Chapter

onE
Nature
of
Management
-
Glossary
Traditional definition of management:- the process of coordinating a business’s resources to
achieve its goals

Human resources:- are the employees of the business and are generally its most important asset

Information resources:- include the knowledge and data required by the business, such as market
research, sales reports, economic forecasts, technical material & legal advice

Physical resources:- include equipment, machinery, buildings and raw materials

Financial resources:- the funds the business uses to meet its obligations to various creditors

Manager:- someone who coordinates the business’s limited resources in order to achieve specific
goals

Contemporary definition of management:- the process of working with and through other people to
achieve business goals in a changing environment. Crucial to this process is the effective and efficient
use of limited resources

Effectiveness:- measures the degree to which a goal has been achieved

Synergy:- combined action that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts

Role:- a part that a person plays

Interpersonal role:- one in which the manager deals with people

Informational role:- one in which the manager gathers and disseminates information within the
business, also providing it to the outside world

Decision-making role:- involves solving problems & making choices

Disturbance-handler role:- the manager must make decisions necessary to keep the business
operating under extraordinary circumstances

Resource-allocator role:- requires the manager to share out or allocate the limited resources of the
business

Negotiating role:- requires the manager to arrange for, or bring about through discussions, the
settlement of an issue

People skills:- (interpersonal/human skills) are those skills needed to work & communicate with
other people and to understand their needs

Strategic thinking:- allows a manager to see the business as a whole – as a complex of parts that
depend on and interact with each other, like the gears in a machine
Self-managing:- involves adapting techniques that allow people to manage their own behaviour so
that less outside control is necessary

Problem solving:- a broad set of activities involved in searching for, identifying and then
implementing a course of action to correct an unworkable situation

Decision making:- the process of identifying the options available and then choosing a specific
course of action to solve a specific problem. Decision making is a fundamental part of management
because it requires choosing an alternative course of action

Ethical behaviour:- is consistent with society’s standards about what is morally acceptable and
conforms to society’s judgement about what constitutes right and wrong actions

Stakeholders:- are groups and individuals who interact with the business and thus have a vested
interest in its activities

Planned obsolescence:- refers to the built-in, predetermined life of a product that will thus require it
to be replaced

Consumerism:- the act of buying goods and services

Triple bottom line:- the economic, social and environmental performance of a business