Nature of Organisations and Environment

Welcome to Topic 1: Nature of Organisations and Environment. It is important to know how an organisation works. It is also important to consider, what internal and external factors influence the organisation to ensure its day-to-day activities are conducted smoothly. During this topic we will also look at managers and their job roles.

In this topic you learn about:

• Introduction to principles of management
• Managers
• Planning, organising, leading and controlling
• Economic, social, and environmental performances.

These relate to the Subject Learning Outcomes:

1. Assess the key principles and theories underlying strategic people management and explain how their application enhances organisational and individual performance.
2. Reflect on the roles and functions that managers perform in the context of the challenges and risks they experience in the changing environment.

Welcome to your pre-seminar learning tasks for this week. Please ensure you complete these prior to attending your scheduled seminar with your lecturer.

Click on each of the following headings to read more about what is required for each of your pre-seminar learning tasks

Principles of management

The principles of management reflect how an individual gets things done (manages) by way of utilising others either individually, in a group setting, or at an organisational level. Formally defined, the principles of management are the activities that “plan, organise, and control the operations of the basic elements of [people], materials, machines, methods, money, and markets, providing direction and coordination, and giving leadership to human efforts, so as to achieve the sought objectives of the enterprise” (University of Minnesota 2016). For this reason, principles of management are often discussed or learned using a framework called P-O-L-C, which stands for planning, organising, leading, and controlling. Before we look further into this, let us take a look at the different challenges faced by managers today and how the P-O-L-C framework can assist ineffective outcomes.

Managers

Who are managers? Managers are required in all departments of an organisation. The larger the organisation, the more managers are needed to ensure the processes are smooth. All employees are affected by decisions taken by the organisation's management its processes and policies.

The following figure shows the changing roles of managers and management.

1. Top managers ensure the organisation's competitiveness and lower level managers' and employees' job security
2. Lower-level managers and employees implement top management's strategy with loyalty and obedience
3. Empowered lower-level managers and employees are responsible for the organisation's competitiveness and their own development
4. Top management support personnel development and ensure employability

Adapted from The individualized corporation: A fundamentally new approach to management by Ghoshal & Barlett, 1999, Collins Business.

Within the traditional model, higher-level managers work to ensure and maintain both the organisation's competitiveness and the job security of the lower-level managers and employees. In turn, the lower-level managers and the employees work to implement the strategies proposed by the higher-level managers whilst demonstrating loyalty to the organisation and willingness to comply with their role.

In the more contemporary model, empowered lower-level managers and employees are responsible for the organisation's competitiveness and their own development. Higher-level managers support the development of their personnel and ensure employability.

Roles of managers

There have been a number of studies on what managers actually do, the most famous of those conducted by Professor Henry Mintzberg in the early 1970s (Mintzberg 1973).

After following managers around for several weeks, Mintzberg (1973) concluded that to meet the many demands of performing their functions, managers assume multiple roles. A role is an organised set of behaviours, and Mintzberg identified ten (10) roles common to the work of all managers.

The roles are as follows:

1. Figurehead
2. Leader
3. Liaison
4. Monitor
5. Disseminator
6. Spokesperson
7. Entrepreneur
8. Disturbance handler
9. Resource allocator
10. Negotiator.

Let us take a look at the following video. The video provides you with a detailed overview on managerial roles and responsibilities.

If asked what managers do, you might think they have meetings to help solve problems, share feedback on what is going well and what isn’t, and identify who should be promoted or fired. Zhuo (2019) originally thought the same when she started as a manager, but three years later, she explains that managers are more than that. They help build a team that works effectively together, supports individuals and teams in reaching their career goals, and ensures processes are in place to work efficiently and effectively. The role of a manager is multidimensional, and the more you understand what management is, the more you will understand what managers do.

Planning, organising, leading and controlling

It is the manager of an organisation who holds the primary responsibility to ensure that all problems are resolved in a creative manner with the least expense. As a manager it is always important to have a strategy in place. The principles of management tool is one that can provide such structure and guidance. There are four (4) major areas of functions within the principles of management, these are:

1. Planning
2. Organising
3. Leading
4. Controlling.

These four (4) major areas constitute the P-O-L-C framework. The four (4) functions, summarised in the P-O-L-C figure, are actually highly integrated when carried out in the day-to-day realities of running an organisation (University of Minnesota 2010).

If we take an overall view of the P-O-L-C functions it is evident that the function can be used to classify actions managers do in order to achieve organisational goals.

Let us take a look at the following video, which provides details of each P-O-L-C function, and how they are used to achieve goals.

Economic, social and environmental performance

Webster’s dictionary defines performance as:

Principles of management help you better understand the inputs into critical organisational outcomes like a firm’s economic performance.

Investors and owners are very much keen on the economic performance of the organisation because they strive for a good return on investment. Employees of the organisation too, benefit from positive economic performances, in an indirect way. Increasingly though, it seems clear that non-economic accomplishments, such as reducing waste and pollution, for example, are also key indicators of performance (University of Minnesota 2010).

The following video explores economic, social and environmental performance roles in an organisation.

In conclusion, we have looked at how an organisation works and what internal and external factors influence the organisation to ensure its day-to-day activities are conducted smoothly. We also looked at managers and their roles within the organisation.

Welcome to your seminar for this topic. Your lecturer will start a video stream during your scheduled class time. You can access your scheduled class by clicking on ‘Live Sessions’ found within your navigation bar and locating the relevant day/class or by clicking on the following link and then clicking 'Join' to enter the class.

Click here to access your seminar.

The learning tasks are listed below. These will be completed during the seminar with your lecturer. Should you be unable to attend, you will be able to watch the recording, which can be found via the following link or by navigating to the class through ‘Live Sessions’ via your navigation bar.

Click here to access the recording. (Please note: this will be available shortly after the live session has ended.)

In-seminar learning tasks

The in-seminar learning tasks identified below will be completed during the scheduled seminar. Your lecturer will guide you through these tasks. Click on each of the following headings to read more about the requirements for each of your in-seminar learning tasks.

Welcome to your post-seminar learning tasks for this week. Please ensure you complete these after attending your scheduled seminar with your lecturer. Your lecturer will advise you if any of these are to be completed during your consultation session.

Each week you will have a consultation session, which will be facilitated by your lecturer. You can join in and work with your peers on activities relating to this subject. These session times and activities will be communicated to you by your lecturer each week. Your lecturer will start a video stream during your scheduled class time. You can access your scheduled class by clicking on ‘Live Sessions’ found within your navigation bar and locating the relevant day/class or by clicking on the following link and then clicking 'Join' to enter the class.

Click here to access your consultation session.

Should you be unable to attend, you will be able to watch the recording, which can be found via the following link or by navigating to the class through ‘Live Sessions’ via your navigation bar.

Click here to access the recording. (Please note: this will be available shortly after the live session has ended.)

• Indeed Editorial Team 2021, FAQ: The three levels of management, indeed.
• Whirling Chief 2016, Tips for Managers: Key principles of performance management.

References

• Albrecht, WP 1983, Economics, 3rd edn., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Ghoshal, S & Bartlett, C 1999, The Individualized corporation: A fundamentally new approach to management, HarperCollins.
• Lamond, D 2004, ‘A Matter of style: Reconciling Henri and Henry’, Management Decision, 42(2):330–56.
• Mintzberg, H 1973, The nature of managerial work, Harper & Row.
• University of Minnesota, 2015, Principles of management, University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing Edition.
• Zhao, J 2019, The making of a manager, Penguin Random House.