business management definition essay

What Is Business Management? And Why It Can Be a Great Career Choice

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What is Business Management?

Business management is the process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the activities of a business or organization to achieve its goals and objectives. It involves overseeing all aspects of a business, from finance and operations to marketing and human resources. Business managers must be skilled in leadership , communication, and problem-solving, and must be able to make strategic decisions that drive the success of the organization.

Every Organization Needs Leaders

Not everyone can be a leader or manager at work, and many people don’t want the responsibilities of overseeing employees and processes. Fortunately, others feel called to work in management roles and want to make a meaningful impact on their teams and their employers.

Some managers go through company training to learn the skills they need. Others who are new to management “learn by doing,” having to figure things out as they go. Some entry-level managers start the job with formal management education under their belts, which helps them be more confident in their supervisory roles.

Associate Degree in Business Management

If a rewarding career in management is on your life’s bucket list, here’s something that can help you conquer that goal: Get a degree in business management.

The University of Cincinnati Online offers an Associate of Business Management Technology (BMTN) degree program that’s focused, flexible, and designed for today’s modern students.

Our BMTN program prepares you to move into an entry-level supervisory or management position in a wide variety of business settings, with a format that allows you to:

• Study part or full-time . If you attend full-time, you’ll get your associate degree in two years. Your time in the program will move quickly, and you’ll have your degree before you know it.
• Earn a degree online . 100% of the courses are offered online, and there are no campus visits required — a big time-saver for you.
• Learn on your schedule . If you want to study on weeknights or prefer the weekend, the program gives you the flexibility you need to balance your studies with work and family obligations.
• Get the support you need . Our program is 100% engineered for your success. You learn from experienced educators and get access to helpful tools and technical support. We pair you with a Student Success Coordinator who’s with you from enrollment to graduation — they’ll be your biggest champion.

Business Management Curriculum

Our program curriculum is expertly designed to help you excel in the business world. You’ll complete a minimum of 60 credit hours to graduate, studying subjects that include Entrepreneurship, Financial Accounting, Introduction to Marketing, Personal Selling and Sales Management, and Fundamentals of Human Resources.

Completing UC Online’s business management degree equips you with skills that are highly sought after by employers, such as:

• Effectively communicating in a business setting
• Analyzing scenarios and drawing suitable conclusions
• Demonstrating effective team management skills
• Executing the four functions of management: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling
• Using critical thinking skills to solve problems and make decisions based on accepted business principles

Managers Are in Demand Today

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) expects employment in management occupations to grow 8% between 2022 to 2032, faster than the average for all occupations. With a projected 1.1 million openings each year, the opportunities for you to work in management are broad.

If you do some research online, you’ll see a variety of entry-level manager positions, including positions like these:

Ready to Grow Your Management Expertise?

A career in business management can offer a range of opportunities for personal and professional growth. With the right education and experience, individuals can develop the skills needed to succeed in this challenging and rewarding field. From leading teams and making strategic decisions to navigating complex business environments, business management requires a diverse set of skills and a commitment to lifelong learning.

Pursuing a degree in business management can be a great way to kickstart your career or take your next step in leadership. Whether you aspire to be an entrepreneur, a corporate executive, or a community leader, an associate degree in business management can help you achieve your goals and make a positive impact on the world around you.

The UC Online staff is ready to answer your questions about the Associate of Business Management Technology program. You can connect online with an advisor , or call our associate degree specialists’ team at 833-556-7877 .

We look forward to helping you manage and lead!

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What Is Business Management? A Comprehensive Guide

Explore the essentials of business management. Learn strategies for decision-making, resource allocation, and achieving long-term goals.

Have you ever noticed how some businesses effortlessly improve their bottom-line and achieve long-term success, while others struggle to stay afloat in a sea of challenges? What sets the thriving companies apart?

The answer lies in their effective implementation of business management strategies.

Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned executive, or a professional looking to advance your career, understanding the principles of business management is crucial to your success. It forms the bedrock of sound decision-making, optimized resource allocation, and harmonious team collaboration.

In this comprehensive guide, we will unveil the essence of business management. Equipping yourself with a solid understanding of business management will inherently transform the way you operate and propel you closer towards your goals.

Our guide will take you on a journey to better business management and empower you to orchestrate success at the helm of your enterprise. Say goodbye to overwhelmed and haphazard business operations and embrace a well-managed and thriving enterprise. Let’s get started!

What Is Business Management?

Business management is the art and science of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the resources and activities of a business to achieve its objectives efficiently and effectively. It encompasses a broad range of activities including strategic planning, resource allocation, leadership, and decision making. At its core, it involves setting goals , implementing strategies, and overseeing operations to ensure organizational success.

Business management is essential for guiding companies through the dynamic and often complex world of commerce. It requires a blend of analytical, strategic, and people skills to navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities. Effective business management is the backbone of every successful company, playing a vital role in growth, profitability, and sustainability.

Why Is Business Management Crucial For Success?

Business management is critical for a company’s success, as it provides structure and direction to an organization. It ensures that all efforts are aligned with the company’s goals and that resources are utilized efficiently. Good management practices help in identifying and mitigating risks, fostering innovation, and maintaining a competitive edge in the market.

Moreover, it plays a key role in decision-making processes, problem-solving, and adapting to changing market conditions. Without effective business management, organizations can falter in strategic planning, employee performance, and customer satisfaction , leading to a decline in growth and profitability.

What Are The Key Elements Of Business Management?

Business management is an intricate field that involves several key elements, each playing a crucial role in the success and sustainability of an organization.

These elements represent the fundamental aspects of managing a business, ranging from strategic decision-making to the day-to-day operations. The dynamic nature of business requires a comprehensive approach to management, where these elements work in harmony to create a resilient and adaptive business model.

1. Strategic Planning

Strategic planning involves setting goals and mapping out strategies to achieve them. It’s about understanding where the business is heading and the steps required to get there. This process ensures resources are correctly allocated, aligning day-to-day operations with long-term objectives.

Effective strategic planning not only guides a company’s trajectory but also provides benchmarks for measuring success, ensuring that the organization remains focused and on track towards achieving its goals.

2. Leadership And People Management

Leadership is about guiding and inspiring a team towards achieving business goals. It involves motivating employees, fostering a positive work culture , and managing team dynamics. Good leadership is characterized by strong communication, decision-making, and interpersonal skills. 

People management is equally important, focusing on the development and well-being of employees, ensuring they have the necessary tools and training to succeed in their roles.

3. Financial Management

Financial management is crucial for sustainable business growth. It involves budgeting, forecasting, and resource allocation. This element ensures the company has sufficient funds to operate and invest in growth opportunities.

Good financial management also involves analyzing financial data to make informed decisions, helping to maximize profits and maintain financial health.

4. Marketing And Sales

Marketing and sales are pivotal in creating value and generating revenue. Marketing focuses on understanding customer needs and communicating the value of products or services. Sales involve the direct interaction with customers to facilitate transactions.

Both require a deep understanding of market trends and customer preferences, essential for building brand awareness and driving growth.

5. Operations Management

Operations management ensures business processes are efficient and effective. It involves managing the production process and optimizing the use of resources to create goods or services.

This element is key to operational efficiency, quality control, cost reduction, and profitability enhancement.

6. Technology Management

Technology management is about effectively integrating technology into business operations. It involves staying updated with technological advancements and managing digital transformations.

Effective technology management enhances operational efficiency, fosters innovation, and provides a competitive edge in the market.

7. Risk Management And Compliance

Risk management involves identifying and mitigating business risks, while compliance ensures adherence to laws and regulations. These aspects are crucial for the company’s longevity and legal integrity.

Effective risk management and compliance protect against financial losses, legal penalties, and reputational damage, ensuring business resilience in complex environments.

5 Challenges Of Business Management And How To Overcome Them

Business management is akin to navigating a complex maze. With ever-evolving market dynamics, technology advancements, and organizational needs, the challenges can seem labyrinthine.

But fear not! By identifying and understanding these hurdles, businesses can develop strategies to overcome them. Let’s explore some of the most common challenges faced in business management and how to tackle them effectively.

1. Effective Resource Allocation

One of the primary challenges in business management is the efficient allocation and utilization of resources. This includes not just financial resources, but also human capital and technological assets. Inefficient resource allocation can lead to financial strain, reduced productivity, and ultimately, a decline in business growth.

To overcome this, businesses need to develop robust resource management strategies. This involves thorough planning, budgeting, and forecasting. Utilizing tools for resource management and employing data-driven decision-making can greatly enhance the effectiveness of resource allocation, leading to optimized operations and improved financial health.

2. Adapting To Market Changes

Staying abreast of market changes is crucial. Companies must be agile enough to respond to evolving customer needs, technological advancements, and competitive landscapes. Failure to adapt can result in lost market share and diminished relevance.

To combat this, continuous market analysis and trend monitoring are essential. Encouraging a culture of innovation within the organization can foster adaptability. Regular training and development programs for employees can also equip them with the skills needed to embrace and drive change, ensuring the business remains competitive and forward-thinking.

3. Balancing Short-Term And Long-Term Objectives

Another significant challenge is balancing short-term operational needs with long-term strategic goals. Focusing too much on immediate results can jeopardize future growth, while only concentrating on long-term objectives can lead to current performance issues.

Instead, businesses should adopt a dual-focused approach. This involves setting clear short-term targets that align with the broader long-term vision. Regularly reviewing and adjusting business strategies and operations to ensure they are in sync with both immediate and future objectives can help maintain this balance, driving sustainable growth and success.

4. Fostering A Positive Corporate Culture

Creating and maintaining a positive corporate culture is a significant challenge in business management. A toxic culture can lead to employee dissatisfaction, high turnover rates, and ultimately, a decline in productivity and profitability. The challenge lies in building a culture that aligns with the company’s values and objectives while supporting employee well-being and engagement.

To combat this, it’s important to prioritize communication and transparency within the organization. Regular feedback mechanisms , employee recognition programs, and opportunities for professional development can help foster a positive culture. Additionally, ensuring a work-life balance and providing support for mental health can significantly enhance the overall corporate culture.

5. Navigating Financial Management And Budgeting

Financial management and budgeting are crucial yet challenging aspects of business management. Mismanagement of finances can lead to cash flow problems, inability to fund operations or growth, and could even risk the business’s survival. The key challenge lies in predicting market trends, managing expenses, and generating sufficient revenue.

Effective financial management requires a detailed understanding of the business’s financial health. Regular financial reporting, budget reviews, and cash flow analysis are essential. Utilizing financial management software can provide valuable insights into financial trends and help in making informed decisions .

Key Takeaways For Forward-Thinking Business Management

Navigating the realm of business management requires a keen understanding of its core principles and the agility to tackle its inherent challenges. This guide was crafted to equip you with the insights and strategies essential for steering your business through the complexities of today’s dynamic marketplace. From the precision of strategic planning to the nuances of financial management and the vitality of a positive company culture, we’ve covered the key areas to help you optimize operations and foster growth.

In the fast-paced world of business, staying adaptable and committed to continuous learning are your greatest assets. Approach each obstacle as an opportunity for innovation and growth, maintaining a focus on your long-term vision while nimbly adjusting to immediate demands. With a foundation built on solid management principles and an eye towards future trends, you’re ready to lead your business with confidence and creativity, driving it towards lasting success.

Unlocking Excellence In Business Management With Top-Tier Talent

Are you aiming to elevate your business management strategies? Persona’s elite talent team is ready to propel your operations forward. With a meticulous selection process, we ensure that only the most skilled individuals join our ranks, guaranteeing a mere 0.1% acceptance rate. This elite cadre of professionals excels in writing, communication, problem-solving, and reliability, making them a perfect match for the demanding world of business management.

By leveraging our unique behavioral assessment software, we’re not just guessing at potential—we’re scientifically predicting success. Our commitment to excellence has garnered the trust of leading brands and companies, validating our approach to redefining the hiring landscape.

Engaging with Persona allows you to delegate critical business management tasks to our highly qualified professionals. This partnership enables you and your team to concentrate on leveraging your unique skills and resources to advance other vital aspects of your business. In doing so, you can achieve more with less, optimizing your operations for peak efficiency and growth.

Our talent can help you:

• Streamline operational processes and systems for improved efficiency
• Enhance communication strategies within and outside your organization
• Develop and implement problem-solving frameworks to tackle business challenges
• Build and maintain reliable workflows for project and task management
• Optimize your business model for sustainability and scalability
• Facilitate strategic planning and execution to drive business growth

Don’t let the complexities of business management impede your progress. Allow Persona’s top-tier talent to bolster your efforts, paving the way for unparalleled success. To discover how we can support your business management initiatives and help you achieve your objectives, reach out to us today.

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Business management is the process of planning, organizing, and controlling a company’s operations, resources, and personnel to achieve its goals efficiently. It involves crucial functions like strategic planning, organizing resources, leading teams, and controlling operations. Business managers make decisions about finances, marketing, HR, technology, and more to guide the organization’s strategy and optimize performance.

Effective business management is essential for organizations of all types to organize activities in an efficient way that promotes growth and success.

Dive in to learn more about the key elements, types, styles, and career opportunities in this dynamic field.

What is Business Management?

Effective business management requires strong leadership abilities, problem-solving skills, and communication expertise. Managers must be able to adapt to evolving conditions inside and outside the organization over time. They carry responsibility for critical choices that impact budgets, processes, staffing, and infrastructure in order to meet objectives.

While technical expertise in a field is important, managers must also utilize ‘soft skills’ to resolve conflicts, connect with staff, and foster a positive culture.

Business management is essential for organizations of all types to organize activities in an efficient way that promotes growth and success.

Key Elements of Business Management

The main functions of business management include planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

• Planning involves establishing goals and strategies to achieve them through strategic, tactical, and operational plans.
• Organizing structures tasks, teams, roles, and responsibilities to execute plans.
• Leading refers to guiding teams by communicating vision, motivating, directing, coaching, and supporting employees using interpersonal skills to rally and inspire.
• Controlling oversees operations, monitors progress, evaluates performance to reach goals, and takes corrective actions when needed.

Let’s break each function in more detail-

Planning involves setting goals, creating strategies to achieve them, and allocating resources. It is done at multiple levels – strategic (long-term, big-picture), tactical (mid-range objectives), and operational (day-to-day activities). Good plans consider challenges, opportunities, timelines, and budgets. Planning works best when managers collaborate with employees in strategy development.

Organizing structures and available resources to accomplish plans. It involves assigning tasks, setting authority levels, and coordinating teams and departments. As businesses change, organizing must be adjusted – adding staff, realigning departments, and updating processes. Effective organizing facilitates communication and collaboration for efficient operations.

Leading refers to managing people – motivating, directing, and communicating with employees. Good leadership provides vision, clarity, support, and empowerment to teams. Leading utilizes various interpersonal skills to bring out the best in people. Different situations call for different leadership approaches – directing, coaching, supporting, or delegating.

Controlling

Controlling oversees operations to ensure goals are met as planned . It monitors performance, budgets, and deadlines and makes corrections when needed – addressing underperforming staff or reallocating resources. Controlling measures progress analytically against standards and takes preventative or corrective action. Record-keeping and reporting provide data to inform operational improvements.

How Does Business Management Work?

Here is an example of walking through the four management functions in a real-life scenario:

• Step 1: Planning

A retail clothing store manager does sales forecasting and sets a goal to increase revenue by 10% this year. She plans to open an e-commerce store and add new product lines to accomplish this.

• Step 2: Organizing

The manager structures her staff by hiring a web developer to create the e-commerce site, assigning sales associates to manage the new products, and expanding the marketing team to promote the website and new merchandise.

• Step 3: Leading

The manager rallies her department heads, providing clarity on the growth vision and new sales objectives. She oversees training on the new processes and technology, motivating teams to drive success.

• Step 4: Controlling

The manager tracks daily sales figures, web traffic, and inventory levels. When some new products underperform, she makes pricing adjustments and shifts marketing budgets to better-performing areas. By correcting course as needed, the overall year-end revenue goal is achieved.

This example shows how the management functions might progress in a typical business scenario – planning the growth goal, organizing staff and resources to support it, leading teams during the transition, and controlling operations to stay on track. The linkage of strategy across the functions illustrates the integrated nature of management.

Business management is applicable to various types of organizations, including corporations, small businesses, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. Managers at different levels, such as top-level executives, middle managers, and supervisors, oversee different aspects of the business and ensure its success.

Now, let’s find out different business types with their definitions.

Business Management Definition by Business Types

Although the core management fundamentals remain almost the same for all types of business, their definitions vary a little due to their different operational dissimilarities.

What is Global Business Management?

Global business management refers to overseeing international company operations across multiple countries, adapting strategy and functions like marketing, supply chains, and human resources to diverse cultures, policies, and regulations.

What is International Business Management?

International business management involves leading organizational strategy, functions, and resource allocation for operations spanning multiple countries. It requires adapting to different cultures, laws, markets, and trade policies.

What is Small Business Management?

Small business management refers to the oversight of operations, budgets, personnel, and growth strategy for businesses with just a few employees filling core roles in a cost-efficient way.

What is Drug Store Business Management?

Drug store business management encompasses the leadership and coordination of retail pharmacy and convenience store locations, focusing on regional expansion, inventory and supply chains, and delivering health products.

What is Agriculture Business Management?

Agriculture business management deals with the oversight of farming operations from cultivation to distribution, managing crop cycles, machinery, storage, and sales channels, and responding to policy, regulations, and climate factors.

What is Sports Business Management?

Sports business management involves directing strategy for sports teams, leagues, media partnerships, events, facilities, and merchandise, applying business principles while balancing fan engagement and competitive success.

What is Farm Business Management?

Farm business management focuses on planning, budgeting, account management, and long-term improvements for agricultural operations, overseeing livestock, equipment, crop cultivation, staff, and regulatory compliance.

What is General Business Management?

General business management refers to the broad administration of an organization’s operations, resources, budgets, and personnel to ensure coordination across departments and progress toward the company’s objectives.

After understanding different business management types, it’s crucial to recognize its significance within an organization.

Importance of Business Management

Business management is important for a company’s smooth operation and success. It provides planning, organization, and control that ensures efficient workflows, clear communication, and well-defined processes. This leads to improved productivity and reduced wasted resources.

Furthermore, business management supplies direction and guidance to motivate employees, align activities with organizational strategy, and adapt to changing environments. Without proper management, companies would struggle to function, achieve goals, or remain competitive in dynamic markets.

Benefits of Proper Business Management

The benefits of business management are the tangible improvements and gains companies experience from effective management practices. This includes increased profitability since streamlining operations and better financial decisions lead to higher profits. It also includes improved efficiency as organized workflows and clear communication increase productivity and reduce wasted resources.

Additionally, business management enhances employee satisfaction through positive culture and growth opportunities, creating a happier and more motivated workforce.

In summary, the key benefits are improved finances, productivity, and workforce engagement – all contributing to success. Proper business management directly creates these advantageous outcomes.

• Enhanced Efficiency: Proper business management ensures streamlined operations, optimized processes, and effective resource allocation, leading to improved efficiency and productivity.
• Effective Decision-Making: With sound business management practices in place, leaders can make informed decisions based on accurate data, market insights, and strategic analysis, resulting in better outcomes.
• Organizational Alignment: Proper business management fosters alignment between goals, strategies, and actions across different departments, ensuring everyone is working towards a shared vision.
• Adaptability and Resilience: Effective management equips businesses to navigate challenges and changes in the market by fostering adaptability, resilience, and the ability to seize opportunities.
• Improved Financial Performance: Strong business management practices enable effective financial planning, budgeting, and cost control, leading to improved profitability and financial stability.
• Employee Engagement and Retention: Proper management creates a positive work environment, fosters employee engagement, recognizes talent, and promotes professional growth, resulting in higher job satisfaction and employee retention.
• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty: Through efficient management, businesses can consistently deliver high-quality products and services, resulting in increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and positive brand reputation.
• Innovation and Growth: Effective management encourages a culture of innovation, fosters creativity, and nurtures entrepreneurial thinking, enabling businesses to drive growth and stay ahead of the competition.
• Risk Mitigation: Proper management practices include risk assessment, mitigation strategies, and contingency planning, minimizing potential threats and ensuring business continuity.
• Sustainable Success: By implementing proper business management, organizations can achieve long-term success, sustainable growth, and a solid foundation for future expansion and development.

Business management encompasses various approaches and methodologies tailored to different organizational needs. Let’s explore some common types of business management with examples.

Types of Business Management With Examples

There are various types of business management approaches that organizations adopt based on their goals, industry, and internal dynamics. Here are some commonly recognized types of business management:

Financial Management

Financial management encompasses activities related to managing the organization’s financial resources. It includes budgeting, financial planning, investment decisions , and financial analysis to ensure financial stability and growth.

Example: The CFO oversees the budgeting, planning, reporting, and analysis of all financial data to manage profits, cash flow, and growth opportunities.

Marketing Management

Marketing management focuses on promoting products or services, identifying target markets, and building strong customer relationships. It involves market research, branding, advertising, pricing, and developing marketing strategies to drive sales and customer loyalty.

Example: The VP of Marketing sets branding guidelines, manages advertising campaigns, analyzes customer data, and oversees social media to build brand awareness and loyalty.

Sales Management

Sales management is about driving an organization’s sales activities and overseeing the sales team. This involves recruiting and training salespeople, establishing sales targets and quotas, analyzing sales data, and implementing sales strategies to boost revenue. It also includes motivating and supporting sales reps, planning sales operations, and forecasting future sales.

Example: The Sales VP monitors rep performance metrics, designs sales incentive programs, analyzes trends, and adjusts regional targets to motivate the team to drive revenues.

Human Resource Management

Human resource management involves managing the organization’s workforce. It includes tasks such as recruitment, training, performance management, employee relations, and creating a positive work culture.

Example: The HR department leads recruiting, onboarding, training, payroll and maintaining workplace culture to acquire and retain talented staff across the organization.

Strategic Management

This type of management focuses on long-term planning and setting the overall direction of the organization. It involves analyzing the competitive landscape, identifying opportunities, and developing strategies to achieve sustainable growth and competitive advantage.

Example: The CEO defines long-term goals, and analyzes trends and industry shifts to identify growth opportunities to gain competitive advantage.

Production Management

Production management focuses on the operation and control of manufacturing processes that convert raw materials into finished goods. This involves planning, scheduling, supervising, storing, and controlling materials, inventory, machines, and production activities to ensure efficient workflow and optimal resource utilization.

Example: The VP of Manufacturing oversees factory workflow, machinery, quality control, supply chain coordination, and labor cost analysis to optimize the fabrication of private label products.

Service Management

Service management involves coordinating and overseeing various interconnected activities that comprise a service. This requires conceptualizing, designing, delivering, supporting, and improving end-to-end services to ensure seamless customer experiences and meet business objectives.

Example: The Customer Service department designs help desk systems, product return processes, and loyalty programs to ensure seamless, positive customer experiences.

IT Management

IT management deals with all technology resources and activities within an organization. This covers planning, coordinating, controlling, and leading the acquisition, development, maintenance, and use of information technology tools to achieve business goals and gain a competitive advantage.

Incident response planning is another crucial aspect of IT management. Developing a comprehensive incident response strategy ensures swift and effective action when security breaches occur, minimizing potential damage and downtime.

