Who Are Managers, and Where Do They Work?

Managers may not be who or what you might expect! Managers can be under
the age of 18 to over 80. They run large corporations as well as entrepreneurial
start-ups.
They're found in government departments, hospitals, small businesses, not-
for-profit agencies, museums, schools, and even nontraditional organizations
such as political campaigns and music tours. Managers can also be found
doing managerial work in every country globally. In addition, some managers
are top-level managers while others are first-line managers. And today,
managers are just as likely to be women as men.

Who Is a manager?
It used to be fairly simple to define who managers were: They were the
organizational members who told others what to do and how to do it. It was
easy to differentiate managers from nonmanagerial employees. Now, it isn't
quite that simple. In many organizations, the changing nature of work has
blurred the distinction between managers and nonmanagerial employees.
Many traditional nonmanagerial jobs now include managerial activities.
So, how do we define who managers are? A manager is someone who
coordinates and oversees the work of other people so that organizational goals
can be accomplished. A manager's job is not about personal achievement—
it's about helping others do their work.
That may mean coordinating the work of a departmental group, or it might
mean supervising a single person. It could involve coordinating the work
activities of a team with people from different departments or even people
outside the organization, such as temporary employees or individuals who
work for the organization's suppliers. Keep in mind, also, that managers may
have work duties not related to coordinating and overseeing others' work. For
example, an insurance claims supervisor might process claims in addition to
coordinating the work activities of other claims clerks.

Is there a way to classify managers in organizations? In traditionally

structured organizations (which are often pictured as a pyramid because more
employees are at lower organizational levels than upper organizational
levels), managers can be classified as first-line, middle, or top. At the lowest
level of management, first-line managers manage the work of nonmanagerial
employees who typically are involved with producing the organization's

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products or servicing the organization's customers. First-line managers may
be called supervisors or shift managers, district managers, department
managers, or office managers. Middle managers manage the work of first-
line managers and can be found between the lowest and top levels of the
organization. They may have titles such as regional manager, project leader,
store manager, or division manager. Finally, at the upper levels of the
organization are the top managers, who are responsible for making
organization-wide decisions and establishing the plans and goals that affect
the entire organization. These individuals typically have titles such as
executive vice president, president, managing director, chief operating
officer, or chief executive officer.
Not all organizations get work done with a traditional pyramidal form,
however. Some organizations, for example, are more loosely configured with
work being done by ever-changing teams of employees who move from one
project to another as work demands arise. Although it's not as easy to tell who
the managers are in these organizations, we do know that someone must fulfill
that role—that is, there must be someone who coordinates and oversees the
work of others, even if that "someone" changes as work tasks or projects
change.

Where Do Managers Work?

It's obvious that managers do their work in organizations. But what is an
organization? It's a deliberate arrangement of people to accomplish some
specific purpose. Your college or university is an organization; so are
fraternities and sororities, government departments, churches, Facebook, and
your neighborhood grocery store. All are considered organizations and have
three common characteristics.
First, an organization has a distinct purpose. This purpose is typically
expressed through goals that the organization hopes to accomplish. Second,
each organization is composed of people. It takes people to perform the work
that's necessary for the organization to achieve its goals. Third, all
organizations develop some deliberate structure within which members

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do their work. That structure may be open and flexible, with no specific job
duties or strict adherence to explicit job arrangements. For instance, at
Google, most big projects, of which there are hundreds going on at the same
time, are tackled by small, focused employee teams that set up in an instant
and complete work just as quickly. Or the structure may be more traditional—
like that of Procter & Gamble or General Electric—with clearly defined rules,
regulations, job descriptions, and some members identified as "bosses" who
have authority over other members.
Today's organizations are structured more like Google, with flexible work
arrangements, employee work teams, open communication systems, and
supplier alliances. In these organizations, work is defined in terms of tasks to
be done. And workdays have no time boundaries since work can—and is—
done anywhere, anytime.

