MCD2040 - Management Assignment

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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MANAGEMENT
Answer to Question 1
Henry Fayol has proposed 14 principles of management, which are based on fundamental
truth in organizations. The first principle is the division of labor, in which the employees become
specialized in multiple areas and there are different levels of expertise involved. This increases
the speed as well as accuracy of the employees. The second principle is concerned with the
authority and responsibility in which the management gives certain powers to the employees so
that he can accomplish organizational objectives. The managers are also required to maintain
discipline in the team so that there is a rich organizational culture. They should also ensure unity
of command and unity of direction in which one subordinate should be assigned to one single
supervisor.
The personal interests of the subordinates should come later and they should place more
emphasis on the organizational interest. The employees should be motivated by giving them
adequate remuneration, which would help the to increase their productivity. It is also important
to strike the right balance between decision making process and the management in an
organization. The principles also state that the employees should have access to the right
resources in an organization so that they achieve operational excellence.
Answer to Question 2
There are three broad categories of management roles thatwas defined by Henry
Mintzberg, which define the functions of managers in the organizations. The three broad
categories of managerial roles such as-
 Interpersonal- The managerial roles in the interpersonal category is concerned with
providing of information and different kinds of ideas to the people. The figurehead role

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of the manager assumes that managers are as source of inspiration to the employees. For
example, Steve Jobs had undertaken the figurehead role for Apple.
 Informational- In this category, the managerial roles such as monitoring, disseminating
and spokesperson usually involves the processing of a large amount of information. The
spokesperson role of the managers ensures that they transmit the correct information to
the public concerning the organization. For example, Nicole Bradley is Pepsi’s public
relations manager, who manages the relationship of the company with external
stakeholders. Decisional. This category of managerial roles is concerned with the usage of
organizational information and the main roles include the entrepreneur, disturbance
handler, resource allocator and negotiator. The entrepreneurroleis concerned with the
creating as well as controlling of the changes within the organization. For example, Jeff
Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. He has started the company from a
garage and now it is one of the most reputed companies in the world.
Answer to Question 3
The managerial skills are important for gaining organizational success and keeping ahead
of competitive advantage. The managers are said to be using their knowledge, skills, expertise
and experience to increase the productivity of the employees.
There are three broad categories of managerial skills such as technical skills, human
skills and conceptual skills. The technical skills are important to accomplishing specific tasks.
For example, Michael need to update the balance sheet as she is a Financial Planner. This job
requires him to have financial skills or the technical skills. The human skills are the interpersonal
skills that are being possessed by the managers. For example, when Kim is upset and is unable to

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deliver the required work performance, then the manager having human skills calls her and asks
about the problem. He understands the issues and gives real life solutions to her, which increases
her performance. The conceptual skills are the ones which are the analytical abilities that helps
the managers to give solutions to the problems in a strategic manner. For example, in a chaotic
situation in which the external media blames the company for some reason or the other, the
manager should understand the problem in a calculated fashion and respond accordingly.
Answer to Question 4
Planning is an important process in which the managers define goals for the future
direction of the company and understanding the different resources which are required to achieve
the targets of the organization. The four purposes of planning are-
 Planning aims to fulfill the organizational goals as it helps in channelizing the resources
of the firm.
 Planning provides strong team work and all the members of the team contribute equally
to team success.
 Managers are able to give better direction to the team if they make proper planning. This
would help the team members in greater clarification regarding their job roles and
individual contribution.
 The main purpose of planning is concerned with the reducing the performance cost and
reducing the various unproductive efforts.
The managers can take two different approaches to planning–

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o Bottom up execution- The managers can take this approach in which the individual
departments are responsible for the development as well as implementation of own
plans.
o Top-down execution- In this approach, a single organizational department is
responsible for planning as well as policy coordination.
Answer to Question 5
There are different assumptions ofrational decision making that are usually undertaken
by the managers. This model assumes that the employees or people would make choices which
would maximize their benefits and at the same time reduce the associated costs. The rational
model of decision making eliminates the parameters that cannot be quantified. Such factors may
comprise of ethical concerns or the various aspects of altruism. The following are the major
assumptions of this model-
o able criteria for data collection and data analysis
o Person possess cognitive ability, resources and time, which would help them to evaluate
the various alternatives against one another.
The rational decision making has significant differences with the bounded rational decision
making. For example, the rational customers are able to maximize their satisfaction arising from
the consumption as they find the perfect way to spend their limited income. On the other hand,
the bounded rationalists would opt to satisfy themselves rather than to maximize them. They
prefer to apply the “rule of thumb” and they are quite active in the different markets.
The rational decision making has significant differences with the intuitive decisions in a way
that the latter comes into action when the consequences of the words or actions are unknown. For

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example, Robert believes on intuition and applies the same when it comes to firing people from
the organization. He uses the cues, behaviors and body language to take the decisions.
Answer to Question 6
The traditional goal setting is concerned with the setting of the objectives and guide the
team for management decisions. On the other hand, MBO is concerned with setting up of
multiple objectives so that a wide range of organizational activities are covered. In MBO, the
organizational employees are free to pursue the objectives which can be different from the
formal objectives of the organization. The traditional goal setting involves the formulation of
different criteria after there is successful accomplishment of the organizational objectives.
a) Two behavioral leadership theories- The trait theoryemphasizes on the fact that the
leadership characteristics are deeply rooted within the individuals. The contingency
theory of leadership focuses on the fact that the leaders act on the basis of several
situational factors and those are different from the personal traits of the leader. The
manager should utilize a combination of these approaches while making organizational
decisions.
b) University of Michigan- The leadership styles identified the various features of effective
leadership and focused on the aspect of participative leadership.
c) Managerial Grid- This is a leadership model in which the concern for production is
represented in the X-axis and concern for people is shown in the Y-axis. There are seven
different behavioral elements on this model such as initiative, inquiry, advocacy,
decision-making, conflict resolution, critique and resilience.
Answer to Question 7