Example: The CIO oversees software development, cybersecurity measures, data storage systems, and tech support to leverage technology to enhance productivity and data safety.

Project Management

Project management focuses on leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within given constraints like scope, time, and budget. This involves planning project activities, securing resources, delegating tasks, monitoring progress, overseeing quality, mitigating risks, and completing deliverables according to plan.

Example: The PMO utilizes tools like Gantt charts, risk registers, and status reports to plan and execute initiatives like new store openings within budget and designated timelines.

Risk Management

Risk management involves identifying, assessing, and prioritizing risks to minimize, monitor, and control the probability or impact of unfortunate events. This requires analyzing exposures, implementing risk control strategies, and specifying resources to provide reasonable assurance for achieving objectives.

Example: The Risk Manager oversees policy compliance, audits processes, assesses systems, and develops contingency plans to mitigate brand, legal, and data vulnerabilities.

Change Management

Change management refers to the process of managing change to achieve a desired outcome. It involves establishing strategies and plans, communicating shifts in policy or procedure, securing stakeholder commitment, providing training, reinforcing changes, and evaluating progress for long-term change optimization.

Example: The Change Management Lead clearly communicates upcoming initiatives, trains staff on new systems, and regularly follows up to ensure workplace changes are adopted smoothly.

Environmental Management

Environmental management deals with the impacts of human activities on the environment through sustainable practices. This involves establishing policies, setting targets, implementing programs, monitoring progress, and fostering continuous improvement to mitigate ecological issues and keep environmental impacts under control.

Example: The Sustainability Lead tracks energy usage, waste production, packaging, and recycling to minimize ecological footprint through LEED certified buildings and renewable energy.

Procurement Management

Procurement management focuses on acquiring goods, services, or works from external sources. This involves procurement planning, vendor selection, contract management, purchasing, inventory management, and performing quality assurance to obtain the best value when outsourcing expertise or buying raw materials.

Example: The Sourcing Manager vets suppliers, negotiates contracts, oversees purchase order systems, and manages inventory to acquire quality materials and services at optimal cost.

Community Management

Community management entails building, nurturing, and managing an online community to facilitate connections. This involves establishing guidelines, encouraging participation, mediating interactions, sharing relevant content, providing support, and analyzing data to create a welcoming space for collaboration or discussion.

Example: The Community Manager fosters customer engagement by moderating discussion forums and social media, sharing special offers and surveys, and monitoring feedback to understand customer needs.

Operations Management

Operations management focuses on the efficient production and delivery of goods and services. It involves optimizing processes, managing resources, and ensuring smooth operations to meet customer demands while minimizing costs.

Example: The COO analyzes supply chain bottlenecks, production capacity, inventory levels, and distribution networks to ensure efficient, on-time delivery of products to stores and customers.

These are just a few examples, and it’s important to note that different organizations may combine or adapt these management approaches based on their unique needs and circumstances.

Effective business management requires a systematic and structured approach to coordinate and align various organizational components.

Business Management System

A business management system refers to a set of processes, tools, and practices designed to streamline and optimize various aspects of business operations. It provides a structured framework for managing different functions and helps organizations achieve their goals efficiently. 

According to a report by Forbes , a whopping 54% of enterprises acknowledged the indispensable role of cloud-based Business Intelligence (BI) in both their present operations and future initiatives. It highlights the growing recognition among organizations of the immense value that cloud-based BI brings to the table.

Here are some key components of a business management system:

Standardized Processes

A business management system establishes standardized processes across the organization, ensuring consistency and efficiency in operations. This includes defining workflows, documenting procedures, and implementing best practices.

Performance Measurement

It involves implementing performance metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure progress toward goals, track performance, and identify areas for improvement.

Quality Management

Quality management systems are an integral part of a business management system, ensuring that products or services meet customer requirements and comply with industry standards. This includes implementing quality control measures, conducting audits, and continuously improving processes.

A business management system incorporates risk management practices to identify and mitigate potential risks that could impact the organization’s performance or reputation. This includes risk assessment, contingency planning, and implementing controls to minimize risks.

Document Control

Document control ensures the proper management of important documents and records within the organization. This includes version control, document storage, retrieval processes, and adherence to regulatory requirements.

Continuous Improvement

A business management system promotes a culture of continuous improvement by encouraging feedback, conducting regular evaluations, and implementing strategies to enhance processes and performance.

Technology Integration

Many business management systems leverage technology to automate processes , improve efficiency, and enable better data management and analysis. This can involve using software applications, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, or customer relationship management (CRM) tools.

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The specific components and structure of a business management system can vary depending on the organization’s size, industry, and specific requirements. It provides a comprehensive framework for managing the organization’s operations effectively, improving performance, and driving overall success.

Managers can adopt different leadership styles and approaches to business management, each with its own advantages and considerations.

Different Business Management Styles: The Way to Do Business

Business management styles refer to how managers lead their teams. There are many types, like autocratic (the boss makes all decisions), democratic (the team provides input), laissez-faire (hands off), coaching (focused on development), etc. Each has pros and cons. Effective managers adapt their style to the situation and needs of their team in order to set clear expectations, encourage participation and growth, and ultimately drive results.

The best managers balance guidance with autonomy and care about both short-term outputs and long-term outcomes.

Here are some common management styles:

Autocratic management style follows a top-down approach, with one-way communication from bosses to employees. Managers make all decisions without input from staff. Employees are treated as drones and monitored closely within defined roles. Staff cannot question or improve processes.

Best for: Crisis situations and industries like manufacturing where quick decisions and consistency are crucial.

Not suitable for: Creative fields or companies focused on innovation, as it stifles new ideas.

• Pros: Fast decisions, clear expectations
• Cons: Lack of engagement and innovation, high turnover

Authoritative

In the authoritative management style, managers dictate what subordinates must do and punish noncompliance. Employees must follow orders without questioning authority or deviating from set procedures. Managers closely micromanage staff, believing that without supervision employees will not succeed.

Best for: Unskilled workers who require structure and direct supervision.

Not Suitable for: Knowledge workers, creative roles, or cultures valuing collaboration, as it kills morale and innovation.

• Pros: Clear expectations
• Cons: Poor morale, high turnover, lack of creativity

The persuasive management style involves managers using persuasive skills to convince staff that the unilateral decisions implemented are for the team/company’s good. Managers invite questions and explain the rationale behind policies. This can increase trust and make employees feel more valued in key decisions.

Best for: Inexperienced teams requiring direction from an expert manager with more knowledge.

Not Suitable for: Experienced teams where the manager should collaborate rather than persuade top-down.

• Pros: Higher trust, easier acceptance of decisions
• Cons: Lack of input can still frustrate employees

Paternalistic

In the paternalistic style, managers make unilateral decisions but explain they are acting from a place of expertise and legitimacy. Decisions are explained to staff but without collaboration or questioning. Managers focus on employee welfare, basing choices on what is best for their team.

Best for: Small, family-oriented cultures already embracing the “company as family” mentality.

Not Suitable for: Large or modern organizations with an egalitarian, performance-driven culture.

• Pros: Focus on employee well-being
• Cons: Overly dependent employees, potential resentment

Democratic managers encourage employees to provide input in decision-making, but ultimately the manager decides. Communication goes both top-down and bottom-up. Diverse opinions and ideas inform decisions and increase team cohesion.

Best for: Teams and cultures that value collaboration, diverse perspectives, and empowerment.

Not Suitable for: Environments requiring quick unilateral decisions like emergency services.

• Pros: Increased engagement, creativity, innovation
• Cons: Slow decision-making process

Consultative

Consultative managers ask for the team’s opinions and thoughts, consulting every member’s viewpoint. The manager makes the final decision but considers all information from staff first. This builds trust and helps management grow by learning from employees.

Best for: Experts managing specialized teams to tap insights.

Not Suitable for: Inexperienced managers or tactical execution-focused teams.

• Pros: Builds trust, and upskills managers
• Cons: Time intensive, perceived favoritism

Participative

In participative management, managers and staff are active in the decision process. Staff access more company information and are pushed to innovate solutions. Management seeks opinions, co-decides with staff, and the company acts.

Best for: Change management and driving innovation by aligning staff with company goals.

Not Suitable for: Hierarchical cultures or industries unable to share information widely.

• Pros: Increased engagement and motivation
• Cons: Slow, risks of sharing sensitive info

Collaborative

Collaborative managers create open forums for extensive discussion before deciding based on majority rule. The staff takes ownership of outcomes, increasing engagement, innovation, and creativity.

Best for: Organizations focused on creativity, problem-solving, and employee engagement as strategic priorities.

Not Suitable for: Results-driven cultures with tight deadlines needing decision efficiency.

• Pros: High engagement and creativity
• Cons: Time-consuming, majority rules aren’t always best

Transformational

Transformational managers focus on pushing staff to greater accomplishments through encouragement and motivation. Managers inspire performance by demonstrating a strong work ethic themselves. Innovation and adaptability are increased.

Best for: Startups and companies in fast-changing industries like tech that need constant innovation.

Not Suitable for: Established companies focused on consistent execution of an existing business model.

• Pros: Innovation and adaptation
• Cons: Risk of burnout

In the coaching style, managers see themselves as coaches and employees as their team. Their focus is employees’ development, putting professional growth first. They prioritize long-term development over short-term failures, promoting upskilling and learning.

Best for: Roles focused on developing talents like HR and L&D managers.

Not Suitable for: Operations or sales managers who need to prioritize short-term results.

• Pros: Engaged, valued employees
• Cons: Toxic environments, short-term projects suffer

Laissez-faire

Laissez-faire managers take a hands-off approach. Staff is trusted to work without supervision and control decisions. Managers assign work and review final outcomes but otherwise remain uninvolved unless staff requests help.

Best for: Self-motivated and autonomous teams of experts.

Not Suitable for: Junior team members who require more hands-on training, support, and oversight.

• Pros: Innovation and autonomy
• Cons: Lack of productivity and direction

Delegative managers assign tasks and then empower staff to complete work as they see fit. Managers review work after completion and give advice for improvement but otherwise remain uninvolved throughout the process.

Best for: Decentralized organizations with employees more expert than managers.

Not Suitable for: Tactical teams in need of consistent guidelines and synchronization.

• Pros: Creativity and problem-solving
• Cons: Lack of uniformity and resentment

Visionary managers lead by inspiring staff towards their vision. After explaining goals and the reasons behind them, managers allow freedom to achieve tasks with minimal involvement, just periodic check-ins. Lots of feedback and praise is provided.

Best for: Purpose-driven organizations like non-profits with inspired cultures.

Not Suitable for: Numbers-focused companies where inspiration matters less than concrete results.

• Pros: Engagement and satisfaction
• Cons: Hard to fake inspiration

Regardless of the management style, Onethread can empower managers and teams. Its features like role-based permissions , task delegation , and progress tracking can support different leadership approaches while ensuring clear communication, accountability, and alignment with overall goals.

Now, let’s find out some great business management strategies for successful management implementation.

Different Business Management Strategies

The following tactics are proven and can make your management process way smoother if implemented properly.

1. Foster Organizational Success through Cross-Departmental Employee Engagement

Engaging team members from every department is crucial for success. A motivated, enthusiastic workforce helps achieve business goals better than disengaged employees just working for a paycheck. Engaged employees feel valued and are driven to contribute more.

Foster cross-departmental collaboration and engagement through Onethread’s centralized platform. Team members from all departments can easily share information, collaborate on projects, and stay up-to-date on progress, leading to a more cohesive and successful organization.

2. Leverage Employee Recognition and Rewards to Drive Performance

Recognizing and rewarding employees who contribute to business growth boosts their motivation. Rewards can be praise, small gifts, bonuses, etc. Appreciated employees feel valued, impacting others positively. Money can’t replace the feeling of being recognized.

Track employee contributions and achievements within Onethread. This allows for timely recognition and reward distribution, further boosting employee morale and motivation, and ultimately driving performance.

3. Foster Trusted Leadership through Open Manager-Employee Relationships

Closed-off managers struggle to build team trust. Being open and sharing ideas on business direction makes employees feel trusted, boosting morale. An unapproachable boss negatively impacts productivity and the company’s future.

Onethread’s communication features like task comments and discussions can foster open communication and information sharing between managers and employees. This transparency builds trust and strengthens relationships within the team.

4. Maintain a Competitive Edge by Rapidly Implementing Innovative Technologies

Quickly adapting to the latest industry technologies shows customers and employees the business’s commitment to progress. Having user-friendly digital channels allows serving customers anytime. To stay ahead, managers must adopt cutting-edge tech tools.

Onethread itself is an innovative project management solution that can help organizations streamline processes, improve collaboration, and boost efficiency. By adopting Onethread, businesses can demonstrate their commitment to progress and stay ahead of the curve.

5. Improve Organizational Alignment through Managerial Vision Clarity

Many businesses fail due to managers lacking clarity on the company’s vision, mission, and how to achieve goals. Organizations should ensure managers understand the company’s purpose, current priorities, and individual responsibilities for cohesive goal alignment.

Onethread’s project management tools can help translate the company’s vision and goals into actionable plans and tasks. This improves understanding and alignment among all levels of the organization, leading to more focused and effective efforts toward achieving goals.

While the specific practices may vary across industries and organizations, there are certain widely accepted best practices that can contribute to effective business management.

Best Business Management Practices

While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to the best business management tactics, here are some widely recognized strategies that can contribute to effective management:

Effective Communication

Clear and open communication is essential for successful management. Managers should listen actively, provide feedback, and ensure that information flows smoothly throughout the organization.

Onethread facilitates clear and open communication through various features like task comments and discussions. This empowers team members to stay informed, share ideas, and collaborate effectively, fostering a culture of transparency and open communication.

Goal Setting

Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART), goals help align efforts and provide a clear sense of direction. Managers should involve employees in the goal-setting process to foster ownership and commitment.

To address this challenge, organizations should assist their employees in grasping several fundamental concepts:

• Purpose: Why does the organization exist?
• Core Activities: What does the organization do?
• Priorities: What is the most important focus at present?
• Roles and Responsibilities: Who is responsible for what?

By answering these questions, business managers gain a clear understanding of the company’s vision, mission, and values.

Business managers play a pivotal role in facilitating the growth and goal attainment of an organization. They employ various strategies and tactics to drive progress and achieve desired outcomes.

Delegating tasks and responsibilities empowers employees, builds their skills, and frees up time for managers to focus on strategic initiatives. Effective delegation involves matching tasks with employees’ strengths and providing necessary support.

Onethread’s task management features allow managers to easily assign tasks, set deadlines , track progress, and provide feedback . This empowers employees to take ownership and accountability while freeing up managers’ time for strategic thinking and planning.

Performance Management

Establishing performance metrics, conducting regular evaluations, and providing constructive feedback helps employees understand expectations and continuously improve their performance.

Continuous Learning and Development

Encouraging learning opportunities, training programs, and professional development initiatives ensures that employees and managers stay updated with industry trends and enhance their skills.

Team Building

Building strong, cohesive teams promotes collaboration, boosts morale, and improves overall performance. Managers can facilitate team-building activities, encourage open communication, and foster a positive work environment.

Adaptability and Innovation

Business environments are dynamic, and managers should embrace change and encourage a culture of innovation. They should be open to new ideas, promote creative thinking, and adapt strategies as needed.

For those interested in pursuing a career in this field, understanding the key skills and responsibilities associated with business management roles is essential.

Career in Business Management

Business management is a broad field that offers a diverse range of career opportunities across various industries. With a degree in business management, you can pursue roles such as client services manager, sales representative, project manager, office manager, human resources manager, business manager, community manager, staff accountant, marketing manager, logistics manager, account executive, data analyst, business consultant, management analyst, development director, and director of operations.

Here’s a table that outlines the roles, their primary responsibilities, and their estimated annual salary-

These are just some of the career paths you can choose from in business management. There are countless other options available as well for eligible business managers.

Who is A Business Manager?

A business manager is an individual responsible for overseeing and coordinating various aspects of a business to ensure its smooth operation and success. They play a crucial role in managing resources, making strategic decisions, and leading teams to achieve organizational goals.

The specific responsibilities and duties of a business manager can vary depending on the size and nature of the organization. In smaller businesses, a business manager may be involved in a wide range of activities, while in larger organizations, their role may be more specialized.

Top 10 Skills Every Business Manager Should Have

Being a successful business manager requires a diverse set of skills to effectively navigate the complexities of the role. Here are some key skills that every business manager should possess:

A business manager should have strong leadership skills to inspire and motivate their team. They should be able to set a clear vision, provide guidance, delegate tasks, and foster a positive work environment.

Communication

Effective communication is crucial for a business manager to convey ideas, expectations, and goals clearly to their team. They should be skilled at active listening, providing feedback, resolving conflicts, and presenting information in a compelling manner.

According to the connected culture report by RingCentral , a staggering 71% of employees experience a heightened sense of productivity when they establish strong connections and foster meaningful relationships with their colleagues. 

This statistic underscores the significant impact that a well-connected work environment can have on individual performance and overall team dynamics. So, a business manager must have proper communication with on and off sites.

Strategic Thinking

Business managers need to think strategically to set long-term goals, identify opportunities, and develop plans to achieve organizational objectives. They should be able to analyze market trends, evaluate risks, and make informed decisions that align with the organization’s vision.

Problem-solving

As a business manager, encountering challenges is inevitable. Strong problem-solving skills are essential to identify issues, analyze root causes, and develop creative solutions. They should be adept at critical thinking, decision-making, and managing crises effectively.

Understanding financial principles and practices is crucial for a business manager. They should possess knowledge of budgeting, financial analysis, and forecasting to make informed decisions and ensure the organization’s financial stability.

Adaptability

The business landscape is dynamic, and managers must be adaptable to changing circumstances. They should be open to new ideas, embrace innovation, and be willing to adjust strategies and plans as needed.

Organizational Skills

Business managers need excellent organizational skills to manage their own time effectively and prioritize tasks. They should be able to coordinate and delegate work, set deadlines, and ensure the smooth operation of processes and projects.

Building and nurturing a strong team is crucial for a business manager. They should be skilled in recruiting, training, and developing employees. They should also foster a collaborative work environment, promote diversity and inclusion, and encourage teamwork and synergy.

Emotional Intelligence

A business manager should possess the emotional intelligence to understand and manage their own emotions and those of their team members. This skill helps in building strong relationships, resolving conflicts, and promoting a positive work culture.

Continuous Learning

The business landscape is constantly evolving, and successful managers should have a thirst for learning. They should stay updated on industry trends, seek professional development opportunities, and encourage a learning culture within their team.

When honed and applied effectively, these skills can empower business managers to lead their teams, drive success, and achieve sustainable growth for their organizations.

Although the terms “business administration” and “business management” are often used interchangeably, there are distinct differences between the two roles and responsibilities.

Business Administration vs Business Management

Business administration focuses on the day-to-day operations and technical aspects of running a business, like accounting, finance, marketing, and logistics. Business management, in contrast, concentrates more on big-picture leadership and strategy, as well as organizing teams and resources to accomplish goals.

While administration handles practical execution, management oversees planning, communication, and high-level decision-making.

Here is a comprehensive comparison between business management and business administration:

The main differences lie in the focus of each degree – business management concentrates more on leading and organizing people and resources, while business administration provides specialized knowledge in a particular area like accounting or marketing.

Both prepare students for leadership roles, but business managers focus on high-level strategy while administrators handle operational details.

Now, let’s find out how business administration and management differ in different areas in more detail.

Business Management degrees focus more on leadership skills like communicating vision, managing teams, and organizational strategy. Business administration programs, in contrast, specialize earlier in functional areas like marketing, finance, HR, etc.

Administration students take advanced courses in their concentration while management students emphasize leadership theories, HR management, and operations.

Typical business management careers include executive roles like operations, financial, and management analysts directing strategy. On the other hand, typical business administration careers involve specialized functions like marketing analysis, accounting, and HR coordination.

Typical business management careers:

• Operations Manager
• Management Analyst
• Financial Reporting Manager
• Executive roles directing Strategy, etc.

Typical business administration careers:

• Marketing Analyst
• Human Resource Coordinators
• Specialized functional roles, etc.

Business managers need abilities in motivating and delegating to teams, thinking innovatively, and seeing the big picture. Administrators, in comparison, are more analytical, handle details and specialized tasks, and adapt to rapid change.

Business managers need skills like:

• Motivating and delegating
• Thinking innovatively
• Seeing the big picture
• Strategic planning
• Decision-making authority, etc.

Administrators need skills like:

• Data analysis
• Tracking details
• Methodical execution
• Technical specialization
• Rapid problem-solving
• Adaptability, etc.

In the workplace, business managers focus more on influential leadership positions guiding strategy and company vision. On the contrary, business administrators handle essential specialized operations like accounting, logistics, marketing, and data analysis.

Business managers focus on:

• Influential leadership
• Guiding strategy
• Company vision
• High-level decisions, etc.

Administrators handle:

• Data/business analysis, etc.
• Day-to-day execution

Building upon the previous section, let’s further differentiate the roles of a business manager and a business administrator to clarify their distinct responsibilities.

Business Manager vs Business Administrator

Here’s a comparison table highlighting the key differences between a business manager and a business administrator:

While there may be some overlap in certain tasks and responsibilities, the main distinction lies in the focus and scope of their roles.

A business manager typically has a broader range of responsibilities and focuses on leading and driving the overall success of a business. 

They are involved in strategic planning, decision-making, resource management, and leading teams to achieve organizational goals. Examples of business manager roles include CEOs, General Managers, and Department Managers.

On the other hand, a business administrator plays a supportive role in the organization. They assist with administrative tasks to ensure the smooth operation of the business. 

This can involve tasks such as record-keeping, scheduling, coordinating meetings, and providing support to managers and departments. Business administrators often possess strong organizational and administrative skills. 

Examples of business administrator roles include Office Administrators, Executive Assistants, and Administrative Coordinators.

It’s important to note that the specific roles and responsibilities can vary based on the organization’s size, industry, and structure. Some smaller organizations may use the terms “business manager” and “business administrator” interchangeably or have hybrid roles that encompass both aspects.

Ultimately, while both roles contribute to the efficient functioning of a business, business managers focus more on strategic planning and leadership, while business administrators provide vital support in day-to-day operations and administrative tasks.

How can business management contribute to organizational growth?

Effective business management plays a crucial role in driving organizational growth by optimizing operations, maximizing resources, fostering innovation, and aligning strategies with market opportunities. It helps businesses adapt to changing conditions, improve efficiency, and make informed decisions to achieve sustainable growth.

What are common challenges in business management?

Common challenges in business management include competition, risk management, technology adaptation, employee engagement, market fluctuations, and financial stability. Effective strategies and continuous learning help address these challenges.

What are the career opportunities in business management?

Business management offers a wide range of career opportunities. Some common roles include business manager, project manager, operations manager, marketing manager, human resource manager, financial manager, and executive positions such as CEO or general manager. The specific career path depends on the individual’s skills, interests, and the industry they choose to work in.

Can business management principles be applied to different industries?

Yes, business management principles can be applied to different industries. While each industry may have its specific requirements and dynamics, fundamental management principles such as strategic planning, resource allocation, team management, and customer focus are universally applicable. Adaptation and customization based on industry-specific needs are necessary for successful implementation.

How does business management impact employee productivity and motivation?

