Report On Critiquing The Functions Of Managements In The Changing Environment

A report critiquing the Functions of Managements in the Changing Environment. The classical functions of management include planning, organising, leading and controlling. While the relevance of these functions has been attributed to the success of many organisations in the past, there has been a doubt on the relevance of these classical functions of management in the contemporary organisations that are witnessing continual changes in their organisational environments. 

In this assignment, students should write an individual report to provide a critical analysis on both how the functions of managements are constraining to the ability of organisations to adapt with the changes in their environment, and how organisations could appropriately (i.e. which types, styles, or theories) plan, organise, lead and control in the contemporary workplace characterised by changing environments. 

Management is a very important function of every organization. Every organization works to get something done, to achieve a specific goal and to earn profit. So, for fulfilling all these things management is very important. Every organization needs management to run in a proper way. Without management, no single process can run in the perfect way. Management is a very wide term and it means something different for each operation. In every organization there are different departments like HR, marketing and finance and the work of each department varies from each other but management is needed in all of them. Management basically means to manage everything in the best possible way to reach the organizational objective (Waldemar Walczak, 2010).

Every department or operations have managers who are basically responsible to manage their process or operation. So in classical functions of management, the term management is restricted to the manager only and this is different in contemporary environment. In contemporary environment, management is considered as a function that has to be done by everyone in the organization as per their work or responsibility. They are responsible for all the functions of management like planning, organizing, leading and controlling. All these functions were proved so beneficial and successful for many organizations in the past but now everything has been changed now. The organization, their work culture, environment and operations are changed totally and due to that classical functions of management are not suitable enough for such organizations. In contemporary environment, management is a broad term and it is more than what managers do to get the work done. Today, every single person knows management as the same is managing different operations of the life and it does not require a formal management system. There is a fact that “manager” is responsible for some particular operation only and according to the broader perspective manager is only responsible for controlling and restricting people (Kochan and Schmalensee, 2003).

In Classical management, there is a pre-defined process that has to be followed by every organization irrespective of nature as well as time. The process consists of the functions of management- planning, organizing, leading and controlling.

1. Planning- in the process of planning, all the plans has prepared. In this step, everything will mapping out to know how to achieve the goal. It includes the process of planning of each and every operation involved in accomplishing the goal. Planning process is the most important process because the subsequent steps are only according to the planning process. In contemporary environment, it is not necessary that everything will happen according to the plan so now a day there is a risk in making strong plans because no one knows about the future circumstances.
2. Organizing- Organizing refers to the process that comes after planning stage. Organizing involves organization of all the resources, team and material as per the plan. The whole organization process should be according to the planning phase so that the direction will be correct to reach the organizational goals. Organizing mainly includes two steps, first is assigning the work to the respective people and the second one is granting authority to the people as per the plan. But organizing is not suitable for the contemporary environment as these are not relevant to the new era.
3. Leading-Leading is a process of communicating, motivating, guiding and encouraging the team. After planning and organizing, leading comes. Leading helps in making know that everything is happening perfectly or not. With the help of leading, the actual status of the operations can be assessed easily. Leading is necessary to make sure that everything is going in the right direction. Sometimes, there are some issues that come across at the time of leading so it can be improved at the same time for efficient working of the organization. Leading is not that much important in contemporary environment because people know how to manage themselves and they will make sure that they all keep motivated and work hard towards the goal (Davidson, Griffin and Baxter, 2006).
4. Controlling- After every process and completion of every task, manager is still responsible to control the whole process so that it will not go in the wrong direction. Controlling is important because sometimes, things become uncontrollable and everything happens against the plan and this can create a major issue in accomplishment of the tasks, in the present era, people are automatically controlled and they know how to make everything controlled (Special issue of Management Accounting Research: Risk management, corporate governance and management accounting, 2006).

There are three levels of managers in every organization that are responsible for management of activities at different levels-

1. First line manager- First line manager is responsible to take care of day to day operations. He basically supervises the performance of the workforce.
2. Middle managers- Middle managers are responsible to provide supervision to the first line managers. They basically help the organization in the optimum utilization of resources to achieve organizational objectives.
3. Top Managers- Top managers are responsible to provide guidance to the middle managers. They are the people who are responsible for overall performance of the organization and include all the departments. Top managers create organizational goals and monitor all the middle managers.