What Do Managers Do?

Management involves coordinating and overseeing the work activities of
others so that their activities are completed efficiently and effectively. We
already know that coordinating and overseeing the work of others is what
distinguishes a managerial position from a nonmanagerial one. However, this
doesn't mean that managers can do what they want anytime, anywhere, or
anywhere. Instead, management involves ensuring that work activities are
completed efficiently and effectively by the people responsible for doing
them, or at least that's what managers aspire to do.

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Efficiency refers to getting the most output from the least amount of inputs.
Because managers deal with scarce inputs—including resources such as
people, money, and equipment—they're concerned with the efficient use of
those resources. It's often referred to as "doing things right"—that is, not
wasting resources.
It's not enough, however, just to be efficient. Management is also concerned
with being effective and completing activities to attain organizational goals.
Effectiveness is often described as "doing the right things"—that is, doing
those work activities that will help the organization reach its goals.
Whereas efficiency is concerned with the means of getting things done,
effectiveness is concerned with the ends or attainment of organizational goals.
In successful organizations, high efficiency and effectiveness typically go
hand in hand. Poor management (which leads to poor performance) usually
involves being inefficient and ineffective or being effective, but inefficient.
Despite this, management researchers have developed three approaches to
describe what managers do: functions, roles, and skills.

Management Functions
According to the functions approach, managers perform certain activities or
functions as they efficiently and effectively coordinate the work of others.

What are these functions?

All managers perform four functions: planning, organizing, leading, and
controlling.
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In planning, they set goals, establish strategies for achieving them, and
develop plans to integrate and coordinate activities.
Managers are also responsible for arranging and structuring work to
accomplish the organization's goals. We call this function organizing. When
managers organize, they determine what tasks are to be done, who is to do
them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where
decisions are to be made.
Every organization has people, and a manager's job is to work with and
through people to accomplish goals. This is the leading function. When
managers motivate subordinates, help resolve workgroup conflicts, influence
individuals or teams as they work, select the most effective communication
channel, or deal in any way with employee behavior issues, they're leading.
The final management function is controlling. After goals and plans are set
(planning), tasks and structural arrangements put in place (organizing), and
people hired, trained, and motivated (leading), there has to be some evaluation
of whether things are going as planned. To ensure that goals are being met
and that work is being done as it should be, managers must monitor and
evaluate performance. Actual performance must be compared with the set
goals. If those goals aren't being achieved, it's the manager's job to get work
back on track. This process of monitoring, comparing, and correcting is the
controlling function.

Mintzberg's Managerial Roles and a Contemporary

Model of Managing

Managerial roles refer to a manager's specific actions or behaviors expected

of and exhibited. When describing what managers do from the perspective of

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a role, we're not looking at a specific person, but at the expectations and
responsibilities associated with being the person in that role—the role of a
manager. these roles are grouped around interpersonal relationships, the
transfer of information, and decision making.

The interpersonal roles are ones that involve people (subordinates and
persons outside the organization) and other duties that are ceremonial and
symbolic in nature. The three interpersonal roles include figurehead, leader,
and liaison. The informational roles involve collecting, receiving, and
disseminating information. The three informational roles include monitor,
disseminator, and spokesperson. Finally, the decisional roles entail making
decisions or choices. The four decisional roles include entrepreneur,
disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.
At higher levels of the organization, the roles of disseminator, figurehead,
negotiator, liaison, and spokesperson are more important; while the leader role
(as Mintzberg defined it) is more important for lower-level managers than it
is for either middle or top level managers.

Management Skills

What types of skills do managers need? Robert L. Katz proposed that

managers need three critical skills in managing: technical, human, and
conceptual. Technical skills are the job-specific knowledge and techniques
needed to perform work tasks proficiently. These skills tend to be more
important for first-line managers because they typically are managing
employees who use tools and techniques to produce the organization's
products or service the organization's customers. Often, employees with
excellent technical skills get promoted to first-line managers.