Effective business management positively impacts productivity and motivation by providing clear expectations, meaningful work, a supportive environment, recognition and rewards, growth opportunities, and open communication. Strong leadership and performance management contribute to high employee engagement.

Business management encompasses a wide range of practices, strategies, and approaches aimed at achieving organizational goals and ensuring the success of a business. It involves effective leadership, strategic planning, resource management, and the ability to adapt to a changing business landscape.

By leveraging different management styles, adopting best practices, and implementing a well-designed business management system, organizations can enhance their operational efficiency, and employee productivity, and ultimately achieve sustainable growth and success in today’s competitive marketplace.

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Assignment on Business Management: Quick Guide

What is Business Management Assignment

College curriculums are loaded with unfamiliar subjects, and students often feel lost. The first assignments are usually the hardest to get done, and a little help would be nice. If you are a beginner facing this challenge and are asking all around 'what is business management' or how it differs from business administration, you have come to the right place. This quick guide will explain the basics of the management of business and will provide topics of business management essays.

To put it simply, business management is a process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the organizational resources to achieve the company's objectives. While business administration concentrates on the organization's day-to-day operations, business management focuses on the overall process.

Business management is vital for a successful business. A business manager's job is to make strategic decisions, allocate resources, hire the best employees, and ensure the company meets its business objectives.

A business management assignment helps students demonstrate their ability to apply theoretical knowledge to real scenarios and prepare them for future challenges. While the structure of the assignment is not foreign to experienced students, it covers a wide range of topics. It could involve operations management, financial and human resources management, organizational behavior, etc.

In the following chapters, you will find useful tips, a formal structure, and a general outline of a business management essay. Down below, there is a list of essay topics you could write a magnificent essay about. To clarify things, here is a business assignment sample essay. Our college essay writing services will provide a business essay crafted to meet the highest standards of your university.

How to Write a Business Assignment: Helpful Tips

Even though every essay structure and general outline resembles one another for each type, there are still many intricate details that you should consider when writing a business management assignment.

Let's move on to discuss constructing an impressive business paper without wasting time making mistakes. The following guide will save you the trouble of extensive research on how to polish an academic paper and help you reach the academic success you deserve.

If you don't have much free time on your hands, our exceptional custom essay writing service is also a great option. Let us know what is due, and we will deliver unforgettable reports on business management.

Choose Relevant Business Management Topics

Start by implementing a general to a specific approach. Think about the areas of your expertise and how it links with the business assignment. A topic you feel comfortable writing will help you construct a high-quality and meaningful research paper.

Writing about the topics of business you feel passionate about will make the process more engaging and enjoyable. Consider your audience, and make the topic meet their needs. This will help you write an informative and engaging paper. Be relevant. Stay up to date with trending topics of business management. Choose a topic about an important issue and provide new perspectives or even a solution. Filling in the existing gaps will help your essay stand out.

Narrowing down the scope is always a good idea. The specific topic will make your work more manageable and keep you focused. A broad topic is always difficult to cover, but narrowing it down too much can limit your research options. Thus, balance is the key!

Maintain Your Management Assignment Structure

Maintaining the structure of the assignment is crucial. Make sure to keep your ideas coherent and your essay easy to follow. Whether you are writing about international business management or organizational structure, the most important thing is simply communicating your ideas to the readers.

Start by following the course guideline. Make sure you understand every component. Usually, professors give out this kind of map to determine the structure, format, and length of the management of business assignments.

Before you start writing, create an outline. Organize your thoughts and ideas and stay on track. Use headings and subheadings to break up your assignment into sections. Start with a strong introduction and an easy-to-digest thesis statement. Follow it with comprehensive body paragraphs. Here you can provide your arguments, show other people's work, and communicate with the audience about the problems you've discovered. Use transitional sentences to connect your ideas and eventually to the bigger picture. Finally, write a powerful conclusion that ties everything up. Showcase your ability to link various arguments to one another.

Following our guidelines will bring clarity and coherence to your writing. Well-structured and easy-to-follow essays always get positive feedback from their readers.

Analyze Topics of Business, Don't Repeat

Analyzing business paper topics can get tricky, especially for beginners who have to develop their writing style. Chances are you will repeat the same argument several times to make it look more convincing. But answering the question 'what is business management' several times with different words will only make your paper look unprofessional.

It's tricky, but there are ways to avoid repeating the arguments. Do the prior research. Acquiring knowledge will expand your horizon, and you won't feel the need to repeat the same sentence couple of times. Create the general outline. Knowing the order of your essay elements will help you avoid restating the same information twice.

Besides the general outline, it's a good idea to list all the key points and prioritize them. This way, you will cover every important detail in your essay. Last but not least, consider alternative perspectives. If you incorporate opposing viewpoints, you will enrich the paper and show off your writing skill level.

Provide Rationale for Your Business Assignment

It is trivial, but for safety reasons, let's point out: an argument without supporting evidence is not valid. The same goes for the topics of business management essay. You must provide a rationale for every stage of the essay.

Being able to provide supporting evidence demonstrates strong research abilities. Writing a well-reasoned essay requires thorough research. Providing rationale and citing sources in the assignment shows that the writer has done their best. Besides looking professional, it will be easier to convince the reader about the credibility of your argument if they can see the reasoning behind it. If you can explain why you think what you think, it shows that you have considered opposing viewpoints. Critical thinking is one of the most important aspects of the writing process.

Writing essays about the management of business takes extensive research. If the deadline is too close and there is not enough time to master the art of writing, you can go to the website and check out our custom research papers writing service . Our team of professional writers is always here to help you.

Use Formal Language in Your Business Assignment

In business, academia, or any other professional setting, we use formal language. It strictly adheres to the rules of grammar, tone, and vocabulary.

Formal language helps to establish a professional tone in A management assignment which supports creating a positive impression on the reader. Using formal language also increases the clarity of the arguments. Formal language is more precise, which can help avoid ambiguity and confusion.

No matter which business management topic assignment you write, having a respectful relationship with your audience is crucial. Formal language and correctly chosen vocabulary can take you a long way. It shows respect to the reader and the topic also.

Thus, you must avoid using slang, vocabulary unsuitable for the audience, contractions, and other unprofessional language or tone forms. And if you are reading all these, you are thinking, 'why can't somebody else write an essay for me ,' visit our website, and your wish will become a reality in no time. Get top-notch essays tailored to your specific requirements.

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Business Management Topics

Mastering the art of constructing an impressive essay is only one-half of the job. First of all, you need an engaging topic. Our team has prepared a comprehensive list of business management topics to write about. From operations to business process management, explore a list of topics covering a wide range of fields, choose the one that excites you the most, and start implementing the freshly acquired knowledge.

International Business Management Topics

Our experienced writers have gathered the 20 most engaging topics about international business management. Explore the list and find the most attractive one:

• Exploring management concepts in international business
• Cross-cultural challenges in achieving Organizational goals
• The challenges of the first line managers in international organizations
• Key strategies for managing international business operations in an efficient and effective manner
• Maximizing international business success through effective human resource management strategies
• Navigating global business challenges through effective management of cultural intelligence
• Effective leadership strategies for international business management
• Cross-cultural communication as an essential part of international business management
• The link between happy employees and successful international business management
• Maximizing global business performance through effective staff managers
• Leveraging various resources for competitive advantage
• Understanding the universal phenomenon of cross-cultural communication challenges
• Foreign direct investment and risks for international businesses
• Sustainability in international business
• Challenges of corporate governance in international businesses
• The role of ethical leadership as an essential part of international business management
• Developing a high degree of cross-cultural competence
• Managing global value chains: integrating all the activities in international business management
• The importance of cultural awareness in international business management
• The role of self-confidence in international business management

Operations Management Assignment Topics

Below you will find the most relevant and moderns operations management assignment topics:

• Enhancing Organizational Performance through Effective Operations Management and Managerial Skills
• The role of organizational chart in effective operations management
• The impact of executive functions on operations management
• The role of operations management in achieving success at a shareholder meeting
• The importance of understanding human behavior in operations management
• Leveraging consumer insights based on market research
• Optimizing group dynamics in operations management
• Leadership and strategies of general managers in operations management
• Planning effectively: best practices for operations management
• Tools, techniques, and approaches for a good knowledge base in operations management
• How to manage an organization effectively: operations management strategies
• The role of operations management in organizational development
• Achieving efficiency and productivity through simple form and process
• The role of independent decision-making in operations management
• Management theories: How to plan effectively toward organizational success
• Optimizing human activities for the entire organization's success
• Streamlining operations management for a particular job: important strategies for effectiveness
• From plans decided to action implemented: the importance of effective operations management
• Provide guidance for upper management: strategies for leadership and direction
• Balancing technology and human beings for global success

Business Process Management Topics

Explore 20 more topics about business process management:

• Strategies for implementing effective business process management principles across the entire organization
• The role of human effort and organizational structure in achieving operational excellence
• How successful managers utilize basic principles for achieving operational excellence
• Interplay between management principles and executive function in driving business process
• Achieving synergy between top management and other employees for improved operational efficiency
• The crucial role of company leadership in aligning objectives and strengthening decision making
• A critical analysis of management theories: exploring the role of functional managers in achieving goals
• Optimizing the management process to achieve organizational goals
• Effective business process management consists of strategic allocation for company growth
• How to manage challenges created by leadership and top management
• Optimizing business process management through collaborative efforts between top managers and the best employees
• Crucial managerial skills: Optimizing processes through nurturing talent and celebrating human efforts
• The role of the functional manager in talent acquisition and optimizing human resource management
• Why business process management involves determining the journey, not just the destination
• Aligning employee decision-making with business objectives
• How process-centered leadership empowers organizations to manage change
• Process improvement through agile methodologies
• The evolution of process management thought
• The role of information technology in business process management
• The impact of business process management on customer satisfaction and retention

Additional Interesting Topics of Business

If you can choose from a wide range of topics, this list is for you. Impress your professor with an intriguing topic assignment:

• Measuring the ROI: Key metrics and techniques for demonstrating value to stakeholders
• Effective change management: how to implement and adapt
• Digital transformation in business management
• Strategies for handling and overcoming business crises
• Strategies for reducing environmental impact and promoting social responsibility
• Best practices and emerging trends for effective online branding
• Strategies for driving innovation and creating a culture of creativity
• Managing human resources in small business
• Strategies for managing cash flow, budgets, and investments
• The importance of market research and analysis for effective business management
• Using game mechanics to improve employee performance and engagement
• Strategies for effective time management and priorities in a busy workplace
• Strategies and tactics for successful business deals
• Emerging trends in remote work, automation, and AI
• Benefits and best practices for reducing stress and improving productivity
• Creating a workplace culture that fosters happy employees
• How understanding human behavior can inform business decision making
• Is servant leadership a new paradigm for effective business management?
• Techniques for handling uncertainty and complexity in an organization
• The role of entrepreneurial mindset and creativity in business success

Business Assignment Sample Essay

In the next section of the article, you will find a sample business management essay to help you understand how to structure and write a successful business assignment. Read through it carefully and take notes on the techniques used.

Further Academic Help

Are you struggling to come up with an assignment on management topic? Let us help you! Our online assignment writing service provides a comprehensive list of essay titles across various subjects to choose from, whether it's topics of business management or history assignment.

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Annie Lambert

specializes in creating authoritative content on marketing, business, and finance, with a versatile ability to handle any essay type and dissertations. With a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a passion for social issues, her writing not only educates but also inspires action. On EssayPro blog, Annie delivers detailed guides and thought-provoking discussions on pressing economic and social topics. When not writing, she’s a guest speaker at various business seminars.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

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Leadership vs. Management: What’s the Difference?

• 31 Oct 2019

The terms “leadership” and “management” are often used interchangeably. While there is some overlap between the work that leaders and managers do, there are also significant differences.

In a keynote discussion at Harvard Business School Online’s annual conference, Connext , HBS Professors Nancy Koehn and Joe Fuller explored the interplay between leadership and management and shared how they define the two disciplines.

Koehn referenced the work of HBS Professor John Kotter, who she said aptly defined the “activity of leadership.”

Leadership vs Management: What's the difference?

“ Leadership , he wrote, is the creation of positive, non-incremental change, including the creation of a vision to guide that change—a strategy—the empowerment of people to make the vision happen despite obstacles, and the creation of a coalition of energy and momentum that can move that change forward,” Koehn said.

Fuller, who teaches the online course Management Essentials , relayed his thoughts on how management compares.

“ Management is getting the confused, misguided, unmotivated, and misdirected to accomplish a common purpose on a regular, recurring basis,” Fuller said. “I think the ultimate intersection between leadership and management is an appreciation for what motivates and causes individuals to behave the way they do, and the ability to draw out the best of them with a purpose in mind.”

Watch the full keynote discussion between Nancy Koehn and Joe Fuller below:

While these definitions draw parallels between the roles of leaders and managers, they also allude to some key contrasts. Here are three differences between leadership and management.

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How Is Leadership Different from Management?

1. process vs. vision.

Effective leadership is centered on a vision to guide change.

Whereas managers set out to achieve organizational goals through implementing processes, such as budgeting, organizational structuring, and staffing, leaders are more intent on thinking ahead and capitalizing on opportunities.

“I think of management as working with other people to make sure the goals an organization has articulated are executed,” says HBS Dean Nitin Nohria in an interview for the online course Management Essentials . “It’s the process of working with others to ensure the effective execution of a chosen set of goals. Leadership is about developing what the goals should be. It’s more about driving change.”

2. Organizing vs. Aligning

In the book, On Becoming a Leader , scholar Warren Bennis presents a list of key differences between managers and leaders , including:

• The manager administers; the leader innovates
• The manager maintains; the leader develops
• The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people

Managers pursue goals through coordinated actions and tactical processes, or tasks and activities that unfold over stages to reach a certain outcome. For example, they may implement a decision-making process when leading a critical meeting , or when devising a plan for communicating organizational change .

Leaders, on the other hand, are less focused on how to organize people to get work done and more on finding ways to align and influence them.

“Your central function in a position of leadership is to mobilize others so they can execute a set of individual and collective tasks,” says HBS Professor Anthony Mayo in the online course Leadership Principles .

By developing a personal leadership style through self-reflection and honest feedback , leaders can learn how to empower their employees and inspire them to both believe in and pursue important organizational initiatives.

3. Position vs. Quality

The title “manager” often denotes a specific role within an organization’s hierarchy, while referring to someone as a “leader” has a more fluid meaning.

“Manager is a title. It’s a role and set of responsibilities,” says leadership coach Doc Norton in Forbes . “Having the position of manager does not make you a leader. The best managers are leaders, but the two are not synonymous. Leadership is the result of action. If you act in a way that inspires, encourages, or engages others, you are a leader. It doesn't matter your title or position.”

Leadership is a quality that needs to be shaped. Through developing emotional intelligence and learning how to influence others , professionals of all levels can build greater self-awareness and understand how to bring out the best in themselves and others.

For seasoned and aspiring managers alike, possessing strong leadership skills can not only lead to better job performance , but an improved knowledge of how to influence the context and environment in which decisions get made.

Related: How to Be an Effective Leader at Any Stage of Your Career

Unleashing Your Leadership Potential

Leadership skills can be developed at any stage of your career. By understanding the characteristics of effective leaders and how leadership differs from management, you can develop techniques for coaching colleagues, delivering feedback, and overcoming specific organizational challenges.

Do you want to become a more effective leader and manager? Download our free leadership and management e-book to find out how. Also, explore our online leadership and management courses to learn how you can take charge of your professional development and accelerate your career. To find the right course for you, download the free flowchart .

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1 Introduction to Management

Learning Objectives

The purpose of this chapter is to:

1)  Give you a basic understanding of management and its importance

2)  Provide a foundation of the managerial functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling

Introduction to Management

Management is not a hard science.  Unlike chemistry or algebra where a right answer (often) exists, management is fluid, and subjective, and there are divergent perspectives on how to employ its principles.  But what exactly is management?  Most scholars have variations of the same definition that include a utilization of resources to achieve a goal.  Lussier (2021) defines a manager as “the individual responsible for achieving organizational objectives through efficient and effective utilization of resources” (p. 3).   The problem with this definition is that it implies that a manager has to be both efficient and effective, which eliminates the possibility of having a bad manager.  Each of us can probably contradict this definition by providing an example from our personal past.  However, this definition contains the basic elements of using resources to pursue goals.

An early management scholar, Mary P. Follett characterized management as “the art of getting things done through the efforts of other people” (Graham, 1995).   This definition implies both pursuing goals (getting things done) and utilizing resources (predominantly through people).  However, this too is missing an element, that of the organizational context.  An important consideration for understanding management is that the term organization simply refers to “a collection of people working together to achieve a common purpose” (Shermerhorn, 2013, p. 11).  This means an organization could be anything from your high school volleyball team to church or a corporation.  Including the term “organization” in the definition leaves open the possibility that management can be practiced in each of these settings, and broadens our use of the term management.  A comprehensive definition for management then, would be the pursuit of organizational goals through the use of organizational resources (Bateman & Snell, 2013).  Pursuit implies a chance of failure and organizational gives us a context.  This begs the question – how can we become effective at the pursuit of goals, or become more efficient in our use of organizational resources?  Being good at management requires an immense focus on both of these ends, and we can achieve this through the process of the planning, organizing, leading, and controlling functions of management.   These functions serve as the basis for the rest of the textbook because they are the essential tools we use to manage organizations.  Most of the context and examples for this book focus on the corporate use of management.  However, you should meet the concepts where you are in your professional or academic career – apply the principles to the context of your life, master the four functions for what you are doing now so that you can scale them to much bigger managerial endeavors later.

Management is not New

A broad understanding of management as resource utilization focused on a goal gives us a wide scope of situations and contexts in which to practice it.  For example, the Crow Indians employed a complex strategy to harvest an entire herd of buffalo by driving them off a cliff.  To funnel the herd to the lane leading up to the cliff they used a decoy (a hunter donned in a buffalo calf robe imitating a lost calf), incense to smoke them towards the lane, or rock piles to guide them to the lane (Nathan, 2018).  If we apply the basic principles of management in this context we can see these hunters used resources (rocks, incense, knowledge and tradition) to pursue a goal (procurement of food, tools, and clothing the bison afforded them).

At its core, this imperial supply chain used the same approach to achieve success th at a teenager might use in a playing video games.  If he rallys his friends after school in a game of Call of Duty to defeat their online opponents, he might also be considered a manager.  He uses his experience and knowledge of gameplay as well as weaponry within the game to pursue his goal of competitive domination.

These examples demonstrate that management is multifarious, and not at all a recent phenomenon.    Yet, when we hear the term management , most of us probably conjure an image something like that of a corporate vice president implementing a marketing strategy to meet quarterly sales goals.  The irony is that the corporate manager is utilizing the same tools as those of the native hunter, Spanish fleet admiral, and sophomore gamer.   Management is both universal and ubiquitous in that we all use variations of its elements.

The Four Functions of Management

The management process by which we pursue goals includes planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.  These are “ the how ” a manager pursues organizational goals, and are universally known as the four functions of management.  They stem from the work of a French mining administrator, Henri Fayol, who first identified management as a practice that could be improved through the use of five functions – planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling.  Since he published his work in 1916, we have decided that leading people through motivation and incentivization works much better than telling them what to do (e.g. commanding and coordinating).  We use the term leading instead of these practices.  Chapter 2 on the history of management will provide some insights regarding this change.  Nonetheless, he gave us a place from which to start.

Even if you have never stepped foot in a corporate office, or held the title of manager at your local Dairy Queen, you have no less used the functions of management in your personal pursuits.  A relevant example would be the process by which you manage your personal budget.

Reflection:  Are you already a manager?

Think about your personal or family budget for a moment, and answer the following questions:

1) Do you have your budget written down somewhere, or in an excel spreadsheet?

2) What are your financial goals?

3) How much do you put in savings, charity, and monthly expenses?

4) Where does your money come from (a job, your parents, a hobby, your spouse)?

5) If you have a budget shortfall during the month, what do you do?

6) How do you keep track of expenses to ensure your bank account remains in the black?

If you answered yes to question #1, then you are already engaged in the management function of planning.  You know where your money is being spent.  The same holds true for your financial goals.  If you want to leave college debt free, save for a down payment on a house, or go on an unforgettable spring break trip, you have defined your organizational objective!  Where you put your money is a function of how you manage your resources.  This organizing function is presumably in line with your financial goals.  For example, if you want to save for a down payment, you need to actually allocate your resources (income) to a savings account.  Moreover, where your money comes from is also the source of your organizational resources.   A budget shortfall might require you to employ the leading function of management.  The essence of leading is motivating other people to align with your plan.  What do you do if you need to pay bills, but don’t have the money?  Perhaps you ask your parents for a loan (need to sell this idea to them), or you might need to negotiate with a co-worker to let you take on extra shifts (show them what’s in it for them in return), or it might be the reality that you need to sell something to make ends meet by selling something (in which case selling requires you to inspire someone else to see value in what you are selling).   Leading might also entail convincing someone else in your circle to get on board with your gameplan (like a spouse, or sibling).  Finally, keeping track of your expenses to ensure solvency and pace with your goals is the core of the controlling function.  Do you keep receipts and check them against your online account expenses?  Do you update your spreadsheet after your bill automatically debits from your account?  Do you get an email notifying you have a low balance and are in risk of overdraft charges?  Each of these methods are ways to monitor your progress and decide if you need to make a change (short term or long term).

If you reflect on this example of your personal budget, or you worked to achieve a personal or team goal, you will likely conclude that you are already a manager.  This wide application of managerial thinking means that if you can master its principles on your personal scale, you can then amplify its use when you need to use it on a large scale.  Get good at leading your class project, organizing your club fundraiser, or helping your team win a conference championship, and you will later be able to magnify the scale to lead a marketing department, or corporate merger, and even diplomatic negotiations as a prime minister.

Mastering the four functions will allow you to apply the function of planning on a more complex stage such as evaluating the internal and external environments of your organization.  Using this analysis you can create an effective game plan to formulate a sustainable competitive advantage.  Developing an organizing skillset will allow you to propose a structure for your team that incorporates cross functional members and ways of thinking.  It will allow you to identify and recommend resources needed to pursue your plan.  Honing your leading skillset will afford you the capability to motivate your organizational stakeholders to partake in your strategy, and force you to consider the ethical implications of your actions.   Finally, implementing effective controlling allows you to check progress towards your goals and to recommend changes if you need to get on track.

Planning is the systematic process of making decisions about goals and activities the organization will pursue (Bateman & Snell, 2013).  To make a decision about the direction of an organization, the planning phase must begin with analyzing the environment.  Without a solid understanding of the context, the manager would have no basis to provide future direction.  The context gives a manager a point of reference for improvement, opportunity, and learning from past mistakes.  For this reason, the planning function should begin with analysis.  This analysis should consider both the internal factors such as culture, values, and performance of team members as well as the external factors such as competitive environment, legal regulations, economy, technology, social values, and demographics.

The second component of planning is to use this analysis of the environment to build goals, activities, and objectives.  For a major organization this might be the vision and mission statement of the organization.  For a smaller organization this could be a year end, or season end goal.  Some consider planning that point in your day or month that you step away from your desk, and think about the direction of your organization.  This requires you to reflect on your organization’s past, and determine how that impacts the direction going forward.

