge, tools, or techniques to perform their jobs.
Top Manager
A manager who establishes organizational goals, decides how departments should interact, and monitors the performance of middle managers.
First-line Managers
A manager who is responsible for the daily supervision of non-managerial employees.
