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International
Institute for Strategic Research and Training
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e-Public Administration, eGovernance, New Public Management.htm
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CENTER
FOR THE STUDY OF MANAGEMENT AND OVERSIGHT
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Societies
depend on managers to get things done, whether through private
sector entities (business ventures) or public sector entities (government
services). Increasingly entities from these two sectors see the benefit
of partnering and complementing each other role's in joint ventures. No
management systems (public or private) should exist without the
correlated oversight systems (preferably internal and external) to
provide for adequate checks and balances. Importance of management and essential management doctrines (lecture notes Prof. Frank Owarish) Importance of management “What were the most important innovations of the past century? Antibiotics and vaccines that doubled, or even tripled, human life spans? Automobiles and airplanes that redefined our idea of distance? New agents of communication, like the telephone and the television, or the chips, computers, and networks that are propelling us into a new economy? All of these innovations transformed our lives, yet none of them could have taken hold so rapidly or spread so widely without another. That innovation is the discipline of management, the accumulating body of thought and practice that makes organizations work. When we take stock of the productivity gains that drive our prosperity, technology gets all of the credit. In fact, management is doing a lot of the heavy lifting” (Joan Magretta: What Is Management, The Free Press, 2002)
US not so secret recipe The economic success of the US hinges to large extent on the understanding and use of management in driving business in the US and in the world at large. The body of knowledge called management is thus the key to economic and business success. The other countries of the world have learned the ‘secret’ recipe of the US and have been following a similar managerial path and thus there is growing competition facing the US.
Understanding that body of knowledge called management: a look at essential doctrines
Classical definition of management: Management: the ‘art or science of getting things done’;
Over the years several conceptualizations have emerged:
M1) The scientific management doctrine of Frederick Taylor: management construed as a science that can be observed and studied. Taylor observed what he called management, essentially the steps involved in getting things done; the scientific part is to make these steps as efficient as possible through what is now termed ‘Taylorism’ (i.e secure the best utilization of resources through streamlining the steps, get the most outputs for a given amount of inputs).
M2) Management functions as identified by Henri Fayol, French Engineer, who observed the management process and developed one of the most comprehensive outlook of what management is about. According to Fayol, all organizations need six elements (technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting and management); he went on first to define management as being composed of the functions of coordination, control, organization, and planning) then articulated specifics such as division of work; authority and responsibility; discipline; unity of command; unity of direction; subordination of individual interest to the general interest of the organization; remuneration of personnel; centralization; scalar chains; order; equity; stability of personnel tenure; initiative and ‘team spirit’.
M3) Modern management: in many ways, Peter Drucker is considered to be the father of the modern school of management; his doctrines have influenced all organizational particularly business ventures in the USA and the world for that matter and curricula of universities offering management as a subject including Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Stanford. He provided an updated picture of what management is about. He drew attention to the importance of ‘effectiveness’ and its complementarity to ‘efficiency’. He also developed the concept of MBO, whereby organizations have to be clear about what their objectives are and advocated that the employees be involved in developing objectives for their work units with all the sets of unit objectives aggregating to what constitute the overall organizational objectives.
M4) Strategic management:
M5) Re-engineering management Reengineering is radical redesign of an organization's processes, especially its business processes. Rather than organizing a firm into functional specialties (like production, accounting, marketing, etc.) and looking at the tasks that each function performs, we should, according to the reengineering theory, be looking at complete processes from materials acquisition, to production, to marketing and distribution. The firm should be re-engineered into a series of processes. The main proponents of re-engineering were Michael Hammer and James A. Champy. In a series of books including Reengineering the Corporation, Reengineering Management, and The Agenda, they argue that far much time is wasted passing-on tasks from one department to another. They claim that it is far more efficient to appoint a team who are responsible for all the tasks in the process. In The Agenda they extend the argument to include suppliers, distributors, and other business partners.{| class="wikitable" border="1" | |} Re-engineering is the basis for many recent developments in management. The cross-functional team, for example, has become popular because of the desire to re-engineer separate functional tasks into complete cross-functional processes. Also, many recent management information systems developments aim to integrate a wide number of business functions. Enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, knowledge management systems, groupware and collaborative systems, Human Resource Management Systems and customer relationship management systems all owe a debt to re-engineering theory.
M6) eManagement eManagement (eM) draws from the convergence of Internet, world wide web, IT, and business technologies. It is a way for organizations to do things, - to accomplish objectives in a planned, controlled, and measured fashion, consistent with their management style and aspirations. eManagement ties people and processes together, making them accessible to each other where-ever and when-ever needed. Know-how is fused with action, planning with doing. With eManagement, managers have their entire horizon of business activities available to them when they need them – at the office, at home, or at the point of contact. This includes sales, marketing, finance, accounting, operations, procurement, inventory, service, quality, human resources, networks, and communities. eManagers can process transactions, enter notes, tasks, and events, or drill into any business activity and get the details, history, forecasts, and KPIs. They operate in real-time, keeping everything accurate, focused, and up-to-date. eManagement provides you with a system, creating the opportunity for managers to function as members of a high performing team. Accounting systems, customer facing processes, and web presence are glued together into a cohesive unit. This cohesion and uniformity tie the organization together, providing it with structure and consistency, helping you stay aligned with your objectives. eManagement delivers productivity and competitiveness, and facilitates learning, innovation, and progressive change. (For some excellent background material read: The Cluetrain Manifesto)
The
Internet is ultimately about innovation and integration.
The MBA concept
With Peter Drucker leading the way, Harvard University subscribed to the thinking that it is possible to educate people into becoming business executives and for this purpose decided to build up an educational package called MBA to include all the essential elements therefor. At first the Harvard MBA concentrated on the case-study approach using business management situations as cases serving as learning tool to look for appropriate solutions. Later on Harvard went onto a grouping of subjects needed and still kept the case-study method as its basic credo. Since then Harvard has adjusted its curriculum several times. Other leading US universities joined the experimentation, from Stanford to Princeton. Since them most universities in the US have joined the MBA revolution. In the recent years, the universities of several countries have either launched their own MBA largely based upon the US model or have worked with US universities to develop their MBA programs.
Application of mathematics in management
Mathematics is a precise science with specifics tools and techniques. Over the years, it has been applied to several subjects enhancing the potentiality of the latter in enabling them to set problems in mathematical terms lending themselves to mathematical solutions.
Blending management and mathematics: creating a power tool By blending management and mathematics it becomes possible to inject rationality to the complexities of management thereby making it possible to have more predictable results.
(note: more material to follow in this section)
Conclusion
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