            Organizing is the process of assembling and assigning the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals (Bateman & Snell, 2013).   The core of the organizing function is leveraging the resources to align with the determined goals.  Organizing human resources means first of all attracting a labor force that can help you pursue your goal.  Within the organization, managing the human element means assigning tasks, delegating authority, determining a structure and hierarchy.  Organizing the financial resources equates to making sure your capital is being utilized to meet goals.  If an organization decides they want to have a best-in-class customer service team, they better being willing to spend the money to attract people with the disposition towards serving others, and spend money on training, or a retreat to teach the agents the skillsets they need.  Marshalling physical resources focuses on the effectiveness of where you place and how you use physical assets.  An executive chef might re-arrange a kitchen to improve process flow, food quality, or mitigate safety risks for example.  Informational resources implies a leveraging and disseminating the organization’s knowledge in meaningful ways to achieve goals.  Connecting employees to how they contribute to the financial bottom line is a way of leveraging informational resources, as is using your company’s proprietary algorithm to predict stock prices or develop new products.

Leading is stimulating high performance by members of the organization (Bateman and Snell, 2013).  This function is getting members of the organization on board with your plan.

Normally, this means connecting with direct reports or teammates on a personal level.  Understanding what drives individuals within the team allows a manager to design strategies around motivating, incentivizing, mobilizing, and arousing a desire to contribute.

Imagine for a minute, that you analyzed the conditions of the organization, you determined a game plan to pursue and even directed resources to step in that direction.  You have successfully implemented the planning and organizing functions.  In this scenario, however, you did not give consideration to how your team or organization would be involved.  Do they agree with your direction?  Did they have input in the process?  Do they feel valued as a team member?  Do they understand their role in a successful outcome?   All of these questions are answered by the degree to which a manager is engaged in the leading function.

Having personal conversations, designing a bonus structure, or giving a rousing speech might all be considered leading the organization.

Controlling

Control is installing processes to guide the team towards goals and monitoring performance towards goals and making changes to the plan as needed (Batemen & Snell, 2013).  Control does not always mean limited what the organization can do by having a hand in everything.  We might call this micro-managing, which is control in its extreme form.  Healthy control processes involve putting systems in place to make sure your organization is on track to meet the goals you established in the planning process.  Planning sets standards to compare against, and the control process is the dashboard that tells whether or not you are meeting the standard.  For example, a grocery store might set a goal of reducing shrink (that’s product lost to shoplifting, damage).  They decide that they want to reduce their shrink loss by 50%.  To achieve this plan, they will have to dedicate resources (more employees to monitor, rearrange loading dock).  You already recognize that step as the organizing function.  We then incentivize our employees by designing a bonus structure – i.e. if we collectively meet the goal, each employee shares in the savings.  If we stop there, we would have no way of knowing if we met the goal.  The control process solves this for us.  The last step in the grocery store manager’s managerial approach is to have each department head report their shrink loss at the end of the shift, and aggregate those in an excel spreadsheet.  In this way, the manager can see if the rearrangement of the loading dock has reduced the number of damaged canned goods that was happening under the old arrangement.  The manager can make changes if they see that shrink is not improving even after hiring a greeter at the entrance.

Monitoring performance is the first step in control.  After see the progress towards goals, the next step is to make changes.  In this way, the control process always leads a manager back to the planning phase of management.  There are only two outcomes to the control process.  You are making progress towards your goal, or you are digressing in your performance.  If you reach your goal, you will need to set new goals, which is the planning function.  If you are not progressing towards your goal, you need to analyze the environment and determine why not.  In this way the management functions are related and highly dependent upon each other, especially control and planning.

            To illustrate the application of the four functions of manager, consider the various contexts in Figure 1.1.   Under the personal budget, an engaged couple has decided to save for a house after getting married.  The softball coach must determine how to win a conference championship, and the corporate manager is working on a strategy to improve waning sales figures.

Figure 1.1 – The Functions of Management Applied

On the Importance of Studying Management

The purpose of this textbook is to provide you with firstly, a broad exploration of what management is – its elements and origins.  Secondly, the purpose of this textbook is to provide you with a managerial framework you can utilize to practice management at any level of complexity.  This framework emphasizes the four basic functions – planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.  Most management textbooks include a wide variety of academic terms and concepts that take focus away from these four functions.  Other textbooks will inundate the reader with descriptions of heuristics, focus on layers of management, or extraneous terms like the Shamrock organization that do not advance a practical understanding of management.  We have designed this textbook with the four functions of management at the forefront because these elements are so critical to the foundation of everything you will do in the managerial context.  This textbook provides a history of management and a chapter on ethics, but then focuses exclusively on the functions of management as the subject matter.  At the completion of this textbook, you should be able to understand, recognize, and apply these four functions of management.

The four functions of management (plan, organize, lead, and control) serve as the foundation for everything else you will study in your business education.  Mastering these tools at the most basic level, as well as the more sophisticated levels in classes you will take later, will best prepare you as a business professional (Dolechek et al, 2019).

Figure 1.2 – Management as the Foundation

Upon completion of a management principles course, you will progress towards the applications of the four functions of management in the upper level courses.  For this reason, management principles serves as a pre-requisite for most other management courses.   In marketing principles you will develop an understanding of how to analyze external conditions, and a course in information systems will help you design ways to collect more information to analyze.  This is the core of the planning function.  In human resources and organizational behavior, you will learn the dynamics of your ever-important resource of human labor, the organizing function.  In business ethics and applied management skills you work on understanding what drives people, and by association how to lead them based on that understanding.  Grasping business law and production operations will give you a deeper understanding of how to monitor progress (to meet legal compliance and to test production quality for example).  The entire discipline of accounting is a managerial function of control.  Constructing financial statements is done for the sole purpose of determining the performance of you organization so that you can make future decisions.  The capstone course of a business program is the business strategy class.  In this course, students are given an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the four functions by including all of the functional areas of business in their decision making.

A Whale of an Example

You are the city manager of a coastal Oregon city.  On a quiet, rainy Tuesday, you walk into your office and put the coffee on.  As you take your first sip, your administrative assistant forwards you a phone call from the parks and rec manager.  “We’ve got a problem down here on the beach.  The tide just left a dead humpback whale on our beach.”  What do you do?  What. Do. You. Do??   Now, there are several options to dealing with the dead whale.  Consider the following questions:

• 1) What is your strategy for dealing with this problem? ( Plan )
• 2) What resources do you need to follow your strategy? ( Organize )
• 3) What stakeholders do you need to get on-board? ( Lead )
• 4) What steps can you take to make sure your plan is proceeding as you planned it? ( Contro l)

There are a handful of strategies we might naturally gravitate towards.  The feasibility of each strategy depends on how well you employ the functions of management.

Tow the whale back to sea – A crane, tug boat, and tow cable are needed.  Who might you need to include in this gameplan?  The coast guard might need to be involved to discuss any pertinent regulations.  A marine captain that can tell you about tides so that you can time your extraction, and insights about currents to indicate how far out you need to haul the whale once its buoyant.  Should you allow a marine biologist to provide advice on what sort of ecological impact this might have (like bring in unwanted sharks or seals).  How can you be sure the tow cable has enough tinsel strength to haul a bloated whale on a high friction surface like wet sand?   Does the crane have the capacity to move the carcass into position to be hauled?  If the whale is decaying, will the tow cable just pull through the rotten flesh?

Cut the whale up, haul it to the dump –  You will need a forklift, semi-truck, and chainsaw.  The first consideration here would be the logistics of pursuing this strategy.  You will need to find a truck with the towing capacity to haul large chunks of the carcass off the beach.  Can you ensure the weight of a loaded semi would not sink into the wet sand?  How much does a semi-loaded with a whale carcass weight?  You may also need to contact the county roads manager to determine if there are any bridges between the beach and the dump that have weight restrictions.   What sort of protective equipment would you need for the men slicing through the whale with chainsaws?  There are a few control processes that need to be put in place for this strategy to work.

Celebrate the whale – The objective of the city manager is to “deal with” the dead whale.  For most, this would mean remove it somehow.  For others, this might be a chance to celebrate the occasion, and establishing the experience in the culture and history of the town.  To celebrate the whale, the city manager can hold a competition like car dealers do to promote their cars – have contestants place their hand on the whale and the last person to withstand touching the grotesque, slimy, and malodorous creature, somehow wins a major prize.  This would require a sponsor to donate a prize (a car, a vacation) and the town can celebrate the occasion annually.  If the goal is to appease the community from the existence of the whale and its stench, celebration is one strategy to pursue that end.  You would need to include a biologist to determine if leaving the whale to decay after the festival would attract scavengers, and a water chemist to determine if a decaying whale creates toxicity problems for beach goers.

Blow it up! – The kid in most of us choose this option.  Definitely.  You might need to check with state officials to see what the protocols are on this approach.  The biggest question would be how much dynamite do you need to blow up a whale, or blow it into the ocean?  In Oregon, one stakeholder group you might contact is a mining company or the Oregon national guard.  Both of those groups have a lot of experience calculating explosive requirements.   What are the safety protocols you need in place to make sure that no one is injured?  Where will you be able to source enough explosives to achieve this goal?

Use of the four functions

Each of these scenarios contain some far-fetched elements.  But asking the right questions is paramount to turning any of these into a feasible strategy.  You first need to decide a path, then determine your resources before getting stakeholder groups on board.  For a high-risk situation like most of these solutions call for, you need to put control mechanisms in place to mitigate your risks.  If you type “Oregon’s exploding whale” you can see what has become the most-watching news broadcast of all time.  It shows you what happens when a city manager does not successfully navigate the situation using all four functions of management.

Critical Thinking Questions

How are the four functions of management related?

Which is the most important function of management?

Choose a historical event prior to the year 2000.  Analyze the leader’s use of the four functions of management during that event.

How to Answer the Critical Thinking Questions

For each of these answers you should provide three elements.

• General Answer.  Give a general response to what the question is asking, or make your argument to what the question is asking.
• Outside Resource.  Provide a quotation from a source outside of this textbook.  This can be an academic article, news story, or popular press.  This should be something that supports your argument.  Use the sandwich technique explained below and cite your source in APA in text and then a list of full text citations at the end of the homework assignment of all three sources used.
• Personal Story.  Provide a personal story that illustrates the point as well.  This should be a personal experience you had, and not a hypothetical.  Talk about a time from your personal, professional, family, or school life.   Use the sandwich technique for this as well, which is explained below.

Use the sandwich technique:

For the outside resource and the personal story you should use the sandwich technique.  Good writing is not just about how to include these materials, but about how to make them flow into what you are saying and really support your argument.  The sandwich technique allows us to do that.  It goes like this:

Step 1:  Provide a sentence that sets up your outside resource by answering who, what, when, or where this source is referring to.

Step 2:  Provide the quoted material or story.

Step 3:  Tell the reader why this is relevant to the argument you are making.

EXAMPLE :  Let me provide an example of homework expectations using the type of question you might see in a critical thinking question at the end of the chapter.  Each of the answers you provide should be this thorough.

Question:  Explain why it is important to study management.

Management is important to study because it serves as the foundation for all other areas of business.  The four functions can be used in other business areas such as accounting, marketing, operations management and human resources.   All of the areas of business need people who know how to make a plan and allocate resources.  All of the areas of business need people who know how to motivate others, and to make sure they are on track for their organization’s goals.   For this reason, improving our mastery of management will make us more effective at whichever role we are in.   A good example of this foundation comes from research conducted on accounting firms in Romania.  Wang and Huynh (2014) found that accounting managers who embraced both managerial best practices and had the technical skills needed for accounting improved the organizational outcomes of their firms.  These findings suggest that business professionals need managerial skills to supplement the day-to-day roles they have.

As I reflect on management as a foundational discipline, I remember how my high school baseball coach approached our team after a losing season.  We were not a good team because we did not have fundamentals of how to grip a baseball, how to stand in the batter’s box, or how to field a ground ball.   That next year, he taught us all of these fundamentals and we won a lot of games.  It seems to me that learning fundamentals of management can have the same impact.  Being able to execute the four functions of management allows us to get better at how we approach marketing a new product, or improving operations processes.

Wang, D., & Huynh, Q. (2014). Linkages among corporate governance, management accounting practice and organizational performance: Evidence from a Southeast Asian country. Romanian Economic and Business Review, 9(1), 63-81.

Chapter References

Aho O.W., Lloyd R.A. (2019) The Origins of Robust Supply Chain Management and Logistics in the Caribbean: Spanish Silver and Gold in the New World (1492–1700). In:

Bowden B., McMurray A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Management History . Palgrave Macmillan: London, UK.

Bateman, T., & Snell, S. (2013).  M: Management (3rd ed) .  McGraw Hill / Irwin: New York, NY

Dolechek, R., Lippert, T., Vengrouskie, E. F., & Lloyd, R. A. (2019).  Solving a whale of a problem: Introducing the four functions of management in a management principles course .  International Forum of Teaching Studies, 15 (2), 29-35.

Fayol, H. (1949).  General and Industrial Management . Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd:  London, U.K.

Graham, P. (1995).  Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management.  Harvard Business School Press: Boston, MA.

Lussier, R. (2021).  Management Fundamentals: Concepts, Applications, Skill Development.  (9th Ed).   Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA.

Nathan, R. (2018). The Grapevine Creek Buffalo Jump Complex: Interdisciplinary Research on the Crow Reservation, Montana (Doctor of Anthropology, dissertation).  Indiana University.

Shermerhorn, J. (2013).  Management (12th Ed) . Wiley and Sons: Hoboken, NJ

The Four Functions of Management Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Robert Lloyd and Dr. Wayne Aho is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What Is (Business) Management? Laying the Ground for a Philosophy of Management

• Open access
• Published: 24 December 2019
• Volume 19 , pages 173–189, ( 2020 )

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• Vincent Blok 1  

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In this article, we philosophically reflect on the nature of business management. We move beyond the political paradigm of the conceptualization of management in order to lay the ground for a philosophy of business management. First, we open-up the self-evident conceptualization of business management in contemporary management practices by comparing ancient and contemporary definitions of management. Second, we develop a framework with six dimensions of the nature of business management that can guide future philosophical and empirical work on the nature of business management: management control, people management, asset management and entrepreneurial action, management as participation, management as responsive action and management as constituting meaning.

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Introduction

Today, business management seems to be only a special case of management as more general human condition. Management is everywhere, ranging from people’s self-management to social network management, and from household management to planetary management in the context of global warming. This raises the question what is actually meant with the concept of business management. Often, management is self-evidently understood as managerial power and mechanism to control, inspired by the scientific management theory that is still taught in business schools today. In order to develop a better understanding of the contemporary meaning of the concept, one would expect to find deeper insights in the sub-discipline of philosophy of management. It is striking however that this sub-discipline, to the best of my knowledge, never raised the philosophical question what management is. This particular question is both absent in historical and systematic reflections in the field of philosophy of management (Blok 2019a ). Footnote 1 For instance, in the first volume of the Philosophy of Management journal, Alan Bray raised the provocative question “Why is it that management seems to have no history?”, indicating that the practice of management as a corpus of knowledge and skills received only little attention in the literature (Bray 2001 ). With this, we do not mean that philosophers are not consulted to reflect on issues in management. In his Introduction to the philosophy of management for instance, Paul Griseri, one of the leading experts in the field, introduces in section one “the ‘what’ of management”, but he in fact only answers the question about the what of organisations, work and leadership in this section (Griseri 2013 ) (Tables 1 , 2 and 3 ).

A possible explanation why many non-philosophers define business management self-evidently in terms of managerial power and mechanism of control, while philosophers of management seem to omit the question ‘what is management’, may be that the concept of management is ‘highjacked’ by political philosophers like Michel Foucault. Foucault framed management as governmental technique that indicates the modern governmentality of the world (Foucault 2009 ). On the one hand, it is acknowledged that our understanding of governmentality originates from the Christian pastorate that governs society and is understood as an oikonomia, i.e. as an administration of society according to the model of the management of a household business. On the other hand, economic management is a priori understood from the perspective of political governance as government of populations. Footnote 2 With this, the concept of management is already understood from a bio-political paradigm and becomes such a general characteristic of all relations in modern society, that it does not seem to be able anymore to characterize the particular phenomenon of business management. Footnote 3 This general understanding of the nature of management in our ‘societies of control’ may explain why applied philosophers with a special interest in business management shy away from the question ‘what is management’ and instead, turn to questions like what is work, what is an organization, and what is leadership.

And yet, the question of what is business management is a legitimate question in the field of philosophy of management. To answer this question, we have to put the political paradigm of the conceptualization of management between brackets in order to articulate the particular nature of business management. We also have reason to follow this strategy. First, if the political paradigm of the conceptualization of management stems from the model of the management of the household business, an economic paradigm of management may inform us about the particular phenomenon of business management. Second, if we experience a discomfort with the orthodoxy of business management as managerial power and mechanism of control, we should reflect on this particular context of management and look for alternative conceptualizations of business management that can help us to open up this self-evident notion for philosophical reflection. Instead of being hemmed in by the structures of its self-evident conceptuality, the task of philosophy of management is to develop new theories of imagination for management science (cf. Tsoukas and Cummings 1997 ; Komporozos-Athanasiou and Fotaki 2015 ; Deslandes 2018 ).

In this article we reflect on the nature of business management to contribute to the development of a philosophy of management. Footnote 4 In this, the philosophical method of explorative confrontation is employed to open up the concept of management and critically develop our understanding of business management (Blok 2020 ). Our approach is explorative because it consists in the articulation of a deeper understanding of philosophical and scientific sources about management. Our approach is confrontational because we thereby analyse and disrupt the preconceptions held in the tradition to develop our understanding of business management. We explore the limitations and tensions in the definition of management provided by Taylor, Fayol and others.

In section one, we first open up the self-evident concept of management as it appears in philosophical history and in contemporary management theory. We identify a first set of three common characteristics of management, as well as three areas that challenge the self-evident conceptualization of management as managerial power and mechanism of control. Subsequently, we philosophically reflect on the nature of management to move beyond this self-conceptualization of management in section two, and provide three additional characteristics of management. In section three we draw our conclusions.

Because philosophical reflection on business management is still in its infancy, we do not pretend to develop a full philosophy of management in this article. Instead, we lay the ground for such a philosophy by developing a framework with six dimensions of the nature of business management that can guide future philosophical and empirical work on the nature of business management.

Opening up the Self-Evident Concept of Management

Management in xenophon and contemporary management theory.

In management theory, the concept of business management has a long tradition. It is normally understood as managerial power and mechanism to control, inspired by the scientific management theory that is still taught in business schools today. Henry Fayol and Frederick Taylor can be seen as the founders of management theory, who introduced scientific management (Taylor 1911 ) in general and five functions of management in particular: planning, organizing, instruction, coordination and control (Fayol 1949 ). Further insights in the nature of management was provided by Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick for instance, who extended Fayol’s work and coined the POSDCORB acronym to indicate the nature of management: planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgetting (Urwick 1952 ; Gulick and Urwick 2012 ). Koontz and O’Donnell’s developed principles of management as well, such as principles of planning, organizing, staffing etc. (Koontz and O’Donnell 1972 ). These later developments in management theory are also influenced by scholars who indicated the importance of soft skills in management (mintzberg, 2005 ), social and informal processes in management (Follett 1940 ), or studied management from the perspective of organizational behaviour (Miner 2002 ).

One way to open up the concept of management for philosophical reflection is by tracing the different meanings it has in history. Historical analysis can help us to question the self-evidence of the current association of management and mechanisms of control, to deconstruct the presupposed concepts that always already structure our understanding of management, and to explore the sedimentary conceptual structures which show themselves in the words and notions we self-evidently use in our understanding of management practices (Blok 2019b ). One of the first philosophical conceptualizations of business management occurred in the work of Xenophon ( 2013 ). In Oeconomicus, published around 385 b.c. , Xenophon introduces a dialogue between Socrates and Critobulus, a wealthy young man, and Ischomachus, a noble and successful manager, about oikonomia . Oikonomia, as Xenophon understood it, is not comparable with our contemporary understanding of economics and is primarily concerned with household management (Deslandes 2018 ). The domain of the household is not limited to the private sphere of the house in which we live, but extents to all property that enables the owner of the household to make a living. Instead of analysing Xenophon’s work itself in detail in this article, we rely on an earlier contribution on this topic and render nine dimensions of Xenophon’s concept of business management (Blok 2019a ) which enable us to open-up its self-evident conceptualization of management in terms of managerial power and mechanisms of control.

It is striking that this early conceptualization of management resonates pretty much with the management theory provided by Henry Fayol. If we compare Xenophon’s dimensions with the five functions of management according to Fayol’s management theory, we see that the first, second and fifth function of management corresponds with the first dimension of business management that we can find in Xenophon’s work, the third and fourth function of management corresponds with the fifth dimension we can find in Xenophon’s work. We can even argue that Xenophon’s conception of people management already moves beyond the mechanistic perspective of management that is often associated with scientific management, and prefigures the people-oriented perspective that is introduced by the human relations school (Mayo 2003 ).

Xenophon’s dimensions of management also resonate pretty much with contemporary definitions, for instance the one that can be found in the Oxford Dictionary of Business and Management. Management in the verbal sense concerns the act of managing an organization or a part of it in order to make most effective use of available resources, and management in the substantive sense concerns the people involved in these type of managerial activities, i.e. the directing, planning and running of the business operations (Law 2009 ; Statt 2004 ). According these definitions, management has three main components: 1) it concerns an organizational skill to establish and maintain the functional order of the organization that is taught at business schools, which corresponds with the first dimension of business management that we can find in Xenophon’s work; 2) it concerns the ability to motivate subordinates, which corresponds with the fifth dimension of business management that we can find in Xenophon’ work; 3) it has an entrepreneurial sense and concerns the recognition and exploitation of new business opportunities, which corresponds with the eighth dimension of business management that we can find in Xenophon’s work. Another similarity is that management is generally seen as something that can be learned by training, which corresponds with the sixth dimension of business management that we can find in Xenophon’s work, although the extent to which people management can be taught remains disputable. In sum, there are three common characteristics of management: a) management consists in the establishment and maintenance of a functioning order of the business; b) management consists in the engagement in the business operations via the work done by other people; c) management consists in proper asset management and entrepreneurial action in order to serve business and society. We take these common characteristics in Xenophon and contemporary definitions of management as a first set of dimensions of our conceptualization of management.

Questioning the Self-Evident Conceptualization of Management as Managerial Power and Mechanism of Control

At the same time, some dimensions of management that we find in Xenophon’s work enable us to question the self-evident conceptualization of management as managerial power and mechanism of control:

While currently, business management is mainly focussed on the establishment and maintenance of a functioning order of the business to make profit, Xenophon shows the intrinsic relation between business and society; the aim of business management is to serve private and public interests in an integrated way in order to evoke public admiration (second, third and ninth dimension of business management that we can find in Xenophon’s work).

