MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES & DYNAMICS

Discussion Questions No. 1

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How do managers differ from nonmanagerial employees?

2. Is your course instructor a manager? Discuss in terms of managerial functions, managerial roles,
and skills.

3. “The manager’s most basic responsibility is to focus people toward performance of work
activities to achieve desired outcomes.” What’s your interpretation of this statement? Do you
agree with it? Why or why not?

4. Explain the universality of management concept. Does it still hold true in today’s world? Why or
why not?

5. Is business management a profession? Why or why not? Do some external research in

answering this question.

6. Is there one best “style” of management? Why or why not?

7. Does the way that contemporary organizations are structured appeal to you? Why or why not?

8. In today’s environment, which is more important to organizations—efficiency or effectiveness?

Explain your choice.

9. Researchers at Harvard Business School found that the most important managerial behaviors
involve two fundamental things: enabling people to move forward in their work and treating
them decently as human beings. What do you think of these two managerial behaviors? What
are the implications for someone, like yourself, who is studying management?

10. “Management is undoubtedly one of humankind’s most important inventions.” Do you agree
with this statement? Why or why not?

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MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES & DYNAMICS

ANSWERS

1. A manager is an employee in an organization who takes charge to lead a group of people. A manager
is liable to allocate resources (Human, Financial, Information, Physical), and supervises work assigned to
each member of the team. The Managers lead the groups of non-managerial employees and have the
decision power.

Non-managerial employees work under managers, and are also responsible for completion of the task
assigned to them. The non-managers follow the managers and in most positions do not have supervisory
duties.

2. A course instructor is comparable to a manager because he manages people which are the students.
His managerial functions include the following:

a. Planning – The course instructor provides a syllabus; an outline of the subjects in a course of
study or teaching, at the start of the course. He set goals, establishes strategies and develop
plans to integrate and coordinate activities. Planning for course instructor involves preparation,
teaching, assessment, implement quality, and manage resources as appropriate. Course
instructor need to prepare and outline their activity for the whole semester. They need to plan
on how many classes that is going to be conducted, and how the subjects are going to be taught.

b. Organizing – The course instructor arranges structures and teaches the chapters in a logical
sequence so that the students could have a good understanding of the subject as a whole.

c. Leading –The course instructor is working with and through students. He motivates and leads
the students in class interactions, coordinates and integrates work among them to complete
course assignments.

d. Controlling – The course instructor monitors and correct the students performance. He is
responsible for assigning marks and grades.

3. I agree in the statement, “Manager’s most basic responsibility is to focus people toward
performance of work to achieve desired outcomes”. I interpret it as one of task of the manager has to
do with the state of mind of the employees. It means that the manager’s task is to make sure that the
workers have the right attitude and mentality to be able to work efficiently and effectively and achieve
the outcomes that the organization wants. Moreover, it is the manager’s responsibility to coordinate
and/or focus employee’s energies toward performance outcomes by directing and overseeing the work
activities are completed.

4. The universality of management is defines as the reality that management is needed in all types and
sizes of organizations, at all organizational levels, in all organization areas, and in organizations no
matter where located. The universality of management still hold true in today’s modern management
that is referred to as widespread practice of management. One cannot bring a group of people together,
regardless of the nature of the endeavour, and expect them to accomplish objectives unless their efforts
are coordinated. Among other things, plans must be outlined, task identified, authority relationship
MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES & DYNAMICS

specified, lines of communication established, and leadership exercised. Management, therefore, is

required before any organization can expect to be effective.

5. Business management is not a profession.

A profession may be defined as an occupation that requires specialized knowledge and intensive
academic preparations to which entry is regulated by a representative body. Although Business
Management satisfies other essentials of a profession which includes: specialized knowledge, formal
education & training, social obligations, among others; it lacks in terms of code of conduct &
representative association. There are organizations like AIMA (All India Management Association) that
prescribed code of conduct for managers but it has no right to take legal action against any manager
who violates it. Moreover, in terms of Representative Association which is for regulation of profession,
AIMA for example does not have any statuary powers to regulate the activities of managers unlike other
Professional Association which establishes and administers standards of competence for their
professionals.

Additionally, we turn to professionals for advice, he writes, because they have knowledge that we don't.
We trust their advice because they've been guaranteed by professional associations that establish the
boundaries of the field and reach consensus on what body of learning is required for formal training and
certification. These associations make a market for professional services feasible. Although business
schools might be able to reach consensus on what they should teach, the proper question is whether
what they teach qualifies students to manage. After all, successful businesses are commonly run by
people without MBAs. Managers' roles are inherently general, variable, and indefinable; their core skill
is to integrate across functional areas, groups of people, and circumstances. Integration is learned in the
minds of MBA students, whose experiences and careers are widely diverse, rather than taught in the
content of program modules. Thus business education must be highly collaborative, with grading
downplayed, and learning must differ according to the stage of a student's career. Business schools are
not professional schools. They are incubators for business leadership.

6. No, there’s no single best “style” of management. Organizational situations vary and what works best
in one organization may not necessarily work best in another. There are different people involved who
possess individual differences and personalities; and different situations which call for different
approaches, thus the answer is “No”. A good manager is one who has several styles that he can use well,
and he is able to determine when each will be most effective.

7. Yes contemporary organization is appealing, because in contrast to strict hierarchical organization as

represented in the traditional organizations puts a barrier in responding to the rapidly changing
environments.

Contemporary organizational structures consist of the matrix, lattice, virtual and networked
organizations. It has flexible structure where jobs are grouped, divided and coordinated in such a way
that the best results are attained. Furthermore, in contemporary organization, employees can discuss
his point of view about any subject with the higher management.
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8. Both are integral to effective management, and there’s no way that one of these is more important
than the other. No organization can succeed in today’s highly competitive world unless it is both
efficient and effective.

Management refers to the process of coordinating and integrating work activities so that they’re
completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people. An efficient organization is one
that produces a good service using the least possible amount of inputs while an effective organization is
one that does the right things. In other words, a company that makes popular goods cannot compete if
others can produce the good more cheaply; and a company that produces goods at low prices cannot
compete if no one wants its products. Therefore, both are equally important.

9. I am 100% agree to the statement, “The most important managerial behaviours involve two
fundamental things: enabling people to move forward in their work and treating them decently as
human beings”.

The first fundamental explains that a manager is he who leads and controls people. That is working with
and through people; being a motivator and mentor; monitors, compares and correct work performance
of his subordinates.

The second fundamental explains that a manager is he who is fair and just and thus treats his people like
a family and not a servant. He should be aware on the feelings and emotions of his people. I believe in
the statement, “No matter how hard the work is, as long as the working environment is healthy then the
employee will be as loyal as he can be”.

As a students who studies management, the statement implies that as a manager or future manager, we
just don’t manage people by directing them what, where, when, why and how to do the job, we should
also have a good relationship with our people. That is getting along with your people properly to have a
harmonious work relationship to attain everybody’s engagement, confidence and commitment which
leads to achieving organizations’ goals.

10. I agree that management is humankind's most important invention or can be considered as a
discovery. In a simpler way, management is about getting things done. Modern principles of
management serves as a reference for managers and organizations to attain its goals efficiently &
effectively which leads to making life easy. Moreover, management is central to civilization and benefits
of applying management principles are recognizable.