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Human skills involve the ability to work well with other people both
individually and in a group. Because all managers deal with people, these
skills are equally important to all levels of management. Managers with good
human skills get the best out of their people. They know how to communicate,
motivate, lead, and inspire enthusiasm and trust. Finally, conceptual skills
are the skills managers use to think and conceptualize abstract and complex
situations. Using these skills, managers see the organization as a whole,
understand the relationships among various subunits, and visualize how the
organization fits into its broader environment. These skills are most important
to top managers.

Types of Organizations

For-profit organizations
A for-profit business is a company whose primary goal is to earn income and
profit for its founders, leaders, and employees.
The business shares out any revenue the company makes after paying its
expenses and debts to various company stakeholders in a predetermined way.

Nonprofit organizations
A nonprofit business is an organization whose key focus is to provide a
charitable benefit to the community.

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Rather than take profits and distribute them to company stakeholders, any
profits earned by the organization are reinvested in the nonprofit and used to
further the organization's mission for the benefit of the community it serves.

Cooperation Classification/Size

Different Types of International Organizations

Multinational Corporation (MNC): Maintains operations in multiple

countries.

Multidomestic Corporation: Is an MNC that decentralizes management and

other decisions to the local country.

Global Company: Is an MNC that centralizes its management and other

decisions in the home country.

Transnational Corporation (Borderless Organization): An MNC that has

eliminated structural divisions that impose artificial geographic barriers and
is organized along business lines that reflect a geocentric attitude.

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Bartlett & Ghoshal Matrix

Bartlett and Ghoshal clustered businesses based on two criteria: global

integration and local responsiveness.
Businesses that are highly globally integrated have the objective to reduce
costs as much as possible by creating economies of scale through a more
standardized product offering worldwide.
Business that are highly locally responsive have as extra objective to adapt
products and services to specific local needs.
there are companies trying to be both globally integrated and locally
responsive.

1- Multidomestic: Low Integration and High Responsiveness

• Companies with a multi-domestic strategy aim to meet the needs and
requirements of the local markets worldwide by customizing and
tailoring their products and services extensively.
• They have little pressure for global integration.
• Consequently, multi-domestic firms often have a very decentralized
where subsidiaries worldwide operate relatively separately and
independently from the headquarter.

2- Global: High Integration and Low Responsiveness

• Global companies are the opposite of multi-domestic companies.

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 • They offer a standardized product worldwide and aim to maximize
efficiencies to reduce costs as much as possible.
• Global companies are highly centralized, and subsidiaries are often
very dependent on the HQ.
• Their main role is to implement the parent company's decisions and to
act as pipelines of products and strategies.

3-Transnational: High Integration and High Responsiveness

• The transnational company has characteristics of both global and multi-
domestic firms.
• It aims to maximize local responsiveness and gain benefits from global
integration.
• Transnational companies often try to create economies of scale more
upstream in the value chain and be more flexible and locally adaptive
in downstream activities such as marketing and sales.
• In terms of organizational design, a transnational company is
characterized by an integrated and interdependent network of
subsidiaries worldwide.
4- International: Low Integration and Low Responsiveness
• An international company has little need for local adaption and global
integration.
• The majority of the value chain activities will be maintained at the
headquarter.
• This strategy is also often referred to as an exporting strategy. Products
are produced in the company’s home country and send to customers all
over the world.
• Subsidiaries, if any, are functioning in this case more like local channels
through which the products are being sold to the end-consumer.

How Organizations Go Global

Strategic Alliances
• Partnerships between an organization and a foreign company in
which both share resources and knowledge in developing new
products or building new production facilities.

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Joint Venture
• A specific type of strategic alliance in which the partners agree
to form a separate, independent organization for some business
purpose.

Foreign Subsidiary
• Directly investing in a foreign country by setting up a separate
and independent production facility or office.

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