According to contemporary definitions, management concerns the act of managing an organization in order to make most effective use of available resources. The manager is an efficient and powerful agent according to traditional management science in general and scientific management in particular (Fayol 1949 ; Taylor 1911 ). Management concerns a skill that can be learned at business schools, and this skill enables the individual professional to direct, plan and control the business operations. Although the roles and tasks of business management can be combined with other professional tasks, it often involves a strict division of labour between the manager of the business operations who executes the five functions of management and the workforce, and a strict division of labour between the knowledge and skills of the business manager – leadership and finance for instance, − and sector specific or disciplinary knowledge and skills of the workforce. In this respect, the manager remains external to the primary process of the business operations, and this separation of the primary process ensures the differentiation between hierarchical levels on which the manager is dependent. Further, by withdrawing himself from the primary process in which the workforce is highly dependent on each other, the manager becomes independent and manages and controls the primary process via instrumental control systems (management by numbers). This can be contrasted with Xenophon, who highlights the necessity of sector specific expert knowledge and skills of the manager, and the necessity of the involvement of business managers in the business operations via direct labour (fourth dimension of management that we can find in Xenophon’s work).

While the role of risk and misfortune is normally acknowledged in modern conceptualizations of business management, the radical fallibility and vulnerability of management is often not systematically reflected upon in the literature (Deslandes 2018 ). It is often taken as something that can be managed and controlled, for instance by risk management practices. Xenophon’s conception of management can help us to acknowledge the fundamental limitations of business management and the vulnerability of the manager, i.e. the fundamental role of risk and misfortune and the impossibility to establish full control; there is no such thing as Taylor’s ‘one best way’ to operate the business. In similar vein, the exploitation of new entrepreneurial business opportunities, may always turn out to fail (Blok 2018 ). This possibility of failure fundamentally limits the ambition of business managers to establish and maintain full control of the business operations. In other words, Xenophon’s concept of business management helps to acknowledge the limitations of management control, i.e. the fundamental role of risk and misfortune and the impossibility to establish full control (Blok 2019a )(seventh dimension of management that we can find in Xenophon’s work). In this respect, Xenophon can be seen as prefiguring some aspects of Fiedler’s contingency management theory, especially his acknowledgement that there is no absolute best way to manage the business, and the situational character of the management style of the manager (cf. Fiedler and Garcia 1987 ).

Based on this first round of reflection on the nature of business management, we cannot draw conclusions regarding these three contested areas of management yet. But by comparing dimensions of business management provided by Xenophon with the self-evident understanding of business management in contemporary management theory, we open up this concept for further philosophical reflection in the next section.

Toward a Philosophy of Management

In this section, we continue our reflections by focussing on the act of management itself. Although the three characteristics that are common in Xenophon’s conception and contemporary definitions – e.g. management as establishment of a functioning order of the business, people management and asset management and entrepreneurial action – are certainly true, it is questionable whether we do justice to the nature of management if we only conceive the phenomenon from the perspective of its utility, that is, the idea that the nature of management can be conceived based on its effects (e.g. management of effective use of resources, serving private and public interests), and not from the perspective of the action and behaviour that is involved in the act of management. For this reason, we acknowledge the three characteristics that are common in Xenophon’s conception and contemporary definitions as dimensions of management, and concentrate on three additional characteristics of business management in this section. In this, we take the three contested areas of management that we identified in the previous section as point of departure in order to build on but also move beyond contemporary conceptualizations of management as managerial power and mechanisms of control. We subsequently reflect on management as participation (§2.1), management as resistance and responsive action (§2.2) and management as constituting meaning (§2.3).

Management as Participation

As we have seen in the previous section, management is often conceptualized as external to the primary process of the business operations. The business manager manages and controls the primary process via instrumental control systems. We can frame this externality and instrumentality of management practices in terms of a loss of participation , namely as a loss of participation in the primary process of the business, while we can argue on the contrary that the importance of participation of the manager in the primary process. This loss of participation of management is often criticized for its focus on computation and calculation, resulting in high levels of bureaucracy. First, because comparability requires standardisation, the loss of participation of management can be criticized because it neglects the singularity of the individual professionals in favour of general governance mechanisms and common corporate goals (Robert 2001 ). Second, following from the first objection, the loss of participation of management can be criticized because it neglects the moral impulse of individual managers (Bauman 1989 ) that leads to unethical behaviour in management practices (Jackall 1988 ). Third, because of the emerging gap between the management level and the workforce level, the loss of participation of management can be criticized because of its lack of understanding of and feeling for the professionals that are involved in the primary process.

At the same time, we can question this loss of participation in many contemporary management practices and open a new perspective on management as participation in the primary process of the business operations. Footnote 5 Business management is a particular domain of knowledge, but the proper use of this knowledge, for instance via teaching and coaching of employees, requires experience as well. Management can be seen as expert knowledge, that is, proven knowledge based on experience, which requires the participation of the manager in the primary process to constitute know-how, that is, his or her actual engagement in the primary process of the business to produce a product or service for instance . The know-how of management does not only concern practice based knowledge how to plan and control the business operations, but first and foremost, the practice based knowledge how to make the product the business sells on the market. This know-how not only enables the business manager to teach and manage his or her employees, but also to enjoy the pleasure of engagement in the primary process of the business operations, and to appreciate the beauty of the functioning order that is accomplished under the manager’s supervision, next to his or her ability to plan and control the business operations in a proper way. In other words, while current management practices may be characterized by a loss of participation, we could argue that this loss of participation is not a necessary characteristic of the nature of management, and that management is in fact characterized by participation . Footnote 6

As participation is a relational term, management as participation raises the question who is participating in management. We can argue that management as participation is self-referential, that is, embedded in the manager’s abilities or capacities, in his or her ego or self. The ego or self of the manager is the singular condition that determines in which business he is involved. This singular condition can be found in the manager’s particular disciplinary interests (healthcare or engineering for instance), in his or her personal or family history (gender differences, family businesses or regional industries for instance), in his or her physical or cognitive abilities (talents in math or communication for instance) etc. The self or ego of the manager is the singular condition that constitutes a range of possibilities for action and behaviour, while it closes off others. All actual activities the manager engages in remain embedded in the ego or self of the manager as centre of his or her participation in the business operations. Most often we do not pay attention to the self-referentiality of management, but only in case of a discrepancy between the manager’s abilities and his or her actual performance, for instance in case of a manager of a healthcare institution without any professional experience as health professional, or in case of a manager of a bio-industry company who took over the family business but does not have any affinity with animals. This shows that the ego or self of the manager is not a passive receptor of experiences that subsequently engages him in management practices, but that this self is always already intentionally involved in the business practices, and is determining which business opportunities for action and behaviour he can take advantage of, and which not.

With this self-referentiality of management, we don’t want to claim that management as participation is primarily subjective. If the self of management is characterized by a relational term – i.e. participation in the primary process – we can formally argue that the self of this relation is not given prior to the relation; management is practice based know-how, which means that the actual participation in the business operations constitute the self or ego of the manager at the same time, namely his or her know-how. In fact, management as participation means that the self of the manager and the primary process which he manages are co-constitutive (see further §2.3).

This first additional characteristic of management – management as participation - enables us to question the loss of participation of management that can be encountered in many contemporary management practices, and to open a new perspective on the nature of business management. The transition from the loss of participation of management to management as participation provides a first additional characteristic of the concept of business management.

Management as Resistance and Responsive Action

How can we further characterize the act of management? What initiates this act? The notion of failure may provide an appropriate starting point to reflect on the question what initiates the act of management. It is often argued that business management starts with a problem , for instance a problem that is experienced by consumers – e.g. connectivity – and is addressed by the introduction of new products or services – e.g. the cell phone. In this respect, managers can be seen as problem solvers. In some cases, these problems or market failures provide opportunities for the manager to establish a profitable business. In others, like in green entrepreneurship, the point of departure is found in ecosystem failures like climate change; natural resources like air and water are not easy to allocate to markets and it is difficult to hold markets accountable for environmental problems like climate change resulting from increased or changed production and consumption processes. For green entrepreneurs, ecosystem failures provide new business opportunities, for instance new products and services that reduce environmental degradation, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. In similar vein, social enterprises solve societal problems in their business operations. What these cases of profit-, sustainability- and society- driven businesses have in common is that the act of management is initiated because of the experience of a problem or failure that is found in the world. This problem provides a business opportunity for the manager and may lead to profit if the business is successful, but also to social or sustainability benefits in case of social enterprises for instance. Another commonality is that instead of facing the reality of this problem or failure in the world, and instead of bending to the facts just because they are real, the manager is oriented towards opportunities that are not real yet but can become real due to his or her act of management. This means that management is not so much characterized by managerial power to control the business, but by resistance, namely resistance against the world as it currently is organized and arranged, and by the manager’s decision to change the world; the manager experiences a problem or failure in the world and decides not to leave it this way but to initiate new business operations or to change current business operations in order to address this problem. In case of a profit driven business, this resistance and decision to change the world can be found in a gap in the market that the business manager solves by developing new products or services that meet customer needs. In case of a sustainable business, this resistance can be found in resistance against sustainability related ecosystem failures and in the decision of the manager to take the responsibility to change the world by engaging in sustainable entrepreneurial action.

The idea that management is characterized by resistance and the decision to change the world opens another perspective on management control. As argued earlier, business management is often understood in terms of the managerial power to control; it concerns the functional order and ordered arrangement of the business that is led by the manager who is in control of the business, so that its efficient functioning is guaranteed and maintained. Although control is definitely important to sustain the business and serves the survival of the firm, it is also criticized for its focus on computation and calculation and neglectance of the individual professional in favour of bureaucratic control as we have seen. We can prevent this criticism by arguing that management controls have to be balanced with another aspect of management that can be associated with resistance and action to change the world; business management involves the decision to change the world, and can be associated with the entrepreneurial sense of management as recognition and exploitation of new business opportunities. In this way, management as resistance and action enables us to conceptualize the nature of business management beyond mere control, namely as resistance against problems or failures in the world and the desire to change the world in order to address this failure. Footnote 7 The decision to change the world doesn’t accept the status quo and results in an acting out upon this desire to change the world, rather than bearing and managing this impulse. Management is not only focussed on control but involves a new beginning to address the problem or failure in the world. This beginning is conditioned by the problem or failure that the manager experiences. At the same time, the manager is the arché of this beginning and the one who initiates the acting out to address the problems or failures in the world that he experiences. This acting out of the manager may consist in the establishment of new start-ups, the introduction of new products and services, but also in the entrepreneurial decision to engage in sustainable or social business opportunities or in changes in the current business practices in order to make them socially responsible for instance.

The idea that management control is accompanied by management as resistance and acting out to change the world also shows the structural role of contingency and the possibility of misfortune in management. Every acting out is performed in an environment in which also other actors operate, like customers, suppliers and competitors. This means that acting out at the same time suffers from the acts by others, and this explains why the acting out of the manager may lead to an unlimited variety of consequences. On the one hand, what comes out of the acting out of the manager cannot be calculated upfront and always has unexpected elements in it, as its beginning is determined by the singularity of the self-referentiality of the manager. On the other hand, the success of his or her acting out is not guaranteed. There is always the risk of failure or misfortune, for instance the entrepreneurial risk of bankruptcy or misfortune. To the extent that the success of the acting out of the manager to exploit new business opportunities is fundamentally incalculable – entrepreneurial risk is said to be uninsurable (Knight 1921 ) - managerial decision making processes are not processes that can be fully determined and calculated via the various steps involved in decision making processes, but remain fundamentally contingent. This structural contingency involved in management as acting out can partly be limited by management control, but cannot be fully lifted by control measures. In this respect, contingency and the possibility of misfortune are structural characteristics of management as acting out to address the problems or failures in the world.

Because the fundamental uncertainty of management as acting out can never be fully controlled by management control, the act of management always remains exposed to risks and possible misfortune. For this reason, we can argue that business management is in need of the public approval that provides the firm a social license to operate (Blok 2017b ). This approval by society can be gained if the business operations are responsive to social needs, next to profitability for instance. In case of business operations that involve significant risks for employees or users, responsiveness may require that the manager becomes responsive to these concerns in the (re)design and execution of the business operations. In other words, because the act of management is always intrinsically exposed to fundamental risks and the possibility of misfortune, the acting out of management to solve problems or failures in the world should at the same time be characterized by his or her responsiveness to societal needs and concerns. In fact, acting out and responsiveness belong together and are mutually dependent, as acting out alone can change the world without any guarantee that the way the manager addresses problems and failures in the world is ethically acceptable and societally desirable. At the same time, responsiveness alone can consists in the acknowledgement of a problem or failure in the world without any engagement in its solution. Only in responsive action, the manager engages in such a solution of problems or failures in the world that is ethically acceptable and societally desirable. One can think of firms like the Grameen bank that have other social purposes next to profit maximization, but also of our example of green entrepreneurs who try to address ecosystem failures. With this responsiveness of managerial acting out, we can substantiate the idea that management has not only economic significance but also moral significance.

Nonetheless the permanent exposure to risks and the possibility of misfortune, management as responsive action to change the world is also characterized by fundamental optimism , namely the manager’s belief that he is able to make the difference in business operations. To explain this, one could refer to the concept of self-efficacy, which is often associated with entrepreneurial behaviour. Self-efficacy affects people’s choice of action and their persistence to engage in this action (Bandura 1997 ). The manager beliefs that he is in control in the sense that he has the power to change the world in a responsible way, and this experience of power motivates manager’s resistance to the status quo.

With this characteristic of management as responsive action, we also encounter another aspect of the self-referentiality of management. The self or ego of the manager is existentially involved in his or her choice for responsive action, which involves a risky endeavour without guarantee of success. The manager either existentially chooses and engages in responsive action without certainty about his or her future success or misfortune, or will be no manager at all; management consists in bearing these risks, and in responsive action nonetheless these fundamental risks involved. In other words, the self or ego of the manager him- or herself is at stake in their decision to take responsibility for the problems or failures he experiences in the world. The self of the manager emerges only in this choice that decides about his or her future prosperity or distress. This capability to act in a risky and uncertain environment can be framed in terms of an action competence (Blok et al. 2016 ). Action competence is the “capability … to involve yourself as a person with other persons in responsible actions and counter-actions for a more humane world” (Schnack 1996: 15). It is a moral competence of the manager to take responsibility for problems and failures in the world, which involves the manager’s believe that he is capable to change the world by addressing these failures in a responsible way. To the extent that management starts with resistance against problems or failures in the world, the desire to change the world is the impulse for his or her decision to engage in responsive action to change the world to address this failure in a responsible way. In this respect management as responsive action is existentially embedded in the disposition or ethos of the manager to do the right thing and how to live the good life. This can be recognized in pro-active firms that actively contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals , but also in the social entrepreneur who never wanted to start a business, but primarily engages in entrepreneurial action in order to address sustainability related ecosystem failures. Footnote 8

This second additional characteristic of management – management as responsive action – enables us to question another aspect of the loss of participation in many contemporary management practices – namely the disconnection of business management and the ethos of the manager, i.e. his or her knowledge about the good life – and the lack of attention for the consequences of the structural role of uncertainty and possibility of misfortune for our conceptualization of business practices. It also opens a new perspective on the nature of business management as responsive action. The transition from management control to management as responsive action provides a second additional characteristic of the concept of business management.

Management as Constituting Meaning

While currently, business management is often understood in terms of the establishment of a functioning order of the business in order to make profit, we questioned this orientation towards profit already; the examples of social enterprises and sustainable businesses showed already that profit may be an important condition for firm survival, but does not necessarily define the nature of business management. We can argue that a pure focus on profit maximization is only a special case of the performance of management as responsive action. This raises the question in what the primary performance of business management actually consists, if it is not profit.

We encounter another particular performance of business management if we reflect for a moment on Xenophon’s conceptualization of management. Xenophon characterizes management as the establishment of a functioning order in which all natural resources have their proper place, all human resources have their proper task and role, and the manager regulates and governs the proper use of these natural and human resources. He provides the example of a ship:

“Now I saw this man in his spare time inspecting everything that is needed as a matter of course on the ship. I was surprised to see him looking them over and asked what he was doing. ‘Sir’, he answered, ‘I am looking to see how the ship’s equipment is stored, in case of any accident, or whether anything is missing or mixed up with other equipment’” (Xenophon 2013 : 8. 15-16).

Business management is understood here as the establishment of a functioning order in which all natural resources have their proper place, all human resources have their proper task and role, and the owner of the assets regulates and governs the proper use of these natural and human resources in order to make profit. In first instance, this functioning order of the business enables the manager to act appropriately in times of setback or unforeseen circumstances that threaten the survival of the ship in stormy whether. It also constitutes a “paradise” of beauty that evokes admiration (Xenophon 2013 : 4.13; 4.21), for instance the ship in which all equipment is well stored and provides peace of mind and energy to work in.

With this, it becomes clear that the particular performance of management consists in the establishment of a functioning order . Only within such an order, resources can have their proper role and function. The establishment of order indicates that the manager has a very specific performance next to his or her participation in the primary process and engagement in responsive action. The particular production of the manager does not only consist in the production of new or changed products and services to address problems or failures in the world, but also in the production of order.

What is order? Negatively said, we can argue that the production of order has nothing to do with the production of products or services, or metaphysically understood beings. The ordered functioning of a firm concerns a meaningful arrangement of these beings, in which these beings have their proper place. This arrangement of beings is not attached to these beings themselves, but the orderly arrangement of the primary process of the business to produce particular products and services assigns all resources their proper place; there is not a particular arrangement attached to wood or iron, but in a primary process to produce hammers for instance, wood and iron have their proper place, while wool or grain wouldn’t have such a proper place in this particular primary process. If Xenophon associates this orderly arrangement of the business operations with a paradise of beauty that evokes admiration, it is the orderly arrangement of the physical and natural resources – the rope, the net, the sailor in case of the ship – that constitutes a meaningful whole that relates all these separate beings to each other and brings them together in a world for fishing for instance, that enables the act of fishing. Not the production of goods – i.e. fish – is the primary task of the business manager, but the constitution of a meaningful world order for the business operations. This meaningful arrangement of the business operations is beautiful, not these resources that have their proper place in this meaningful world of fishing, i.e. in this proper environment for fishing. In this case, fishing is the organizing principle in light of which the business operations function as a meaningful order in which natural and human resources have their proper place. But we can also think of sustainable businesses that embrace sustainability as normative principle in light of which the business operations are (re)designed and improved. Positively said, therefore, we can argue that management originates from the experience of dis-order and consists in resistance against this dis-order by the articulation of order. The primary performance of management consists in the constitution of a meaningful arrangement of the business operations in which all natural and human resources have their proper place, role and task and are arranged in such a way that they enable the manager to produce new or changed products and services for instance. This meaningful arrangement of the business operations is not naturally given, nor produced by the managerial power to control the business, but is articulated by the manager’s participation and responsive action to address the problems and failures in the world. With this performance, the natural resources of the business receive their proper place, all human resources involved receive their proper task and role, and even the manager as regulator and governor of the proper use of these natural and human resources receives his or her proper place for the first time.

We therefore frame this particular performance of business management as constitution of a meaningful world for the proper execution of the business operations, for instance a meaningful world for fishing, producing hammers etc. that enables the business manager to address the problems or failures that he experiences in the world. This shows on the one hand the intimate relation between the world of the business operations and the world of society it operates in and is responsive to in managerial action; business in society means that the world for the business operations is constituted in such a way that its actions are responsive to problems or failures in the world of society. On the other hand, the world of business and society never coincide, as the world of society is characterized by a plurality of (competing) businesses that constitute a multiplicity of co-existing but different worlds of businesses in society. The world of the different businesses may partly overlap with each other, but the world of society is always beyond the actual world that is constituted by the individual business manager, and always remains open for new beginnings or new configurations of responsive actions by a new generation of managers. Footnote 9

With this, we encounter another aspect of the self-referentiality of management. The self or ego of the manager is not only the subject of the constitution of a meaningful arrangement or world of the business operations, as he establishes and maintains the orderly arrangement of the business, in which the human resources involved in the business operations have their proper place and are at home. The manager is also object of this meaningful world for the business operations, at it gives him his or her proper task and role in the primary process as well. This means that the meaningful arrangement of the business operations is not constituted once and for all, but only is in the actual execution of the maintenance of this meaningful arrangement by the responsive action of the manager. With this dual role of the manager as subject and object of the constitution of a meaningful world for the business operations, the importance of business integrity as congruency between the principles of the business and its operations, as well as management integrity as congruency between the manager’s role as subject and object of this meaningful arrangement of the business, becomes clear.

This third additional characteristic of management – management as constitution of a meaningful world for the business operations – enables us to question the main focus on profit that can be encountered in many contemporary business practices, and to open a new perspective on the primary performance of business management. The transition from management for profit to management as constituting meaning provides a third additional characteristic of the concept of business management.

Based on this second round of reflection on the nature of business management, based on three contested areas of business management, we have opened the self-evident conceptualisation of business management as managerial power to control the business environment, and articulated three additional characteristics of the concept of management.

In this article, we laid the ground for a philosophy of business management. Based on our comparison of Xenophon’s concept of management with contemporary definitions of management in §1, we identified three common characteristics of management that can be seen as dimensions of the concept of management: e.g. management as establishment and maintenance of a functioning order of the business, management as engagement in business operations via the work done by other people (people management), and asset management and entrepreneurial action in order to increase profit and pleasure. Next, we reflected on three contested areas in management that we identified based on our comparison of Xenophon’s conception of management with contemporary definitions of managerial power to control the business environment, namely management as profit maximation, the instrumentalization of management, and management as limitless bureaucratic control. Based on these contested areas in management, we opened up the self-evident conceptualization of business management for philosophical reflection. In §2, we engaged in such reflection and developed three additional characteristics of business management: management as participation; management as resistance and responsive action; management as constituting meaning. These three characteristics of business management move beyond the self-evident conceptualization of management and highlight the possible importance of three ‘new’ dimensions beyond its conceptualization as managerial power to control.

By combining the findings of this article, we provide a first framework with six dimensions of what the nature of management might be, that can guide future philosophical and empirical work.

The first three characteristics of business management can also be found in textbooks in management and economics. They describe more or less contemporary management practices. The last three characteristics can be found in practice as well, but have a different status as they substantiate our opposition to the dominant concept of management as managerial power and mechanisms of control that is still taught in business schools today, and opens up a new perspective on business management. The normative, rather than descriptive nature of the last three dimensions is not at all problematic, as the development of new theories of imagination for management science is necessary to prevent that we remain intellectually imprisoned by the structures of its self-evident conceptualization (cf. Komporozos-Athanasiou and Fotaki 2015 ).

With our reflections on the nature of management, we do not want to claim to have established a full philosophy of management. Several questions remain to be asked, for instance how the self-referentiality of management is related to the human condition in general (e.g. management as human condition); what explains the loss of participation in many contemporary business practices; how can the participation of the self or ego of the manager in the business operations be aligned with the non-participation of the self or ego of the manager in his or her responsiveness to societal needs; how can management as control and management as resistance and responsive action to change the world enhance and strengthen each other; in what does the particular nature of ethical management consists, and how is business ethics perceived from the perspective of this philosophy of management; how is the meaningful – economic - world constituted by business management and the meaningful – political - world constituted by non-business management related to each other; to what extent does our concept of business management move beyond Foucault’s concept of management as modern governmentality of the world? With our reflections on the concept of management, we laid the ground for such philosophical questions by providing six building blocks that can guide future research in the philosophy of management.

In fact, interest in the history of the concept of management is more often found outside the particular sub-domain of philosophy of management, for instance Mondzain ( 2005 ) and Agamben ( 2007 ).

