Managers as Academic Researchers: Importance, Roles, and Challenges

RUNNING HEAD: MANAGERS AS ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS 0
Management
Research
Perspective
July 15
2019

MANGERS AS ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Managers and their importance..................................................................................................2
Management roles by Henry Mintzberg....................................................................................2
Importance of academic researcher in an organization..............................................................3
Managers role as academic researchers.....................................................................................4
The difference in approach.........................................................................................................4
Challenges to the managers........................................................................................................4
Benefits of both (managers and academic researchers) the roles in conjunction......................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Henry Mintzberg and the different authors of the business management have defined a
cluster of roles that are performed by the managers of the organization. Henry Mintzberg is a
writer of business and management theories who has written about the role of the managers
in his book named, "Mintzberg on Management: Inside our Strange World of Organizations".
This book contains an explanation of the variety of managerial roles understood by the
author. This study defines the cluster of the role performed by the managers according to the
management writers. It also defines the importance and benefits of academic researchers in
an organization. The study shows the challenges to be undertaken by the managers in
executing the role as an academic researcher. The reading explains the benefits of
performance to the organization when managers also execute their duties with fulfilling the
role of an academic researcher. Thus, the discussion involves the importance of managers in
the organization and the benefits of their academic research works in the company.
Managers and their importance
Managers are the people who are having skilled knowledge and experience in
managing the activities of the organization (Morelli, 2011). Every business enterprise
requires its own management person to control the operations of the company and thus
achieving the goals of the entity. A manager performs a variety of tasks in order to control
and manage the resources of the organization in such a way that the goals of the business can
be fulfilled (Bradley, Shepherd, & Wiklund, 2011).

MANGERS AS ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS
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Management roles by Henry Mintzberg
Managers have to perform a different kind of roles in an entity in order to execute
their duties towards the organization. They act as a leader, motivator, guide, resource
allocator, and other role persons to achieve the predetermined goals of the company. Henry
Mintzberg has explained the different roles of the managers in ten different roles analyzed
and defined by him (Mintzberg, 2015). The roles evaluated by him relates to every category
of managers operation. These roles are as under:
i. Figurehead – A figurehead is a person who is looked upon by the people of his group.
He is the representative of the whole group. A manager acts as a figurehead for its
team.
ii. Leader – Henri Fayol and other important writers of management have always defined
managers as potential leaders as they have to lead the employees of the company
towards fulfilling the objectives of the organization (Otara, 2011). Hence, this role of
managers is well understood in the Mintzberg role categories.
iii. Liaison – As a liaison manager performs the communication task by communicating
to the clients of the business and maintaining the relationship between the business
and their clients.
iv. Monitor – The managers are the monitors of the enterprise because they need to
monitor and control all the activities happening in the enterprise. The role of
managers as a monitor is crucial. Many of the writers define the managers as the
monitor of the company's operations.
v. Disseminator – In executing this role the manager supplies to his team the useful and
important information of the work to be carried out. The knowledge is essential for
completing the operations and management as a disseminator provides people with
that information (Mintzberg, 2015).