Management

Management is the process of coordinating and integrating work activities so that they are completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people.

Here, efficiency is defined as the relationship between inputs and outputs, the goal of which is to minimise resource costs. Effectiveness is the attainment of goals.

Most management textbooks give four functions of management:

1. Planning: Includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing plans to coordinate activities.
   
   
2. Organising: Determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made.
   
   
3. Leading: Includes motivating subordinates, directing others, selecting the most effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts.
   
   
4. Controlling: Monitoring activities to ensure that they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations.

Management can therefore be viewed as a process: it is the set of ongoing decisions and actions in which managers engage as they plan, organise, lead and control.

Sources:
Hales, C.P. "What do managers do? A critical review of the evidence', Journal of Management, January 1986, pp. 88-115.
Koontz, H and O'Donnel, C. (1955) Principles of Management: An Analysis of Managerial Functions. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Robbins, et al. (2000) Management. Prentice Hall, Australia.

mainframe = M = mandelbug

management n.

1. Corporate power elites distinguished primarily by their distance from actual productive work and their chronic failure to manage (see also suit). Spoken derisively, as in "Management decided that ...". 2. Mythically, a vast bureaucracy responsible for all the world's minor irritations. Hackers' satirical public notices are often signed `The Mgt'; this derives from the "Illuminatus" novels (see the Bibliography in Appendix C).

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Man"age*ment (?), n. [From Manage, v.]

1.

The act or art of managing; the manner of treating, directing, carrying on, or using, for a purpose; conduct; administration; guidance; control; as, the management of a family or of a farm; the management of state affairs.

"The management of the voice."

E. Porter.

2.

Business dealing; negotiation; arrangement.

He had great managements with ecclesiastics. Addison

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3.

Judicious use of means to accomplish an end; conduct directed by art or address; skillful treatment; cunning practice; -- often in a bad sense.

Mark with what management their tribes divide Some stick to you, and some to t'other side. Dryden.

4.

The collective body of those who manage or direct any enterprise or interest; the board of managers.

Syn. -- Conduct; administration; government; direction; guidance; care; charge; contrivance; intrigue.

 

© Webster 1913.