According to Foucault for instance, there are three co-existing types of power relations: 1) legal power in which the sovereign state defines normative codes of what is allowed and what is not; 2) executive power that safeguards the obedience to the legal system, like police and penitentiary detention systems; 3) biopolitical power as government of populations (Foucault 2009 ). In biopolitical power, “the massive, compact disciplines are broken down into flexible methods of control” (Foucault 1979 : 211).

Both private and public institutions are understood as economic-political actors (Blok 2019b ).

Although we explicitly focus on business management in this article, it is assumed that at least some of the characteristics are applicable on organizational management as well.

If we positively characterize management as participation, we do not take the notion of participation in the sense developed and criticized by Levinas ( 1969 ). According to Levinas, participation is radically opposed to ethics, which is responsive to the singularity of another person. Participation is always characterized by the reduction of the otherness of the other person to the same in favour of a common ground in which the singularity of the other is neglected in favour of their commonality. From this perspective, participation is always participation in a generality (unifying principle, common ground etc.) in which the singularity of the other person is neglected. This neglecting of the other consists in either the assimilation of the other to myself (self-confirmation) or in the submission of myself to the other person (self-denial)(Blok 2017a ). In fact, we agree with Levinas’ criticism of participation (Blok 2019c and §2.3) but highlight here another aspect of participation as relation to the self as engaged actor, instead of a relation to the other (cf. Stiegler 2005 ).

A legitimate question is what explains the loss of participation in many contemporary management practices. One could point at the ambiguity in the Greek and Latin conceptualization of action: “To the two Greek verbs archein (‘to begin’, ‘to lead’, finally ‘to rule’) and prattein (‘to pass through’, ‘to achieve’, ‘to finish’) correspond the two Latin verbs agere (‘to set into motion’, ‘to lead’) and gerere (whose original meaning is ‘to bear’). ... In both cases the word that originally designated only the second part of action, its achievement – prattein and gerere – became the accepted word for action in general, whereas the words designating the beginning of action became specialized in meaning, at least in political langue. Archein came to mean chiefly ‘to rule’ and ‘to lead’ when it was specifically used, and agere came to mean ‘to lead’ rather than ‘to set into motion’. Thus the role of the beginner and leader, who was a primus inter pares (in the case of Homer, a king among kings), changed into that of a ruler; the original interdependence of action, the dependence of the beginner and leader upon others for help and the dependence of his followers upon him for an occasion to act themselves, split into two altogether different functions: the function of giving commands, which became the prerogative of the ruler, and the function of executing them, which became the duty of his subjects” (Arendt 1958 : 289). This split in the meaning of action may explain why management is primarily associated with a loss of participation. A full answer to this question would require however a broader reflection on the political economy in which contemporary management functions, and is therefore beyond the scope of this article.

Sometimes management is opposed to entrepreneurship because the latter concerns the exploration and exploitation of new business opportunities, while the first maintains the functioning order of existing business operations. To the extent that the entrepreneur has to direct, plan and control the exploitation of new business opportunities as well, we see entrepreneurship as a special case of business management in line with contemporary definitions (see §1.2).

As this article focusses on the nature of business management, we identify responsive action as general characteristic of management. This characteristic forms the basis of particular business ethical reflections on the role of business management. But contrary to management as participation in the business operations for instance, responsiveness does not necessarily imply any participation, which involves a reduction of the other person (or society at large) to the interests values of the business manager (Levinas 1969 ). Ethical responsiveness can consist in responsive action to address societal problems and failures without any participation, but in response to the call of the other person (or society at large)(Blok 2019c ). The further exploration of the business ethical implications of our concept of management is beyond the scope of this article.

This plurality of worlds also shows why the responsiveness of the world of business to the world of society does not necessarily imply any participation of the world of business in the world of society, but constitutes a multiplicity of co-existing worlds that enable ethical responsibility for the problems or failures of the world without any participation. The further elaboration of this relation is beyond the scope of this article.

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Blok, V. What Is (Business) Management? Laying the Ground for a Philosophy of Management. Philosophy of Management 19 , 173–189 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-019-00126-9

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Guide: How to Create an Amazing Management Essay

By: Henrique Bertulino

A management essay is not unlike any other academic article. As with any academic assignment, the essay's primary purpose is to assess students' knowledge in the subject "Management." The main difference lies in understanding whether a student has some practical skills versus the vast majority of academic assignments that first assess theoretical knowledge.

What Does a Management Essay Mean?

Example: duties of corporate managers, example: human resource management, example: knowledge management, example: leadership and management, example: mba in global management, example: network management, example: organizational behaviour, example: performance management, example: real estate risk management, example: risk management, example: strategic management, models of management, five components of management, four processes of management.

To create this essay, follow the structure:

• The essay introduction , which explains the relevance of the topic. Why is this topic exciting and requires special consideration?
• A thesis is a statement within the framework of the topic, which would be formulated by you. The thesis, not the topic, is your essay's central idea, which you have to justify.
• Arguments. There must be at least three of them. Each argument should support your thesis from different sides. Each argument should be self-contained and complete.
• Conclusion. Here you should evaluate the potential of the topic. Perhaps there are other points of view? Do I need to raise it in the future? In conclusion, there is a return to the introduction and a search for ways for a possible discussion.

A management essay is a small piece of work written by a given structure and in strict accordance with a management program . The essay reflects the author's subjective point of view, based on the analysis of theoretical and analytical materials.

Some students still think that governance is research in which only executives or true management professionals can benefit, but governance is a skill that everyone uses every day. Organization and planning are essential for any corporation. However, they can come in handy in our day to day interactions with people and even when planning and evaluating the various tasks we face.

In a real business environment, any employee with governance skills becomes a precious asset. Even so, many students mistakenly believe that reading a book or two on the subject will teach them everything they need to know about governance. In practice, this is a skill that can only be learned outside the university. The good news is that having a strong theoretical background helps a lot in a real professional environment. And writing management essays is one of the surest ways to gain much-needed knowledge.

Interesting Management Essay Topics

Management is needed to define and set goals, achieve them with people and resources, coordination, and control. Without a competent governance system or self-organization, effective economic activity in any area is impossible: business classes , public administration, non-commercial projects. If you are at the Faculty of Management, then you need to consider topics from experts:

• The conceptual evolution of management.
• Labor motivation in modern conditions.
• A psychological portrait of personality. Assessment of the manager's business qualities.
• Influence of information technology on the success of the firm.
• Power and leadership: essence and meaning.
• The nature of work and requirements for the professional competence of managers.
• Business plan of the company: essence, structure, characteristics of the main sections.
• Limitations of the manager's effectiveness and their overcoming.
• The central dilemma of the American manager: revitalization of people and the importance of ideas.
• The state of the US economy: does the manager have maneuver?

Now that you have an idea of what to write about, consider a business paper template .

Legal entities are corporate clients with whom representatives of any business want to cooperate. A corporate account manager usually contacts them. Many commercial organizations build their business precisely on such cooperation.

The main task of a modern company is to attract and retain a corporate client. Certain programs and techniques are implemented, employees are introduced to the staff, whose duties include attracting profitable partners and interacting with them. This position is called a corporate account manager.

Based on the results of psychological observations and surveys, I determined the following typology of managers:

• Melancholic. This type of manager is slow. His communication style is impassive and apathetic, which gradually arouses the client's dissatisfaction and pushes them to an early conclusion of the negotiations.
• Erudite. Managers of this type inspire buyers' confidence since they can answer all their questions, draw many analogies, and quickly navigate the situation.
• Executor. The creative approach is not his element. A manager of this type will act strictly "by the instructions."

I can conclude that no company can exist without corporate managers. Such people must have the ability to communicate and attract customers.

The leaders of most organizations focus on production management, finance, marketing. At that time, human resources continue to be the weakest link in the overall governance system. I want to prove that the importance of human resource governance should come first.

First, human resource management directly affects a company's capitalization. The share of intangible assets in the total assets of the organization is growing.

Secondly, as the organization's most important internal competence, human resource governance ensures leadership in the competitive struggle. Since it is one of the most important competitive advantages of the organization, it becomes a guarantee of its success and survival in the face of increased competition.

Thirdly, according to several experts, human resource governance allows companies to move from the number of goods successfully working to the number of leaders in a certain market segment.

As you can see, we cannot do without human resource management. I believe that every company should take care of this.

Knowledge management is a concept that emerged about two decades ago, sometime in the 1990s. Perhaps one can immediately define the term "knowledge management" - it is the organization and systematization of information and knowledge in a company.

What does a knowledge management system consist of? The obvious answer is from information and data available to all organization members through special portals and content governance systems. A content governance system is the most evident and operational component of a knowledge governance system.

Does knowledge governance have a future? Of course. Let's take the bibliometric analysis results: we count the number of articles in business literature that describe certain business concepts. Most of these concepts are gaining popularity quickly, reaching their peak in about five years, and then their performance almost as rapidly falling. Knowledge management is not just a modern trend. This concept has a future.

There are too many managers globally, and also few leaders are ready to prove themselves. A leader is needed wherever you need to initiate and manage change. Where it is necessary to maintain an established order of things, you can limit yourself to management.

An effective leader does the right thing and focuses on the top priorities. It creates an inspiring vision for the future and sets a strategic direction. The leader empowers employees, motivates them, and energizes them.

An effective manager performs the tasks assigned to him, organizes the work, and does things right, offers a market research proposal for a new product. As a manager, you plan, give directions, manage work, measure performance, and control people and processes.

In terms of the spectrum of actions, management is broader than leadership. The leader deals mainly with the behavioral aspects. The manager deals with both behavioral and non-behavioral. I believe that a person working in a large company should be a leader and a manager at the same time. After all, if a person has such skills, then the company's growth will increase significantly.

Global management is a relatively new phenomenon resulting from globalization's rapidly developing process in the objective strengthening of international economic, political, scientific, technical, and spiritual and cultural ties. Global governance emerged due to the transformation of international relations and the functional necessity of managing the spontaneous globalization processes.

Global management is a system of institutions, principles, standards, political, legal, and moral norms. With the help of which relations and processes of the global, transnational level are regulated. The first who gave global governance an academic sound was J. Rosenau, an American specialist in international relations, a political science professor at George Washington University. He immediately separated the concept of global governance from the UN system. He presented global governance as something more than formal institutions and organizations through which international affairs governance is carried out through the UN system and its bodies.

Thanks to this system, international organizations increase their global governance participation with limited political authority. The development of such a system should be at a high level, and each country should contribute.

Even a five-minute network downtime can lead to significant losses. Therefore, to prevent unforeseen situations, it is necessary to apply an integrated and structured approach to network management, including, among other things, the implementation of proactive actions.

Managing a computer network is an integral and, in many cases, the primary responsibility of a network engineer or administrator. At first glance, what is challenging about this work? From an ordinary employee's perspective, it looks like this: after receiving a message from network users about certain malfunctions, the network engineer eliminates them. Such work can be characterized as reactive support.

Unfortunately, a reactive approach is often insufficient for servicing an extensive network. At some point, the number of error messages starts to increase like an avalanche, which can cause the failure of critical network services.

Since the computer network is a business-critical tool for any modern enterprise, even a five-minute network downtime can lead to significant losses. Therefore, the network engineer must exclude the possibility of such situations occurring.

Organizational behavior manifests itself in a social, technological, and ecological environment, its activities, relationships with other organizations, and individuals. The science of organizational behavior provides a set of tools used at various levels of analysis. For example, it allows managers to analyze individuals 'behavior in an organization and understand interpersonal relations problems in two individuals' interactions.

Also, knowledge of organizational behavior is instrumental in examining the dynamics of relationships within small groups. In situations where it is necessary to coordinate two or more groups' efforts, managers are interested in emerging intergroup relationships.

Finally, organizations can be viewed and managed as holistic systems, which are formed by intra-organizational relationships.

Organizational behavior as science grew out of behaviorism - a direction in psychology that studies the experimental behavioral responses of a person's mental organization to external stimuli. I believe that every manager should study this direction for his development.

Company performance management is a list of processes that help develop and implement a business strategy, analyze processes, track results, make informed decisions, and draw the right conclusions. These processes' main task is to control employees' work so that individual contribution helps in achieving the company's overall goals.

Individual efforts must be consistent with the organization's overall objectives: you need to link individual activity with a common business goal, establish performance metrics, and help employees understand how well they perform. For this, tools and incentives are used, such as rewards, bonus and rating systems, personal growth plans, and key indicators discussion.

Analytical tools such as time tracking, productivity analysis, and key metrics are also used to achieve this goal. I believe that the company's efficiency should be in every company because teamwork will not work without this.

Among the elements of the market economy, real estate occupies a special place, which acts as a means of production and an item or object of consumption. Real estate acts as the basis of personal existence for citizens. It serves as the basis for economic activity and the development of enterprises and organizations of all ownership forms.

Any enterprise bears the risks associated with its production, commercial, and other activities. Any entrepreneur is responsible for the consequences of governance decisions. The risk factor forces the entrepreneur to save financial and material resources, to pay special attention to the calculations of the effectiveness of new projects and commercial transactions.

Risk can be managed. Various measures can predict a risk event's occurrence to a certain extent and take steps to reduce the degree of risk. The classification of risk largely determines the effectiveness of the organization of risk governance.

Ultimately, all types of risks in one way or another have a financial dimension, either increasing the costs of a project or transaction, or reducing income, or leading to exceeding the planned investment timeframe, or, in the extreme case, to the loss of not only income but also the capital.

When starting a new business or project, it is necessary to prepare for force majeure situations. Competent risk management methods will help minimize losses and not miss out on profits even in a critical situation. Therefore, competent risk governance in the financial sector is worth its weight in gold.

To manage risks, they are first identified and measured. For each organization, the set of inherent threats differs depending on the type of activity, the environment. It is necessary to identify them, analyze them, and select suitable methods of dealing with them.

A competently built risk management system will allow you to extract benefits for the enterprise from any threat and adequately cope with crises. The risk manager must select suitable hazard governance techniques and make quick, non-standard, but strategically sound decisions.

Strategic management is a company's series of actions to achieve long-term goals that allow a business to survive in competition and thrive in any external environment. The more unstable the conditions in this environment, the more the company needs a clear strategy.

The strategic management system includes developing the company's mission and goals and actions to achieve them. To develop an effective corporate strategy - the company's governance needs to answer three key questions: What is its current situation, and what opportunities and resources does it have? Where are you planning to move to in the future? How can we achieve these goals?

As you can see, strategic management is a powerful governance system and a priority task for the company's governance team. Learning its foundations allows the manager to develop the so-called "helicopter view" thinking. A manager who possesses strategic governance tools can actively shape its future, so he will always value it.

What Management Means: Simple And Understandable

Management is the process of managing an organization or part of it, and the people involved in this process - managers. Management is a social science that includes psychological and economic aspects, so a talented manager knows how to outwit a competitor in harsh market conditions.

The object of management's work is people, the team in a company, an authority, or a non-profit organization.

Management is an activity carried out by heads of companies, enterprises, or people among whom leadership positions are distributed.

The task of governance is to organize the well-coordinated work of the team within the company or enterprise. The internal and external elements function as efficiently as possible, minimizing time and financial costs for certain actions and processes.

The management model is a set of principles and governance strategies developed, taking into account national, historical, geographical, socio-cultural, and other factors. There are three main or traditional management models:

• The American model of management. Americans' national traits greatly influenced its development and formation as a disposition for success and freedom of expression, confidence in their exclusivity, exclusivity struggle for leadership, and the obsessive assertion of their superiority.
• The Japanese model of management. Typical national traits of the Japanese: restraint, modesty, refusal to stick out their own "I," diligence, diplomacy, frugality, accuracy. The formation of the Japanese governance model was influenced by their specific culture and features of economic development.
• The European model of management. Their methods and models of governance appeared and developed in Western Europe in the post-war period. The development of European management is a merit of several countries at once: Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Norway. This governance model is based on the principles of social harmony.

There are five main components of management:

• marketing is a social process aimed at meeting the needs and requirements of individuals and groups by creating and offering valuable goods and services and exchanging them with other people;
• business planning - a document for the development of an enterprise, defining its further path of work;
• accounting - modern management accounting provides managers with the information necessary for making governance decisions;
• finance - a well-defined financial function is necessary for successful work in conditions of tough business competition and will allow the enterprise to achieve tangible material results;
• organization - issues of managing various flows (human, material, energy, financial).

Management processes are divided into four types:

• planning and approach to solving situations;
• organization of team activities;
• leading and managing people for a common goal;
• controlling and evaluating team performance.

This is where our journey into the world of management ends. We have provided you with many examples and tips. Use the information in your essay, and you will get an A +.

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Writing an Essay on Business Management

Business management is one of the oldest activities known to human beings. The world of business management has undergone several changes over the years. For most of the successful entrepreneurs, trying to understand this progress has taken years of research and learning the systems that control this sector. As a scholar in business management, you are required to write not just one essay on business management but several of them in an attempt to grasp some of the concepts that are crucial in the learning process. Have a look at some of the best tips you can take advantage of so you can come up with a compelling essay about business management.

Understanding the Basics of Essay on Business Management

Writing requires you to understand the topic in question before going ahead to work on it. This will allow you to subdivide the idea into bite-size topics that will summarize the entire essay on business management in a nutshell. These subtopics will also enable you to elaborate the business management essay in a way that brings about coherence in the entire paper.

Once the topic is clear, and the outline is prepared you can then begin filling in the skeletal structure with information that will make the business management essay take shape.

The Scope of Work

The scope of work of any paper is guided by the outline, which in turn is determined by the topic and the thesis statement. First, you need to come up with a topic that will summarize all your ideas in a few words. You will then have to come up with a thesis statement that further elaborates the topic and subtopics that you intend to cover in your management essay. A fitting introduction is essential when writing such a topic. It gives the reader a rough idea of what has been discussed in the entire paper. When it comes to the body, you have to find useful material that you will use to find information. Finally, you have to sum up your paper. When writing your essay on business management here are some of the things you should and shouldn’t do.

What Shouldn’t You Do

• Do not beat around the bush, rather get to the point without using too many words
• Do not use untrustworthy sources of information as they may contradict the whole paper.
• Do not forget to cite the sources that you used.
• Take care not to overcrowd your paper with information. Use only the required number of sources to achieve a balanced paper.
• Do not begin working on your paper when the deadline is almost due since you will produce good content.
• Remember to read through your paper several to ensure that it is free of any errors and that the ideas flow in a reasonable manner
• Use an outline to guide your paper writing exercise. It will help you to stay on topic.
• Go through a business management essay example first if you are not sure you are doing the right thing
• Brainstorm with other students from your class for more ideas on how to go about the exercise.
• Narrow down on a topic that can be exhausted in the number of pages requested by your lecturer.

Ideas for Your Business Management Essay

The topic is the essential part of the paper considering it gives direction to the whole project. When choosing a heading for your paper, take into consideration that business management is an inexhaustible topic. Some of the business management essay topics that you can use include:

• The history of business management in the USA
• Business management strategies that are known to work
• The importance of managing a business
• Tips for creating a successful business management plan
• Business management ideas from the past that are still effective to date

Pick a topic that you can exhaust within the number of pages that have been allocated by your class facilitator. When writing a business management essay, make use of real-life examples considering that your paper will be read by not just the lecturer, but other students who may stumble upon it in the library, if it manages to pass the criterion required to have it published as a journal. Be sure to be accurate in the use of data and information by other scholars in the same realm. If you are not sure how this is done, find other students in your college who have done it before and ask them for tips that will aid you in working on the paper effectively.

If all these fail, it high time you solicit for the assistance of a qualified writer, who will work on your paper within the allocated time and follow the rules that are stipulated for this kind of writing. You can search for our site online and speak to our customer support team for you to get help.

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Essay Service Examples Business Leadership and Management

Business Management Essay

Table of contents

Executive summary, introduction, the role played by business management, basic roles of the business management process:, business management issues, local business management issues, issues in the sadc region, security issues, global issues, cyber attacks on u.s. companies, impact of recession on businesses, business management professional, the taxonomic approach, the neo-weberian approach, effective business management.

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• Decisional Roles: Carried out by the company’s directors, the decisional roles are required for decision-making purposes.
• Interpersonal: These roles are necessary to effectively coordinate and interact with the employees. Interpersonal roles are used to bridge the gap between the businesses’ senior managers and their employees; they are also used to create a sense of uniformity and a team environment.
• Administration: These roles are implemented to handle, analyze and share information that is important to the business.
• Conceptual: These skills are required to effectively evaluate complex situations.
• Interpersonal: A series of skills needed to boost motivation and communication among the senior managers and employees of a company. Interpersonal skills are a fundamental aspect of the business management process because they allow executives to mentor employees and delegate tasks (A GUIDE TO BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, n.d.).
• Increasing levels of corporate taxation would have negative impacts on business
• Increasing levels of individual taxation could reduce consumer demand for goods and services.
• Public sector procurement will decline with implications for businesses that have significant public sector customers (Lowth, Prowle, & Zhang, 2010).
• 10 Companies Affected by Cyber Attacks. (2019, May 6). Villanova University. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from https://www.villanovau.com/resources/iss/companies-affected-by-cyber-attacks/
• A GUIDE TO BUSINESS MANAGEMENT. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://business.laws.com/business-management
• Acheampong, D., & Tseane-Gumbi, D. (2016). Tourism in the SADC region and challenges facing the youth market: the Mozambican experiences. African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure, 5(4). Retrieved July 16, 2019, from http://www.ajhtl.com/uploads/7/1/6/3/7163688/article 19 vol 5 4 .pdf
• Cunningham, N. (Ed.). (2014). Rethink Growth and Learning through Coaching and Organisational Development. Randburg, Randburg, Republic of South Africa: Knowles Publishing (Pty) Ltd. Retrieved July 16, 2019
• DeMers, J. (2016, January 11). The 10 Golden Rules of Effective Management. Retrieved July 16, 2019, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254547
• Gordon, J. (2018). TOP 10 QUALITIES OF AN EXCELLENT MANAGER. Retrieved from https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/top-10-qualities-of-an-excellent-manager.php
• Harare, T. F. (2019, May 06). Botswana to host elephant summit. THE NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA. Retrieved July 16, 2019, from https://southerntimesafrica.com/site/news/botswana-to-host-elephant-summit
• How to Manage a Business Effectively (7 Key Elements). (n.d.). EDUCBA. Retrieved July 16, 2019, from https://www.educba.com/how-to-manage-a-business-effectively/
• Lagace, M. (2019, June 07). Are You a Digital Manager? Retrieved July 16, 2019, from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/how-to-be-a-manager-in-the-digital-digital-age
• Landry, A. O. (2018, April 30). 5 issues facing business management. Business Report. Retrieved July 16, 2019, from https://www.businessreport.com/business/5-issues-business-management
• Lowth, G., Prowle, M., & Zhang, M. (2010, September). The impact of economic recession on business strategy planning in UK companies. 6(9). Retrieved July 21, 2019, from https://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/Thought_leadership_docs/Research%20Funding/R268%20Economic%20recession%20final%20V2.pdf
• Manny, P. (2019, June 18). Oil Execs Explore Solutions to Africa's Security Threats. (M. V. Veazey, Interviewer) Nigeria: Rigzone Staff. Retrieved July 14, 2019
• Saks, M. (2012, May 06). Defining a Profession: The Role of Knowledge and Expertise. PROFESSIONS & PROFESSIONALISM, 2(1), 1-10. Retrieved July 16, 2019, from http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-30970
• Strydom, J. W. (2007). Basics of Business Communication (First ed.). Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa: Red Pepper Books. Retrieved July 16, 2019
• Tebele, M. (2019, July 5). Bots to enact laws to root out corruption, and woo investors. Gaborone, Botswana: Southern Times. Retrieved from https://southerntimesafrica.com/site/news/bots-to-enact-law-to-root-out-corruption-woo-investors
• The Role of Management. (n.d.). Rice University. Retrieved July 16, 2019, from opentextbc.ca/businessopenstax/chapter/the-role-of-management/

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Business Essay Examples

13 Business Essay Examples for Students

14 min read

Published on: May 1, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 30, 2024

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Are you struggling to figure out the structure, research, or data required to make your essay stand out? Or frustrated by the lack of inspiration and ideas for your essay?