There are different contemporary management theories that are perfectly suitable for the present era. These theories are so helpful in managing the organization in the most efficient way. The two theories are-

1. The Contingency Theory- Contingency theories explains that every organization is different and their nature of work too. The circumstances are also unique and to manage the organization, it is important to select the most suitable management approach as per the selected circumstance (de Groot, 2006).Contingency theory describes that “there is no one best way to manage” and focus on the use of any other management approach like scientific, behavioral and quantitative. These approaches can help managers to manage the organizational operation in a more effective way. According to this theory, manager can make decisions according to the situation at hand rather than selecting the same solution for every circumstance. Manager can take appropriate action as per the current situation (Ivanenko, 2018).
2. Systems Theory of management- According to systems theory, an organization is considered as a mixture of different independent components that coordinate with each other to achieve common organizational goals. There are four major element on which the system of organization operates:

• Inputs- Inputs includes organizational resources like human resources, raw material, equipment’s, information and financial resources (Shell, 2003).
• Transformation processes- Transformational process refers to the conversion of inputs into outputs with the help of technological functions, managerial functions and all the production activities.

3. Outputs-Outputs refers to the result of the transformation process and t includes goods/services and profit/loss. There are some outputs that are returned again to the environment so that other organization or individual can use it. Basically output of one organization can be the input of any other organization. Output may transfer to the final consumer or to any other producer (McClain, 2011).
4. Feedback- The reaction of the environment for providing the output is known as the feedback. Feedback is important because according to the feedback, a produces can improve the product in the best possible way (Ayoko, 2016).

This approach helps manager to assess the interaction if the organization with the bigger environment. There are two types of system. The first one is the open organizational system that interacts with the environment and the other one is closed environment that is considered as self- sufficient. In reality, an organization cannot have a closed system because it needs to interact with external environment for survival (Wagner, 2007).

In contemporary environment, management is defines as a method of achieving the goal and make value addition to the goals of the organization. It helps in finding out the right way to achieve the goals and the best goal to achieve (Teague and Roche, 2011). Management is referring to prioritization. There are many tasks and it is important to prioritize them so that all the operations can be managed properly. Prioritizing means the activities that are important to be done on priority to achieve any specific goal. Management is an activity similar to investment, and refers to the allocation of resources for getting maximum outcome. It is same with the other kind of resources like time, knowledge and experience. It is so easy to manage for all the employees to manage their time with other personal resources even after they are not in a managerial role.

Conclusion

Contemporary management is not the same always as it keeps changing as per the situation. In this system there are not preplanned functions that have been followed in every situation. There are functions as per the situation. Contemporary management has a much wider scope in comparison to classical management (Waddell, Jones and George, 2013). There are organizations that are still working with classical theories of management but these theories cannot be helpful in long run. It may be beneficial for some particular time period. It focuses on making all the employees self-dependent and capable enough to manage their time as per the task assigned to them.

References

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Davidson, P., Griffin, R. and Baxter, A. (2006). Management. Milton, Qld.: John Wiley & Sons Australia.

de Groot, R. (2006). Function-analysis and valuation as a tool to assess land use conflicts in planning for sustainable, multi-functional landscapes. Landscape and Urban Planning, 75(3-4), pp.175-186.

Ivanenko, ?. (2018). Bureaucratic management functions: special issues. Public management, 15(5).

Kochan, T. and Schmalensee, R. (2003). Management. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

McClain, G. (2011). Management. Cincinnati, Oh.: David & Charles.

Shell, R. (2003). Management of professionals. New York: Marcel Dekker.

Special issue of Management Accounting Research: Risk management, corporate governance and management accounting. (2006). Management Accounting Research, 17(2), pp.224-225.

Teague, P. and Roche, W. (2011). Line managers and the management of workplace conflict: evidence from Ireland. Human Resource Management Journal, 22(3), pp.235-251.Waddell, D., Jones, G. and George, J. (2013). Contemporary management. North Ryde, N.S.W.: McGraw-Hill Education.

Wagner, M. (2007). Integration of Environmental Management with Other Managerial Functions of the Firm. Long Range Planning, 40(6), pp.611-628.

Waldemar Walczak, W. (2010). Themeaning and Role of Projects in contemporary Management. Contemporary Economics, 4(1).