AN INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT:Management is best understood from a resources perspectiveHuman ResourcesFinancial ResourcesInformation ResourcesPhysical ResourcesManagers are responsible for combining and coordinating these various resources to achieve the organizations goals.Managers engage in planning/decision making, organizing, leading, and controlling to combine Human, Financial, Information, and Physical resources effectively and efficiently and to work toward achieving goals.THE MANAGEMENT PROCESS:Planning and Decision Making – Determining Courses of ActionPlanning means setting an organizations goals and deciding how best to achieve them.Decision Making is apart of the planning process, that involves selecting a course of action from a set of alternatives.Organizing – Coordinating Activities and ResourcesOrganizing involves determining how activities and resources are to be grouped.Leading – Motivating and Managing PeopleLeading is the set of processes used to get members of the organization to work together to further the interests of the organization.Some consider leading to be one of the most important and challenging managerial tasks.Controlling – Monitoring and Evaluating ActivitiesControlling is monitoring the organizations progress toward its goals.EX – Nasa doesn’t just shoot a spaceship up to space and 4 months later check whether it has reached its destination or not… IT monitors the progress of the entire trip and makes whatever corrections necessary.KINDS OF MANAGERS:Managing at Different Levels of the OrganizationLevels of Management – The differentiation of managers into three basic categories (top, middle, and first-line)TOP MANAGERS – Make up the relatively small group of executives who manage the overall organization. Titles in this group include PRESIDENT, VP, CEOTop Managers create the organizations goals, overall strategy, and operating policies.Howard Schultz is CEO of Starbucks – TOP MANAGER.Top Managers make decisions such as – Acquiring other companies, investing in research and development, entering or abandoning various markets, and building new plants and office facilities.Middle Managers – The largest group of managers in most organizations. Common Titles for Middle Managers include PLANT MANAGER, OPERATIONS MANAGER, DIVISION HEADMiddle Managers are responsible primarily for implementing the policies and plans developed by top managers and for supervising and coordinating the activities of lower-level managers.Middle Managers are necessary to bridge that gap between Upper and Lower Levels of the organization.First-Line Managers – Supervise and coordinate the activities of operating employees. Common Titles for First-Line Managers are SUPERVISORS, COORDINATORS, and OFFICE MANAGER.First-Line Managers oversee the Day-to-Day operations of their respective stores, hire operating employees to staff them, and handle other routine administrative duties required of them by the parent corporation.Assembly Line Supervisors are First-Line Managers.MANAGING IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF THE ORGANIZATION:- Areas of Management : Managers can be differentiated into marketing, financial, operations, human resource, administration, and other areas.Marketing Managers– work in areas related to the marketing function of getting consumers and clients to buy the organization’s products and/or servicesThese areas include – New product development, promotion, and distributionFinancial Managers– deal primarily with an organizations financial resources; responsible for accounting, cash management, and investmentsOperations Managers– concerned with creating and managing the systems that create an organizations products and servicestypical responsibilities of a operations manager include : production control, inventory control, quality control, plan layout, and site selection.Human Resources Managers– responsible for hiring and developing employees; involved in HR planning, recruiting, and selecting of employees, training and development, designing compensation and benefit programs, formulating performance appraisal systems, and discharging low-performing and problem employees.Administrative Managers– are not associated with any particular management specialty; best example of Administrative Manager is that of a hospital or clinic administrator; tend to be generalists; have familiarities with all functional areas of management instead of just one specialized area.Other Kinds of Managers– RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (R&D)BASIC MANAGERIAL ROLES AND SKILLS : – SEE TABLE 1.2 PG12Managerial Roles -– Managers play 10 different roles according to Henry Mintzberg and those roles fall into 3 basic categories : 1) Interpersonal, 2) Informational, 3) Decisional1) Interpersonal Roles – there are 3 interpersonal roles;1) the manager is often expected to serve as a figurehead – by taking visitors to dinner, attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies, etc2) also, the manager is also expected to serve as a leader by hiring, training, and motivating employees.3) finally, managers can have a liaison role – involves serving as a coordinator or link among people, groups, or organizations.Ex – computer companies use liaisons to keep other companies informed about their plans2) Informational Roles – 3 informational roles flow naturally from the interpersonal roles just discussed1) Monitor – one who actively seeks information that may be of value;2) Disseminator – the manager must be the disseminator of information, transmitting relevant information back to others in the workplace.3) External Communication – the spokesperson formally relays information to people outside the unit or outside the organization3) Decisional Roles – Based on the information acquired from the result of performing the informational roles has a major impact on important decisions that he/she makes as a manager; FOUR DECISIONAL ROLES:1) Manager has the role of Entrepreneur – the voluntary initiator of change;2) Initiated not by the manager but by some other individual or some groupThe manager responds to his/her role as disturbance handler by handling such problems as – strikes, copyright infringements, or problems in public relations or corporate image.3) Resource Allocator – the manager decides how resources are distributed and with whom he/she will work most closely with.4) Negotiator – entering negotiations with other groups/organizations as a representative of