But don't give up yet! We have a powerful solution that will make your essay writing a breeze. Our list of business essay examples is here to help! 

We have compiled expertly written business essay examples that will illustrate how to write a striking business essay.

With our examples, you'll be able to see how to structure your essay and generate creative ideas for your topic. And our tips will help you make the most of these examples.

So, let's dive in and get ready to learn!

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What is a Business Essay?

A business essay is a type of academic writing that focuses on business-related topics and issues. These essays can cover a wide range of topics such as marketing, finance, management, entrepreneurship, and more.

The importance of business essay lies in presenting a well-researched and informed analysis. To do this effectively, writers need to conduct extensive research and analysis on the topic at hand.

Referring to examples of business essays can help you gain insight into the structure, tone, and content of a well-written essay.

Business Essay Examples For Students

Here is a list of business writing examples

Business Essay Examples Pdf

Business Essay Example Grade 10

Business Essay Example Grade 11

A Level Business Essay Examples

University Business Essay Examples

International Business Essay Examples

Short Essay About Business

College Essay About Starting A Business

Types of Business Essay with Examples

When it comes to business essay writing, there are several different types that you might encounter. 

Here's a brief overview of each type, including their characteristics and an example of each.

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Case Studies

A case study is an in-depth analysis of a specific business situation or problem. It involves extensive research and data analysis to provide recommendations.

Case studies often showcase the application of theory to real-world business scenarios.

Research Papers

Research papers involve a more academic approach to business writing. They typically require an extensive literature review, data analysis, and original research. 

Business research papers aim to contribute new knowledge to the field of business. These often involve a hypothesis or research question.

Argumentative Essays

Argumentative business essays aim to persuade the reader to adopt a particular point of view or take a specific action. They present an argument and use evidence and logic to support their claims. 

Argumentative essays can address various business topics such as management practices, ethical issues, or market trends.

White Papers

A white paper is a document that provides a detailed explanation of a particular issue or problem, often with recommendations or solutions. 

White papers are typically used to educate stakeholders about a specific topic. These are often used in the business-to-business (B2B) context.

Comparative Essays 

Comparative business essays compare and contrast two or more topics or ideas. They typically analyze the similarities and differences between the topics to evaluate their pros and cons. 

Comparative essays can focus on various aspects such as products, companies, markets, or strategies.

How to Structure Your Business Essays

As you begin writing your business essay, it's important to structure it in a clear and organized way. 

Here's a step-by-step guide with business essay samples to help you do just that:

Executive Summary

The executive summary is a brief overview of your entire essay. It should summarize your main points and highlight your recommendations. 

This section should be written after completing the essay, as it gives a clear picture of what the essay covers. 

Here is how you start a business essay sample:

Introduction

The introduction sets the stage for the rest of the essay. It should introduce the topic, provide background information, and explain the purpose of the essay. 

Here is a business essay introduction example:

Industry Analysis

In this section, you'll conduct a thorough analysis of the industry in which the business operates. You should examine factors such as competition, market trends, and customer behavior. 

Here is a sample industry analysis

Key Issues or Problems

This section should identify the main issues or problems faced by the business. You should provide evidence to support your claims and analyze the impact of these issues. 

Here is an example paragraph:

Solutions or Recommendation

Here, you'll provide solutions or recommendations to address the issues identified in the previous section. Your solutions should be well-supported and feasible. 

For instance:

Implementation Plan

For this part, you'll outline a plan for implementing the solutions or recommendations you've proposed. This is sort of a description of the business model you suggest. 

This section should be detailed and include specific action steps. 

For example:

Finally, you'll wrap up your essay by summarizing your main points and reiterating your recommendations. 

This section should be clear, concise, and impactful. 

By following this structure, your business essay will be well-organized, coherent, and easy to follow for your readers.

Tips for Using Business Essay Examples Effectively

Now that you have quite a few business essay examples at hand, you should know how to use them effectively:

• Use them as a guide, not a template : While it's great to learn from examples, you should never copy them outright. Instead, use them as a starting point for your own research and writing.
• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the essay : Take note of what works well in the example essay, as well as any areas that could be improved. This will help you understand how to make your own essay even better.
• Use them to inform your own research and writing : Pay attention to the research methods, sources, and evidence used in the example essay. This can give you ideas for your own research and help you strengthen your arguments.
• Avoid plagiarism and ensure proper citation: Whenever you use ideas or information from an example, make sure to cite your sources. This will help you avoid plagiarism and maintain academic integrity.

You now have a plenty of business essay examples on different topics to help you get started!

By following our tips and studying the sample essays, you can confidently write your own essays that are clear, concise, and impactful. 

However, if you still find yourself struggling with your business essays, just reach out to our professional business essay writing service . 

We have the best online essay writing service and are ready to provide you a high-quality business. Our writing service has subject specialist writers who can tackle any business essay topic.  

So why wait? Contact us today and let our AI essay writer take your business essays to the next level!

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Essay on Management: Top 9 Essays

Here is a compilation of essays on ‘Management’ for class 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraph, long and short essays on ‘Management’ especially written for school and college students.

Essay on Management

Essay Contents:

• Essay on the Importance of Management

1. Essay on the Introduction to Management :

Management is a vital aspect of the economic life of man, which is an organised group activity. It is considered as the indispensable institution in the modern social organisation marked by scientific thought and technological innovations. One or the other form of management is essential wherever human efforts are to be undertaken collectively to satisfy wants through some productive activity, occupation or profession.

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It is management that regulates man’s productive activities through co-ordinated use of material resources. Without the leadership provided by management, “the resources of production remain resources and never become production”.

In the words of Drucker manager is the life-giving dynamic element in every business. Productive resources-men, money, materials-are entrusted to the organising skill, administrative ability and enterprising initiative of the management.

Modern business is the complex scene of forces of change constantly at work. The size, strategy, structure, motivation of modern enterprises underline the need of creative touch in successfully piloting their affairs. New products, new methods and techniques appear day-after-day to cater to the ever-changing trends of consumers’ tastes and needs. The ceaseless competitive drive to capture markets necessitates intellectual handling of refined requirements of consumers.

Management today is not just an exercise of blind authority or bossism but it implies scientific thinking, accurate planning and meticulous control to ensure quick and better results. Management has become a profession in view of the modern business becoming more sophisticated.

As ownership gets divorced from management, specialisation in business operations becomes more marked. Proprietors, shareholders and even their directors remain comparatively in the background and experts specialising in delicate and intricate matters of industrial techniques play increasingly positive and prominent role in running the business. Professional experts like engineer, scientist, market surveyor, trained executive, researcher, technician, occupy important place in running the affairs of an enterprise today.

Management now a days, therefore, consists of cadre of experts who performs a profitable job to build-up the competitive strength of the firm and they strive to “develop and expand the assets and profits” of the proprietors. According to Drucker, “Management, which is the organ of society specially charged with making resources productive, that is, with the responsibility for organised economic advance, therefore, reflects the basic spirit of the modern age.”

2. Essay on the Meaning and Definition of Management:

It is not an easy job to give the exact meaning of management.

Different writers have used the term “Management” in different senses, which will be clear from the following discussion:

Management as a Process :

In the words of George R. Terry, “Management is a distinct process consisting of planning, organising actuating and controlling performed to determine and accomplish objectives by the use of human beings and other resources.” The elements of management are: planning, organising, actuating (directing) and controlling.

These are also called the functions of management. It is through the performance of these functions that management is able to effectively utilise manpower and physical resources such as capital, machines, material, etc. to produce goods and services required by the society.

This has been shown in Fig. 1:

Henri Fayol has defined management as a process consisting of five functions: “To manage is to forecast and plan, to organise, to command, to coordinate and to control.”

However, modern authors do not view coordination as a separate function of management. They consider it as the essence of managing. Koontz and O’Donnell have classified the functions of management as follows: planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling. These functions are inter-dependent and interrelated. There is no fixed sequence of their performance. They are performed more or less simultaneously.

Management is regarded a process because it involves a series of functions as shown in:

It starts with planning and ends with controlling. But it does not mean that managerial functions are followed in a specific sequence. A manager performs all the managerial functions simultaneously. Moreover, Management is a never-ending process.

There are three features of management as a process:

(i) Management is a social process as it deals with human beings.

(ii) Management is an integrating process as it organises human resources for the efficient use of other resources like capital, materials, technology, machines, etc.

(iii) Management is a continuous process. It is always involved in identifying the organisation problems and solving them.

“Management is the technique of getting things done.”

“Management is the art of getting things done.”

Marry Parker Follet defined management as “an art of getting things done through others”. This is a traditional definition of management. It emphasises that management directs the workers for getting results from them and supervises their performance. The workers are treated merely as a factor of production like materials, machines and capital.

This definition is insufficient in the modern world because of the following reasons:

(i) The above definition is incomplete because workers are treated as a mere means to organisational goals.

(ii) The management tries to manipulate the behaviour of the workers.

(iii) The needs and aspirations of the workers are not considered.

People are not mere cogs in the wheel and so they should not be treated as commodity or mere means to certain ends. Needs and aspirations of the people working in an organisation should not be overlooked. They must be satisfied so as to obtain sustained and consistent effort towards organisational objectives.

Management may be defined as a technique of getting things done through others by satisfying their needs and providing them opportunity for growth and development. According to Harold Koontz, “Management is the art of getting things done through and with people in formally organised groups. It is the art of creating environment in which people can perform as individuals and yet cooperate towards attainment of group goals.”

In order to accomplish results, management must create opportunities, and encourage growth and development of employees and provide guidance and assistance, wherever necessary. All this demands skillful application of the basic principles of the science of management. Managers must have conceptual, technical and social skills in translating the abstract organisational philosophy into concrete action.

Management is the dynamic life-giving element in every organisation. It is the activating element that gets things done through people. It provides the force necessary to transform the resources of a business organisation into desired goods and services. The primary job of management is to convert the disorganised resources of men, machines and materials into a productive organisation.

Management as a Group :

In the words of sociologists, management is a group or a class who together carry out various managerial activities.” Thus, management refers to the group of people in an enterprise who are carrying out management functions.

In other words, all individuals occupying managerial positions are collectively known as management. A manager is a person who performs the managerial functions of planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling.

Since a manager performs the managerial functions, he is a member of the management of the organisation. Used in this sense, management includes all those who manage the affairs of an organisation. But in practice, the term ‘management’ is used to indicate the top management consisting of chairman, managing director or chief executive and Board of Directors.

Management as a Discipline :

As a discipline, management refers to the body of knowledge and a separate field of study. Management is an organised body of knowledge which can be learnt through instructions and teaching. It entails the principles, practices, techniques and skills of management which help in achieving organisational objectives. This discipline is taught widely in schools and colleges in most of the countries of the world.

Management has acquired the status of a discipline because of the following two reasons:

(i) A lot of research is being carried out by the scholars in the field of management. The results of research will be useful for future managers.

(ii) It is a specialised body of knowledge, which is studied and practised in management institutions.

Management as an Activity :

Management is an activity concerned with getting things done through people and directing the efforts of individuals towards a common objective. In the words of Harold Koontz, “Management is the art of getting things done through and with people in formally organised groups.”

Management gets results from the people by satisfying their needs, and expectations, and providing them opportunity for their personal growth. Management is a distinct activity in any organisation which is necessary for the achievement of its objectives.

According to another functional classification management activities are classified as:

Classification of Management Activities

1. Informational Activities:

Management has to act as a communicative link between subordinates and superiors. On one hand management receives, requests explanations, statements and suggestions from their subordinates and on the other hand it also receives orders and instructions from superiors. In their informational role as managers the requisite information is passed on to both subordinates and superiors.

2. Decisional Activities:

Management being both administrative and executory has to take routine and strategic decisions regarding various operational activities so that the organisation work is executed smoothly. In their decisional role as managers, management can also be termed as innovators, resource allocators, negotiators and crisis managers.

3. Inter personal Activities:

Management being a team work and group activity requires cooperation, coordination and harmonious relationship between individuals and departments. In order to integrate and charrelise best efforts of individuals to attain predetermined objectives of the enterprise, managers in their interpersonal role act as a figure head of the enterprise, as a leader and as a liason.

Other Definitions of Management:

Various writers have given various definitions of the management.

The following are some of the important definition:

According to E.F.L. Brech, “Management is the process of planning and regulating the activities of an enterprise.”

According to Lawrence A. Appley, “Management is the development of people and not the direction of things management is personnel administration.”

According to Koontz and O’Donnell, “It is the task of manager to establish and maintain an internal environment in which people working together in groups can perform effectively and efficiently towards the attainment of group goals.”

According to Kimball and Kimball, “Management embraces all duties and functions that pertain to the initiation of an enterprise, its financing, the establishment of all major policies, the provision of all necessary equipment, the outlining of the general form of organisation under which the enterprise is to operate and the selection of the principal officers. The group of officials in primary control of an enterprise is referred to as “the management.”

According to William Spriegel, “Management is that function of an enterprise, which concerns itself with the direction and control of the various activities to attain the business objectives.”

According to Keith and Gubellini, “Management is the force that integrates men and physical plant into an effective operating unit.”

According to S. George, “Management consists of getting things done through others. Manager is one who accomplishes the objectives by directing the efforts of others.”

According to Newman, Summer, Warren, “The job of management is to make cooperative endeavour to function properly. A manager is one who gets things done by working with people and other resources in order to reach an objective.”

3. Essay on the Characteristics of Management:

The main characteristics of management are as follows:

(i) It is Goal-Oriented:

The important goal of all management activities to achieve the objectives of a business concern. The objectives of the business may be economic, social and humane.

(ii) It is a Process:

When it is used in the sense of a process, it refers to what management does. In other words, it refers to the process of managing, planning, organising, staffing, guiding, directing supervising and controlling.

(iii) It is a Group Activity:

For the success of a business, it is necessary that all human and physical resources are co-ordinated to achieve the maximum levels of productivity. We all know that the combined productivity of various resources will always be higher than the total productivity of each resources.

(iv) Management is Universal:

It is required in all types of organisations, e.g., family, club, university, government, army, business. The basic principles of management are applicable in business as well as in other organisations. However, these principles are flexible and they can be modified to suit different situations.

(v) It is an Art and Science:

It consists of both the elements of science and art. The science of management gives a body of principles or laws for guidance in the solution of specific management problems and objective evaluation of results. The management as an art consists of this use of skill and effort for producing desirable results or situations in specific cases.

(vi) It is a Factor of Production:

Not only the land, labour and capital are of effective use for the production of goods and services but the managerial skills are also used effectively for this purpose.

(vii) Management is Dynamic:

Management denotes is an ever-changing environment, It involves adoption of an organisation to changes in its environment, and modifying the environment for the benefit of the organisation. Therefore, management is a constantly growing process.

(viii) Management is a Profession:

Management is considered to be a profession as it possesses all the attributes of profession as:

(i) A systematic corpus of knowledge,

(ii) A period of apprenticeship, and

(iii) A code of conduct.

(ix) Management is an Important Organ of Society:

Management has become an important organ of society. Management of large scale undertakings influence the economic, social, moral, religious, political and institutional behaviour of the members of the society.

(x) It is a System of Authority:

In every organised group supreme authority must rest somewhere. There should be a clear line of authority from the supreme authority to every individual in the group.

4. Essay on the Nature of Management:

A study of literature of management often gives rise to a question as to whether management is a science or an art. The brief discussion which follows leads us to the conclusion that it is both a science and an art.

Management as a Science :

Science is by definition a body of knowledge gathered by experimentation and observation, artificially tested and expressed in the form of general principles.

Following are the essential features of science:-

1. Systematised Body of Knowledge:

Science being ‘systematic’ is based on cause and effect relationship. It consists of theories and principles which have the capacity to give reasons for past happenings and at the same time, can be used to predict the result of specification in future.

2. Scientific Methods being used:

Personal opinions and individual likes and dislikes don’t influence scientific principles. They are obtained through scientific investigation and reasoning. They are critically tested and can be scientifically proved at any time.

3. Principles based on Experiments:

Observation and testing the validity and truth through experimentation makes a statement, a principle.

4. Universally applicable:

Scientific princAples may be applied in all situations and at all times, exceptions though may be logically explained. These principles, under required given conditions never fail at any place or point of time.

The debate about whether or not managing is a science continues. The answer to this question depends largely on the degree to which the scientific method is used to determine managing principles and solve managing problems.

Management satisfies many of the scientific principles, for e.g.:

1. Management is a systematised body of knowledge. Its principles explaining cause and effect relationship between various variables, e.g., Principle of Unity of Command if not followed leads to inefficiency, confusion and duplication of work.

2. Management principles are evolved on the basis of observation and repeated experimentation. For instance, it is being observed through experiments that if stability in tenure of an employee is not there, his working efficiency decreases.

But, at the same time, there exists many scientific features which do not coincide with those of management.

Briefly, the method of science consists of the following steps:

1. Facts or data are collected in an objective manner.

2. These facts are classified in some way, usually on the basis of similarities or dissimilarities, in an attempt to make the data more meaningful.

3. From the classifications, hypotheses are formulated establishing cause and effect relationships between various given factors.

4. The hypotheses are then tested to determine their reliability and validity.

5. After the hypotheses are verified and if they stand the test of time, they then have interpretive or predictive value when applied to similar phenomena.

In referring to the hope of dream that a true science of management may someday be achieved. Professor Mee states, “This hope probably will be realized in another chapter in another book in another century.” Perhaps the best that can be said is that a science of management is just beginning to emerge.

It has often been stated that even when management attempts to use the method of science (from which managing principles are also derived), management is neither as precise nor as comprehensive as the natural and social sciences.

There are several reasons why this is true:

1. The rational approach and the application of the method of science are relatively new in business and industry. As a result, managing has not developed the comprehensiveness found in other disciplines that have used the scientific approach for a much longer time.

In fact, one of the more significant developments in the last seventy-five years in the field of management has been the tendency toward using the rational approach in solving management problems.

2. Relatively few managers are trained or experienced in using the method of science. Those who are trained may find it too time-consuming and, because of this as well as other limiting factors, seek other ways to reach decisions and to solve problems.

3. Precision measuring instruments and tools are not always available in management. A manager is forced to use relative measurement where absolute measurement is not possible or feasible. To evaluate the performance of a group of supervisors, for example, he may have to use a relative measuring device such as a carefully prepared rating scale. For his purposes, however, the relative measuring technique is just as useful and effective.

4. In the physical sciences, the researcher works with a single variable, holding all other factors constant. Managers can seldom do this. They almost always deal with people, the human element with all its weaknesses. The human element can never be treated as a constant; hence precision is less than in the physical sciences, though equal to that of the social sciences. Businessmen are always dealing with the unpredictable: people, governments and nature.

5. Most importantly, managerial decision-making, unlike problem solving in the sciences, stresses action rather than truth. A manager’s decisions must have practical application. Managers strive for reasonable results under uncertain conditions rather than for perfection. A method, technique, or device only has to be “good enough” to get the job done.

Management as an Art :

Art refers to the skill to put into action a systematized body of knowledge for the achievement of a given task. To get mastery in any skill it is necessary to have the thorough knowledge of the principles of doing the particular task. At the same time it is necessary to possess the tact, the care to be taken, the discretion and proper judgement in applying the principles involved.

Presence of mind, promptness to react to the given situation and correct response demanded by the prevailing condition are all essential to perform skillfully the task undertaken.

Experiences and judgement add to this skill. Management is also an art as it is necessary to apply the principles of management in planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling the whole series of activities all through the managerial process.

Throughout the stages of the process of decision-making and execution of these decisions all the individuals occupying various positions at different levels of management need all the skills involved.

Briefly, these skills are called the planning skills, the organising skills, the staffing skills, the directing skills (how to motivate, to communicate, and to lead) and the controlling skills. Sometimes it is said that a good manager is born and not made. But it has been now established and accepted that it is through learning and training process that skilled managers are developed.

As Koontz and O’Donnell have rightly pointed out the work of managing a business or any group activity is an art. But for this the organised body of knowledge is required. It is certainly a science. Thus art and science are not exclusive terms but complementary ones.

Management as an art has the following features:

(a) Personal Skill:

Human beings apart, there are other factors which vary in their effect and role in the achievement of the managerial tasks. Managers have to apply their skill to deal with them.

(b) Practical Knowledge:

Business enterprises involve risks. Only those who have experience can deal effectively with such risks.

(c) Result Oriented Approach:

Management as an process aims at achieving concrete goals. It aims at utilising available resources optimally by creating a congenial atmosphere.

(d) Personal Judgement:

No doubt there are useful principles of management, but it needs individual judgement to apply them properly and at appropriate time. It means art is necessary.

(e) Continuous Practice:

The art of management is much older than the science of management which as an organised body of knowledge is hardly about ninety to hundred years old.

Management: Both Science and Art :

Management is a combination of an organised body of knowledge and skillful application of this knowledge. According to Brech, “A systematic body of knowledge underlies the competent practice of management”.

Much of this knowledge are to be found in various academic disciplines. Competent performance of various management functions necessarily needs an adequate basis of knowledge and a mature scientific approach.

Thus management is both a science and an art. It is a science because it uses certain principles. It is an art because it requires continuous practice to ensure the best possible result. Thus science and art in management are not mutually exclusive. Both of them exist together in every function of management.

Management as a Profession:

Profession is defined as a composite of intellectual and executive qualities applied to carry out successfully the specified activities for the benefit of others. It is an intellectual field. One enters into it to work without any expectation of a direct share in the profits earned out of the activities to carry out which one might be contributing his specialist knowledge or intellect.

According to George, “Profession is that which has a well-defined body of knowledge, which is learned, intellectual and organised, to which entry is restricted by examination, or education and which is primarily concerned with service to others above self-award.”

Features of Profession:

The above statement makes the following features of profession clear:

1. Existence of a body of knowledge, techniques, skills and specialised knowledge.

2. Formalised methods of acquired training and experience.

3. The establishment of a representative organisation with professionlisation as its goal.

4. The formation of an ethical code for the guidance of its conduct.

5. The charging of fees based on the nature of service extended.

In the light of what has been said above management can be said to be a profession.

The arguments in favour of this statement are given below:

1. Body of knowledge:

All over the world there is marked growth of an organised systematic body of knowledge about management as a process.

