Management Practice and Theory Knowledge Management

Question: Describe about the Management Practice and Theory for Knowledge Management. Answer: Introduction: Management is very essential part of an organization. An organization is considered to be successful if it has good managing team which is brought about by the people who manage the activities within the organization. Managing is essential in order to ensure proper coordination in between the people working in the organization. Since management becomes an indispensible part of an organization, the managerial task has been gaining significance and complexities too. People can gain financial success even without the proper theoretical knowledge in management. But it is always necessary to have basic idea of management in any association because it will always be productive in achieving the organizational goals and objectives more efficiently and effectively as well (Alexander 2013). Management abilities is very much significant in boosting an individual self esteem also , however managing abilities must not be confused with leadership because it is often mistaken to be bossy at times M anagement abilities promote excellence within the person himself/herself. Management is an art science of managing the activities of the people within an organization so as to ensure its proper functioning of the association. Body of the work: An organization might an issue which demand the attention of the managers , so we can say that in an organization mangers have a very vital role to play they are the ones who are responsible for the identification of the problem and then analyzing the issue and finally taking the remedial measures to solves those issues . Human resource management should be dependent upon the integration of the strategic human resource, assessment of the employees, proper communication in between the different sectors of the association. A manager has several characteristics whichdifferentiates him from a leader (Boylan 2013). A manager must be: A good motivator and a manager must have a vision, he must be enthusiastic, must have intelligence, must have self confidence, must be a good listener, and must be a good communicator. The ultimate goal of a manager is to attain organizational goals and objectives. Any organization has three basic duties which are required to be performed by the manager which includes the attainment of the goals of the organization in minimum expenses thereby gaining profits which results in a successful organization this is the prime function of the managers of the concerned association. The other important function is to look after the health and safety measures of all the staffs working in and out for the organization, then comes the maintenance and safety of the machineries of the organization, so only if these three fundamental duties are fulfilled by the managers an organization can be called successful (Bratton and Gold 2012). The fundamental function of a manager It can be integrated into five sub groups: Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Leading, Controlling. It is known facts that management is the art of designing the environment where the individuals may be working in groups or individually achieve the objectives set forth by an organization efficiently and effectively. Planning is a forethought process where the managersparticularly plan for the organizational activities. It involves the formation of the effective plan, maintenance of that plan and also taking effective measures to execute those plans. Organizing involves creating intentional structure of roles forpeople to fill in the organization. In this process people are given tasks with the best of their abilities. Next is staffing which involves the filling of the employees in the organization which is brought about by identifying work force requirement, inventorying the available people, recruiting, selecting, appraising and promoting them. Leading is influencing the employees to work efficiently for organization. Controlli ng involves all the effective measures which are taken for maintaining the budget for expenses (Burke 2013). Also correcting the activities of the subordinates so as to ensure that the events conform to plans .Coordination is very important so as to maintain peace and harmony in the organization, so proper coordination in between different groups of employees working in different segment is very much essential for the overall success and accomplishment of the organizational targets. Now taking in view the goal of the managers we can say that the fundamental characteristics of a manager is to manage the activities within the organization keeping in mind all the factors which affect the profits margins, time , money , material ,personal dissatisfaction etc . Managers are charged with the responsibility of coordination amongst the groups for increasing the overall productivity with effectiveness meaning achievement of the activities (Cummings and Worley 2014). Manager is therefore a dynamic, life givingelement in every profit or nonprofit making institution. We can also say that performances o f the managers are largely held for an organization's success. The managers are grouped in hierarchy of authority to accomplish different tasks. 1) Top level mangers including the board of directors, president, vice president and CEO of the company 2) Middle level management includes the general managers, branch and department managers. 3) Lower level management involves the supervisors, section leads and others. Frederick Taylor and Henry Fayol theory: In this modern era women are nowadays playing a pivotal role in the organization and are also assigned with significant positions and authorities. As a result of fair employment laws ,equal income distribution the women have managed to climb up to the topmost managerial position ,however sexual discrimination have been unfair till now to the women. There have been theories which have been set for the management study. It involves variety of approach to the management analysis. Principles in management may be descriptive or predictive, they explain how variable are interdependent on each other. It also explains the understanding of what we experience (Foss and Knudsen 2013). First is the Frederick Taylor's theory, which started the modern management. He sought to overthrow the management by the ' rule of thumb' and emphasized on the fact that people should be assigned with duties in accordance with their skill and knowledge. Likewise, the managers should be given the task of science and performance, whereas the workers performing the labor, the load should be evenly shared between them which is best suited for them. He formulated science of work so as to replace the old rule of thumb, pay and reward method consequently resulted in accomplishment of the organizational goals ,work and responsibility to be divided equally in between the workers and management cooperating that is all we can say in a nutshell . Then comes the classical organizational theory school, it was formulated by the combination of the bureaucratic and administrative theory introduced by Max Weber and Henri Fayol respectively. Weber postulated that the western thoughts were changing from value oriented, traditional thinking to technocratic thinking, the organization was shifting to seek technical optimization at the expense of emotional content. The principles set by them were based upon ideal bureaucracy saying that an official jurisdictional areas, ordered firmly hierarchy of super and subordination management based on the written records, thorough training , official activity taking priority over other activities follows stable and knowable rules . Henry Fayol administrative theory focuses on the personal duties of management at a grainy level .In other words his work directed more towards the