CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO

MANAGEMENT

APR 2011

Question 1

a) Discuss Henry Mintzberg’s managerial roles. Provide appropriate examples.

Henry Mintzberg’s have three managerial roles. There are interpersonal

roles, informational roles and decisional roles.

Firstly, interpersonal roles are the manager’s responsibility for managing

relationships with organizational members and other constituents. In the

organizational have figurehead, leader and liaison to help manager in managing

the organization smoothly.

Secondly, informational roles are the manager’s responsibility for

gathering and disseminating information to the stakeholders of the organization.

There have monitor, disseminator and spokesperson in the informational roles.

Their responsibilities are to assist the manager in receiving and communicating

the information to make the right decision.

Lastly, decisional roles are the manager’s responsibility for processing

information and reaching conclusions including entrepreneur, disturbance

handler, resource allocator and negotiator. Besides that, manager should know

to identify and resolve problems and capitalize on opportunities.

OCT 2010

Questions 2

a) In today’s world, managers are dealing with many influences that require them to

reshape and redefine management. Discuss any four influences with appropriate

examples.

Influences that require reshaping and redefining management are

planning, organizing, leading and controlling.

Planning involves setting goals and defining the actions necessary to

achieve those goals. While top level managers establish overall goals and

strategy. Managers throughout the hierarchy must develop operational plans for

their work groups that contribute to the efforts of the organization as a whole. All

managers must develop a plan for administering and coordinating the resources

for which they are responsible so that the goals of their work groups can be

achieved.

Organizing involves determining the task to be done, who will do them and

how those tasks will be managed and coordinated. Managers must organize the

members of their work groups and organization so that resources and task flow

efficiently through the organization. Most important, the organization must be

structured in light of its strategic and operational goals so that it can be

responsive to changes in business environment.

Managers must capable of leading the members of their work groups

toward the accomplishment of the organizations goals. To be effective leaders,

managers must understand the dynamics of individual and group behavior, be

able to motivate their employees and be effective communications. Only through

effective leadership, the goals of organizations can be achieved.

Managers must monitor the performance of the organizations as well as

their progress in implementing strategic and operational plans. Controlling

requires identify deviations between planned and actual results. When an

organization is not performing as planned, manager must take corrective action.

Control is an important function in the managerial process because it provides a

method for ensuring that the organization is moving toward the achievement of

its goals.

b) Distinguish efficiency and effectiveness.

Efficiency

• To achieved by using the fewest inputs to generate a given output

• Example: people and money

• That means “doing things right”

Effectiveness

• To achieved when the organization pursues appropriate goals.

• That means “ doing the right things”

APR 2010

Question 3

a) Describe Mintzberg’s interpersonal roles and gives examples.

Interpersonal roles are the manager’s responsibility for managing

relationships with organizational members and other constituents. Three other

constituents are figurehead, leader and liaison.

The meaning of figurehead is symbolic-head as manager to manage the

relationships with organizational members. Give a task to the first line manager

to supervise the employees to finish their work. The activities include ceremony,

status requests and solicitations. Figurehead also is a person who is the nominal

head or chief of a company not a real and who is name is used to give standing

to a business. In management, it is a role which is performed by a manager by

representing the company in meeting, conferences and at dinners. For example,

the managers give a good idea in the meeting to show his availability and

capability as manager.

Leader’s mean responsible for motivating and activating the subordinate.

It also is another role of a manager relating to hiring, firing, training and

motivating the employees. The activities include responsibility for staffing,

training, subordinate’s team building. Besides that, the leader is a process that is

an observable, understandable, learnable set of skills and practice available to

everyone anywhere in the organization. For example, give training to the

employees who not have any experience work.

Liaison, it is mean maintaining a self-developed network of outside contact

and information. It also is communication between two or more groups. It is

included in the manager’s role. The activities include interactions with outsider,

responding to mail and external board work.

b) Discuss four major challenges faced by managers in the rapid changing

environment.

• Economic and technological change.

Several economic changes have occurred that have altered

employment and occupational patterns. A major change is the shift of jobs

from manufacturing and agriculture to service industries and

telecommunication. This shift has meant that some organization had to

reduce number of employees, while others had to attract and retain

employees with different capabilities than previously were needed. The

explosive growth of information technology, particularly linked to the

internet has forced many changes throughout organizations of all types.