management layer (Hatch et al. 2013). It was based upon five principles. They are plan, organize, and forecast, command, coordinate. Forecasting and planning is the anticipation of the future events. Organize is the human and material development .Command is giving instructions to the people associated with the organizational goal , Coordination is employed to maintain the harmony , peace and balance in between the various sectors in the organization . Control refers to the controlling of all the activities within the organization in accordance with the rules and regulations set. There were fourteen administrative principles to be followed along with the five primary roles. These principles include specialization, authority with responsibility, discipline, unity of command, unity of direction, remuneration of staffs , centralization , line of equity (Nicolini 2012) . Fayol believed that a personal effort and team dynamics were an integral part of an ideal organization. His principles have been in practice up till date, however we find that his principles of 'unity of command' and 'unity of direction' have violated the matrix management. Elton mayo and Hawthorne theory: The behavioral school which was started by scholar Elton Mayo which was the outcome of Hawthorne Works, Mayo disapproved Taylor's beliefs that the one best way dictated by science that could be obtained by the controlled experiment. He determined the effects of lighting on worker productivity. His studies is showing those factors which was considered, when Mayo was working with a group of females included rest breaks, no rest breaks or fewer working hours in a work day. When these factors changed, the overall productivity went up, ultimately it proved five significant things including work satisfaction, communications, positive management response , encouragement or motivation and lastly the working conditions . It also disapproved Taylor's employee self -interest and it also showed that large-scale experiments involving 20000 employees gave positive response like expression of acknowledgement and working environment. And lastly he denounced that the 'rabble hypotheses' saying that t he society is a horde of unorganized individuals acting in manner so as to secure his own self- interest (OConnor 2015). The newer concepts like group work, group dynamics, social system from Mayo works in the mid -1920's. Recently many theories have come up like the system theory,contingency theory, chaos theory, team building theory building theory. The system theory being the most basic theory, this theory is helpful to the man9agers of the organization to look into the matter with a broader prospective. It has also enabled them in recognizing and organizing system's various parts and events. In the contingency theory the managers takes into account all the factors and current situation of the organization before handling a particular situation. The chais theory which was advocated by Tom Peters , it was incorporated for handling the chaotic events in an organization, it suggested that systems naturally go to complexity and as they proceed they become more volatile in nature and therefore there should be more energy to be spend on tackling its complexity . They seek more stability. This fashion continues until the system splits. However, it needs a very effective manager to tackle the situation falling worse. Lastly, the team building theory also was based on working in groups which had several stages. It emphasized on the quality circles, best practices and continuous improvement (Shafritz et al. 2015). McGregor theory: Lastly, the Douglas McGregor formulated two pairs of assumptions having two sharply opposite concepts to explain the human behavior and management style for motivation. It includes the managerial actions for motivating organizational work force involving certain assumptions hypotheses relating human nature and behavior. Theory X is the traditional theory of human behavior and indicates conventional approach to the managerial motivation and control; it assumed that people are lazy, dislike of work, lack ambition, resistant to change, not intellectual and imaginative. Theory Y propounded by Douglas with the optimistic assumptions. These optimistic assumptions of theory Yconceives man himselfas an end and that the organization should provide means to achieve 'end'. It had several assumptions like people might desire to achieve, work may be natural play for them, ambitious, they are committed towards work and they may also accept organization's goals and objectives (Witzel and Warner 2013). The essentiality of any organization is manager ship. Management is actually like practice like other practices be it medicine, engineering, accountancy .Briefly it is an art of managing the issues in a situation which needs to be looked after. Manager ship is an attribute of business performances. In an organization, the effective management involves proper functioning of different teams working under the manager. Formation of group is similar to the human life cycle. Like a person takes birth, grows, matures and finally declines (Tengblad 2012). Therefore, it can be said that in the same way the team formation happens into five stages including: Forming stage, Storming stage, Norming stage, Performing stage, Adjourning stage Forming is the first and foremost step of group formation, during this there are uncertainties , and the group members are uncertain as to group's objectives and their attainment . Storming is clearly the stage where the group members have conflict amongst themselves due to the difference of opinions and they need to search for resolution to their disagreements and conflicts. Then comes the norming stage where this stage is characterized with close relationship in between the group members, group cohesiveness and camaraderie ,then follows the performing stage where the members of the group perform as a whole for the organization and this is the fourth stage of group formation. It is fully functional in nature ,followed by this is the adjourning stage which marks the disbanding of the group activities ,in this stage the groups are dissolved where some members feel melancholy for the group disbandment , wh ereas others are happy for the task accomplishment by the formed group (Williams 2013) . At last, we can sum up by saying that any organization has a goal to create a surplus and be productive in achieving the favorable gain ratio in a specified time period so management is all about exercising the principles set forth by the managers of the association Conclusion: Management is nothing but the exercise of the principles which is set by the managers of the organization. The various theories discussed above is about the management principles and the motivation of the employees which forms an integral part in the proper functioning of the organization. Different theories provided different concept about the leadership skills and the way manager should lead the team. The knowledge depicted from the theories would provide the manager with the insight in handling the organization. Reference: Alexander, K., 2013.Facilities management: theory and practice. Routledge. Boylan, P., 2013. Introduction to the theoretical and philosophical basis of modern management. Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2012.Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan. Burke, W.W., 2013.Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications. Cummings, T.G. and Worley, C.G., 2014.Organization development and change. Cengage learning. Foss, N.J. and Knudsen, C., 2013.Towards a competence theory of the firm(Vol. 2). Routledge. Hatch, M.J. and Cunliffe, A.L., 2013.Organization theory: modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives. Oxford university press. 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