• Workforce availability and quality concerns.

Significant workforce shortages exist due to an adequate supply of

workers with the skills needed to perform the jobs being added. Jobs

with extreme supply shortages for several years have included

specialized information system technicians, physical therapist,

plumbers, air conditioning repair technicians and many others.

Consequently, human resources professionals have faced greater

pressures to recruit and train workers

• Demographic and diversity issues

It is more diverse racially women are in the labor force in much

greater numbers than ever before and the average age of the

workforce is now considerably older than before. As a result of these

demographic shifts, human resource management in organization had

to adapt to a more varied labor force both externally and internally.

• Organizational restructing

Many organizations have restructed in the past few years in order

to become more competitive. As part of the organization changes,

many organizations have “rightsized” either by eliminating layers of

managers, closing facilities, merging with other organizations or

outplacing workers. A common transformation has been to flatten

organizations by removing several layers of management and to

improve productivity, quality and service

CHAPTER 2: EVOLUTION OF MANAGEMENT

THOUGHT

OCT 2010

Question 1

Explain scientific, administrative and bureaucratic perspectives of management and

identify each contributor and their contributions.

Scientific management

It focuses on the individual worker’s productivity. Scientific management

method called for optimizing the way that task performed and simplifying the jobs

enough so that workers could be trained to perform their specialized sequence of

motions in the one best way. Frederick W. Tay is the father of scientific

management. He attempted to define “the one best way” to perform every task

through systematic study and other scientific methods. He also believed that

improved management practice lead to improved productivity. Three areas of

focus is task performance, supervision and motivation. In task performance is

scientific management incorporates basic expectations of management including

development of work standards, selection of workers, training of workers and

support of workers. Supervision is Taylor felt that a single supervisor could not be

an expert at all tasks. As a result, each first level supervisor should be

responsible only workers who perform a common function familiar to the

supervisor. In motivation also Taylor believed money was the way to motivate

workers to their fullest capabilities. He advocated a piece work system in which

worker’s pay was tied to their output. Each contributor is Frank Gilbreth and

Lillian Gilbreth. Frank Gilbreth specialized in time and motion studies to

determine the most efficient way to perform tasks. Lillian Gilbreth is a strong

proponent of better working condition as a means of improving efficiency and

productivity.

Administrative management

It is basically focuses on how a business should be organized and the

practices an effective manager should follow. Ii also explored the possibilities of

an ideal way to put all jobs together and operate an organization. Administrative

management theory “emphasized management functions and attempted to

generate broad administrative principles that would serve as guidelines for the

rationalization of organizational activities”. Henri Fayol is the first recognized that

successful managers had to understand the basic managerial function. He

developed a set of 14 general principles of management. Fayol’s managerial

functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling are routinely used in

modern organizations. Fayol’s work included a definition of a body of principles,

which enables a manager to construct a formal structure of the organization and

to supervise it in a rational way.

Bureaucratic management

It can be described as “a formal system of organization based on clearly

defined hierarchical levels and roles in order to maintain efficiency and

effectiveness”. Max Weber was a historian that wrote about the emergence of

bureaucracy management from more traditional organizational forms. It also

based upon on firm rules, policies and procedures, a fixed hierarchy and a clear

division of labor. According to Weber, bureaucratic is a particular type of

administrative structure developed through rational-legal authority. Due to their

efficiency and stability, it would become the most prevalent form of organization

in society. Weber’s forms have three types of authority which are traditional,

charismatic and rational-legal authority. Traditional authority is subordinate

obedience based upon custom or tradition. Charismatic authority is subordinates

voluntarily comply with a leader because of his or her special personal qualities

or abilities. Rational-legal authority is subordinate obedience based upon the

position held by superiors within the organization.

CHAPTER 3: PLANNING

APR 2011

Question 5

a) If an organization is in an environment that experiences constant change, what is

the point of trying to develop long term plans?

There is abundant evidence that planning is the most prominent and pervasive of the

management functions or processes. Planning is prominent because of the evidence of