2. Formal methods of teaching:

The establishment of professional schools of management in which management as a body of knowledge can be taught is seen everywhere. India is no exception to it as is clear from the establishment of Indian Institutes of Management at Ahmedabad, Calcutta, Bangalore, Lucknow and Post­graduate Departments of Management as well as Institutes/Colleges of Management being established in different parts of the country.

3. Fee as remuneration:

The number of management consultants is increasing Even a large number of well reputed firms are establishing their consultancy agencies.

4. Existence of ethical code:

There is growing emphasis on the ethical basis of management behaviour.

5. Establishment of representative organizations:

Both at the national and international levels management associations have been formed with their membership rules, codes of conduct, etc. All India Management Association, New Delhi.

National Institute of Personnel Management, Calcutta, Institute of Marketing and Management, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, New Delhi, Institute of Costs and Works Accountants of India, Calcutta are the well established associations in India. And many more organisations in the specialised fields/ branches of management are being organised.

Management as Profession: A Controversy :

However, there is no agreement on this point. Questions are asked: Is management a profession? Is it becoming a profession? As it is well known, a large number of business units are operating as sole traders and single entrepreneurship enterprises. By definition and in practice they are managed by proprietor-managers. So is the case with partnership firms and joint Hindu family firms.

But company form of business enterprises in India and corporate organisations in USA and other countries are even by definition the enterprises in which ownership is divorced from management. Even then question remains if all of them are managed by professional managers. As things stand, under law it is the shareholders who elect the Board of Directors from amongst themselves.

Thus the topmost group at the top level management of a company or corporate body are not professional managers. But all the big companies operating on large scale do appoint executives and managers on salary-cum-perks basis. Thus they are the professional managers.

In large companies even the Vice Presidents of marketing, finance, etc. who are on the Board of Directors are the professional managers. So are all those working at the middle level and lower level of management. In case of public undertakings management is in effect with the professional managers. Exceptions to it are Departmental Undertakings such as Railways. Posts & Telegraphs etc. which are controlled by the various departments of the Government.

But there also other than the Minister-in-charge all those looking after the management are professionals. A new trend is becoming more and more marked. Proprietary managers are becoming more interested in acquiring the latest knowledge and technique of management. They are sending their own sons, daughters and other close relatives abroad to acquire degrees and diplomas in management.

Others are joining short- term courses in management run by organisations like Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad. All India Management Association etc. Such persons are now occupying positions at the topmost layers of the managerial hierarchy.

Are these persons to be regarded as proprietary managers or professional managers ? No doubt all the features of profession are not applicable to them. But they do possess other features.

In conclusion, it may be said that all the requirements of profession are not satisfied by managers at the top. But management is, by and large, becoming professionalised, it is more so in the developed nations. But even in India large number of managerial cadres are getting professionalised.

This is applicable to both the public and private sectors. Even the case of smaller enterprises, which are run by proprietary managers, assistance of professionals such as chartered accountants, cost accountants and lawyers are being utilised to a great extent.

5. Essay on the Objectives of Management:

Objectives can be divided into three categories: Individual, Social and Organisational. Recognising the three categories and reacting appropriately to each is a challenge for all modern managers.

(I) Individual Objectives :

Individual objectives are the personal goals each organisation member would like to reach through activity within the organisation. These objectives might include high salary, personal growth and development, peer recognition, and societal recognition.

(II) Social Objectives :

Social objectives deal with the goals of an organisation toward society. Included are obligations to abide by requirements established by the community, such as those pertaining to health, safety, labour practices and price regulation.

Further, they include goals intended to further social and physical improvement of the community and to contribute to desirable civic activities.

It should be noted that most business houses in achieving their primary goals also contribute to their respective communities by creating needed economic wealth, employment and financial support to the community.

(III) Organisational Objectives:

Drucker indicates that the very survival of management may be endangered if managers emphasize only a profit objective. This single-objective emphasis encourages managers to take action that will make money today with little regard for how a profit will be made tomorrow.

In practice, managers should strive to develop and attain variety of objectives in all management areas where activity is critical to the operation and success of the system. Following are the eight key areas in which Drucker advises managers to set management objectives.

1. Market Standing:

Management should set objectives indicating where it would like to b£ in relation to its competitors.

2. Innovation:

Management should set objectives outlining its commitment to the development of new methods of operation.

3. Productivity:

Management should set objectives outlining the target levels of production.

4. Physical and Financial Resources:

Management should set objectives with regard to the use, acquisition and maintenance of capital and monetary resources.

5. Profitability:

Management should set objectives that specify the profit the company would like to generate.

6. Management Performance and Development:

Management should set objectives that specify rates and levels of managerial productivity and growth.

7. Worker Performance and Attitude:

Management should set objectives that specify rates of worker productivity as well as the attitudes workers possess.

8. Public Responsibility:

Management should set objectives that indicate the company’s responsibilities to its customers and society and the extent to which the company intends to live up to those responsibilities.

6. Essay on the Levels of Management:

More of the authors have conceived of three levels of management in any fairly-sized business undertaking.

These are as follows:

1. Top Level Management

2. Middle Level Management

3. Lower level Management

Management is considered as a Three-tier activity. The top tier centres round the determination .of objectives and policies, the middle tier concerned with implementation of policies through the assistance of lower tier of the organisation.

The various tasks in a business enterprise “become structured somewhat like a pyramid, with the highest level of management centred at its apex”.

The managerial set-up of any undertaking, therefore consists of three levels – Top Management, Middle Management and Operating Management or Lower Level Management.

The following chart illustrates Levels of Management in a company form of enterprise of fairly large size:

This gradation of level of management is not a watertight arrangement but represents a hierarchy of authority and responsibility designed to secure a systematic sequence of operations. Each level is blended into another through its functions and all the layers of authority constitute an integrated arrangement.

The demarcation of the levels is only to analyse the range of responsibility and span of control and it underlines the principle of specialisation in administrative executive processes.

A. Top Level Management:

Top level management is made up of Board of Directors, its Chairman, Managing Director or General Manager and other key officers responsible for smooth and systematic conduct of the affairs of the enterprise.

The top level management is a concept of functions concerning the manner in which the enterprise should be shaped.

In view of large size of modern companies, the key functions cannot be performed by a single person, and hence a compact group of elected office-bearers, experts and executives form the top management level of enterprises these days. Board of Directors is assisted by Managing Director, General Manger etc. in directing the company’s operations.

Top level management’s work is a creative process and it also involves commitments of high order of responsibility. As Allen observes “top-management work is a work which must be performed at the apex of the organisational pyramid because it cannot be carried out effectively at lower levels.”

Top management is also described “as the policy-making group responsible for the overall direction and success of all company activities.” It is a chief custodian of the property of the enterprise. It is the main mobiliser of resources in men and materials essential for the inception, maintenance, operations and expansion of the undertaking.

It is more basically a panel of planning the company’s operations and in due course shall develop into an evaluating and controlling medium for securing the maximum possible performance. It is concerned with the problems and policies of the entire enterprise.

The functions of top management include:

“Identifying key factors for the survival and growth of the company and devising basic objectives, policies and programmes for dealing with these factors: being sensitive to the inter-dependence of the numerous actions and maintaining a strategic balance in these actions; and keeping an eye on how current activities of the company will cutting with predicted changes-social, political, technological and competitive-and adopting company plans to the anticipated environment.”

Functions of the Managers at the Top Level Management :

The fundamental functions of mangers of the top management may be classified into the following categories:

(1) Determining the objectives.

(2) Framing the policies and making plans to carry out the objectives and policies.

(3) Setting up an organisational framework to conduct the operations as per plans.

(4) Assembling the resources needed to put the plans into operation.

(5) Controlling the operations through organisation.

1. Determining the Objectives :

Objectives are goals which every enterprise seeks to achieve. Most of the companies describe in detail the nature of their activities in the objects clause of their Memoranda of Association. But by and large the general objectives which top management should aim at are survival, profit, business growth, prestige or status and social acceptance.

Production of particular product of specific quality, satisfaction of customer’s needs, earning of profit by production and sales, looking out for expansion and diversification of business, building up an image or reputation of the company in the eyes or estimation of the society are the broad objectives set up by top management.

Objectives also may be specific. They relate to types of activities. Specialty in workmanship, competitive pricing, marketing method, widening the area of sales abroad, relations with the workers, customers, public, government, etc.

2. Framing of Policies :

The objectives are realised through policies framed by the management. Policies signify the decisions taken by the management on different strategic aspects of company’s operations or activities.

Production policy indicates the schedules of production to meet the market demand.

Product policy lays down the standards, specifications, size, design, colour shapes etc. of the product.

Marketing policy describes the channels of selling the product (direct sale or dealership, agency etc.), advertising and sales promotions techniques to be adopted, the sales targets to be attained etc.

Pricing policy emphasises the quality aspect of the product as well as the comparative competitive nature of the rates quoted, discounts allowed etc.

Personnel policy deals with recruitment, placement, training, remuneration, promotion, rewarding and regulating the productivity of the personnel.

Financial policy is concerned with procuring funds required for investment in fixed assets or required to be held over for working capital needs, sources of finance, e.g., borrowing, self-financing, issuing additional capital etc.

Top management has also to devise plans and schemes for precise execution of policies within a given time. Plans set out the course along which operations in different departments are to be conducted as per the criteria laid down in the respective policies.

production schedule, sales campaign, financial arrangements, personnel motivation have to be drawn as to focus and guide the activities of the company in the direction of the realisation of the basic objectives.

3. Organising:

Organisation means division of functions, allocation of duties to the personnel, fixation of range of their responsibility and the scope of their authority and co­ordination of the activities of the departments of the undertaking. Standardisation of administrative procedures is the main task of organising the enterprise.

Systems and procedures are the methods intended to govern the departmental activities of a company. Organisation ensures smooth flow of work from one stage to another, or from one department to another, so that the whole undertaking is enabled to achieve the targets to the benefit of the company and satisfaction of customers.

4. Assembling the Resources:

Prior to the launching of the plans, the resources of money, men and materials have to be assembled. Executives and operatives are appointed after careful selection on the basis of their merits and the nature of jobs to be handled.

Money capital has to be raised through issue of shares, debentures, etc. and arrangement for working capital has to be made through reserves, bank advance etc.

Then the physical resources-machinery, tools, furniture, buildings, water supply, power, other ancillary equipment-have to be collected as per estimated needs. The management has to find out the sources of finance for implementing the plans and programmes.

5. Controlling :

Top level management does not directly execute work. But the Chief Executive in the top management has the responsibility of exercising supervision over all the departments to make sure that the middle and lower managements are functioning as per the plans.

By controlling we mean instituting checks or comparisons of actual results with the planned targets. It implies evaluation or measurement of the work turned out in each section or department with reference to the goals envisaged in the basic plans and policies of the company.

The top level management lays down the standards of performance for the purpose of comparison of the actual results with the planned performance. Standard cost per unit, sales quotas, net profit per unit of sales are some of the reliable criteria for comparison.

Top level management finds out to what extent the performance has been upto the mark and identifies in the course the sources of strength and weakness in the different phases of organisation and operations.

Top level management has to act as coordinator and regulator of the activities of the undertaking in its different dimensions. It will call for reports, statistical data, special studies, accounting records to know the position of performance and to apply regulatory checks wherever and whenever necessary.

B. Middle Level Management:

Middle level management is concerned with the task of implementing the policies and plans chalked out by the top management. Middle management comprises departmental heads and other executive officers attached to different departments.

These departmental managers and officers are expected to take concrete steps for actual realisation of the objectives and operational results visualised in the plans finalised by the top officers of the organisation. “This group is responsible for the execution and interpretation of policies throughout the organisation and for the successful operation of assigned division or departments.”

Managers at the middle level management level exercise the usual functions of management in respect of their own departments. They have to plan the operations, issue instructions to their assistants, collect the resources required and control the work of the men under them and evaluate the results achieved by their department with reference to the plans formulated by the top management.

If the top management is endowed with the authority of policy-making, middle management is entrusted with the programming of efforts essential for implementing the basic pre-determined policies.

Functions of Managers at the Middle Level Management :

The functions of the managers at the middle level management can be broadly summarised as follows:

(i) Interpretation of policies framed by top level management.

(ii) Preparing the organisational set-up in their departments for fulfilling the objective implied in various business policies.

(iii) Finding out the suitable personnel and assigning duties and responsibilities to them for the execution of the plans of the concerned departments.

(iv) Compiling detailed instructions regarding operations and issuing them to the assistants and operatives to focus and guide their efforts accordingly.

(v) Motivating the personnel for higher productivity and rewarding them for their merit, capacity or calibre.

(vi) Cooperating with other departments so as to evolve a smoothly functioning organisation.

(vii) Collecting reports, statistical information and other records about the work turned out in respective departments and forwarding the same with their observations to the top level management.

(viii) Recommending to the top management, new or revised policies for their departments to secure better performance.

Middle level management managers are responsible for all the leading functions within each department. They provide “the guidance and the structure for a purposeful enterprise”.

The top management’s plans and ambitious expectations cannot be fruitfully realised without the key officers at the middle level management.

Managerial Structure at the Middle Level Management :

Generally the following functions at the middle level management are performed through the various departments under the departmental managers or heads.

1. Production department headed by works manager is concerned with the following functions:

(i) To collect the work orders and issue them to concerned sections.

(ii) To guide the foremen, and prescribe methods and process to be followed in execution of the work allotted.

(iii) To devise a system of inspection of factory functioning, the components, semi-finished and finished products.

(iv) Assembling the tools, equipment, plant, qualified personnel etc. to execute the production’s plan.

(v) Controlling the factory expenses.

2. Engineering Department headed by chief engineer has to perform the following functions:

(i) Production-planning, routing, scheduling.

(ii) Plant layout suited to the execution of production plans.

(iii) Designing the products, their specifications, standards, quality, workmanship etc.

(iv) Research in methodology of production for improving technical efficiency.

(v) Plant and tools maintenance and development of the full capacity of production.

(vi) Economy in production costs and resource consumption.

3. Personnel Department:

It is headed by the chief personnel officer, labour officer. He has to devise selection procedure and training schemes: he has to maintain service records of the staff and formulate methods of remuneration in conformity with the productivity and cost of living. He has to assure wholesome working conditions to the personnel and look after their social and economic security and welfare.

4. Stores Department headed by stores manager is concerned with systematic organisation of purchasing raw materials, stores articles, tools, equipment, spare parts, etc. and proper custody of the materials with the responsibility of issuing them to the requisitioning departments.

He has to sort and arrange neatly the stockpile of materials etc. and keep an up to date record of materials, stores, tools, etc. received, issued, consumed, balance held in stock, etc.

5. Office Manager is in-charge of secretarial work of correspondence, filing, indexing, use of office appliances, maintenance of records and reports pertaining to the different departments.

6. Accounts Department:

The chief Accountant is responsible for maintaining up-to-date accounts of financial transactions and recording sales, purchases, receipts and payments.

He is also required to compile periodically the Trading Account, Profit and Loss Account and Balance sheet of the firm.

He should ensure that monthly financial statements indicating the position of the firm are placed before the Board and other top management officials.

7. Costing Department:

In bigger enterprises a separate department for costing is constituted and cost accountant is appointed to administer the functions of the section.

Costing department is entrusted with the main functions of ascertaining the prime and supplementary costs and submission of cost-sheets to the top level management for appraisal.

Costing department keeps detailed records of costs of completed jobs in progress, costs of materials, labour, factory overhead costs and sales on cost. It helps the management to find out the disparity between estimated costs and actual costs and the reason thereof so that remedial measures can be adopted.

8. Sales Department:

This section is the life-blood of the enterprise because the sales are the barometer of business profits and reputations of the firm. The work of the department is to create demand for the goods for promoting maximum possible sales at quick pace in wider markets.

The vital functions of the department are as follows:

(i) Market research to find out the needs, tastes and buying habits of the consumers.

(ii) Looking out for new markets for the goods.

(iii) Organising advertisement campaigns and other sales promotion activities for creating, maintaining and expanding the demand.

(iv) Collecting orders from the customers through agents, dealers or salesmen.

(v) Executing the orders by timely despatch of goods.

(vi) Supervision of salesmen’s efforts, training and stimulation of salesmen.

(vii) Organising after-sale service and similar sales promotion efforts.

(viii) Looking after proper warehousing, packing and despatch of goods.

(ix) Attending to customers’ complaints and suggestions.

C. Lower Level Management (Operating Management) :

It is described as the lowest level in the administrative framework and actual operations are the responsibility of the rank and file constituting this level of management.

Foremen, supervisors and sub-departmental executives assisted by a number of workers, clerks etc. carry out the actual operations as per schedule. Their authority and responsibility is limited and they have to follow the lines drawn by the higher levels of management.

The plans and policies of the top level management will fail if the foremen and operatives do not fully realise the spirit of sustained work. The quality of the workmanship and quantity of output will depend on the hard labour, discipline and loyalty of the operating personnel. The foremen or supervisors are responsible for executing the work orders allotted to their respective sections.

They pass on the instructions of middle level management to the working force, procure the materials, tools etc. required for the jobs, assign specific duties to individual workmen and guide them in acting upon the instructions and handling the job on hand with ability and accuracy.

They seek to maintain precise standards of quality, prevent wastage of materials by negligent workmen, look to the safety of machines and equipment and ensure steady flow of output as per plans and programmes prescribed by the top level and middle level managements.

They are also responsible for maintaining discipline among the respective batches of workers, preserving and boosting their morale and fostering the team spirit in them.

7. Essay on Theo Haimann’s Three Notions about Management:

According to Theo Haimann management is used in three different senses:

(i) It is used as a noun. It refers to the group of managerial personnel of an enterprise.

(ii) It refers to the processes of managing, planning, organising, staffing, guiding, directing, supervising and controlling.

(iii) It is used apart from the above two—personnel and activity- but it describes the subject, the body of knowledge and the whole practice, the discipline.

I. Management is an art of getting things done through other people :

It is a process of activity consisting of some basic techniques for getting the objective of an enterprise fulfilled through the efforts of people. It is the activating element in any concern for getting things done through people. But today it is thought to be against humanity. At present: “It is the art of getting things done through and with the people informally organized groups.”

The job of management is to give active leadership that unites the productive but passive resources into a fruitful organization.

As per E. Peterson and E.G. Plowman:

“It is a technique by means of which the purposes and objectives of a particular human group are determined, clarified and effectuated.”

As per E.F.L. Breach it has been said as:

“A social process entailing responsibility for the effective of efficient planning and regulation of the operations of an enterprise, such responsibility involving a judgement and decision in determining plan and using data to control performances and progress against plans. The guidance, integration, inspiration and supervision of the personnel comprising enterprise and carrying out its operations.”

Breach signifies that it is not possible to take management in relation to things or mechanical operations of machines but only in relation to the people who are employed to operate or use such things.

As per Prof. Harold Koontz it is:

“The art of getting things done through and with people informally organized groups. It is the art of creating an environment in which people can perform as individuals and yet co-operate towards attainment of groups’ goals. It is art of removing blocks to such performance, a way of optimizing efficiency in reaching goals.”

II. Management is what management does:

The three functions of management are:

(i) Planning,

(ii) Implementing, and

(iii) Controlling.

Planning includes formation of policy and its translation into plans. Implementing includes the execution. Controlling means exercising administrative control over the plans.

In the words of Dr. James Lundy:

“Management is principally a task of planning, co-ordinating, motivating and controlling the efforts of others towards a specific objective. It involves the combining of the traditional factors of production (land, labour and capital) in an optimum manner, paying dues attention, of course, to the particular goals of the organization.”

This definition includes three major management activities of:

(1) Planning is the ascertainment of the course or objectives of a business, division or department to attain maximum profit effectiveness, the establishment of policies and continuous seeking and finding out new and better ways to do things.

(2) Implementing seeks to the doing phases, after preparation of plans, personnel attend their jobs with training of motivation not do rightly. Activities must run to the planning, supervision and direction of the subordinates and at the same time groups efforts are coordinated.

(3) Lastly, controlling seeks to evaluate acts of those who are responsible for executing the plans agreed upon. It consists of: (a) Controlling adherence to plans (b) appraising performance.

III. Management is the development of the people:

Business is not the management of things. As Appley Lowrence puts it: “The development of people and not the direction of things.” It is the selection, training supervision and development of people. These days most of the large as well as medium-sized enterprises are managed by the professional managers i.e., the managers who have got either little or no share in the ownership of the enterprise. They take management as a career.

Mcforland has noted following characteristics of a profession:

1. A body of principles, techniques, skills and specialised knowledge.

2. Formal methods of acquiring training.

3. Laying down of certain ethical codes of guidance of conduct.

4. Charging of fees according to the nature of services rendered.

And management is truly a profession in the sense that it fulfills all these conditions. Management these days is very much a systematised body of knowledge (science) and is an identifiable discipline. It has also developed a number of its tools and techniques.

In India, now there are a number of management institutes and university departments imparting formal management training. But management still, at last so in our country, does not fulfill the last time requirements of being a profession. There is, for example, still no unified ethical code of conduct for the managers as is there for the doctors and lawyers.

8. Essay on the Functions of Management:

Various authors have given various functions of management according to the time and development of the management science.

All these can be classified into the following categories:

(i) Planning

(ii) Organisation

(iii) Direction

(iv) Co-ordination

(v) Control.

These functions of management have been discussed in detail in the following paragraphs:

(i) Planning:

It is deciding in advance what is to be done, how it is to be done and when it is to be done. Planning involves projecting the future course of action for the business as a whole and also for the different sections within it. It helps in bridging the gap between the present and the future.

Planning is possible whenever there is a question of choosing and planning process is possible only when alternatives are there. In fact planning is an intellectual process. It signifies use of rational approach to the solution of problems. The important aspects of planning process are defining and establishing objectives, policies, procedures methods, rules, budgets, programmes and strategies.

(ii) Organisation:

Organisation is the structural relationship in an enterprise between the various factors i.e., men, material and management which combine to achieve the objectives set by the enterprise. In a dynamic society like ours, the organisation is not fixed. If it does not promote the objectives of the enterprise, it must be modified.

(iii) Direction:

Direction consists of command, execution, control, supervision and motivation i.e., achieving the good results. It is concerned with to use Lawrence H. Appley’s maxim “that management is essentially getting things done through the efforts of other people.”

It needs the personal touch. A good manager has to see that his orders are properly carried out and have achieved the desired results. It will need proper supervision by him and control of all the levels below him.

Moreover, his order must always create motivation among subordinates. It is only possible when his orders are of the right type and at the right moment. For it, more of initiative, sincere and tact is required than aggressiveness. A good executive must always be a good leader.

(iv) Co-Ordination:

Co-operation permeates all operating organisations and makes their entire structure more effective by harmonizing and property timing the various activities. It means synchronising the activities of all persons and functions in the enterprise and rooting out personal prestige and vested interests.

Proper co-ordination presupposes a number of conditions which can be summed up as:

(i) Fixed responsibility

(ii) Adequate authority at each executive level

(iii) Organisational structure facilitating

(iv) Co-ordination.

(v) Control:

This includes the setting of the targets or standards and comparing the actuals with standards in order to know the deviations, analysis and probing the reasons for such deviations, fixing of responsibility in terms of persons responsible for negative deviation, and correction of employees performance so that group goals, and plans devised to achieve them are accomplished.

9. Essay on the Importance of Management:

Management is absolutely essential if human efforts are to be effective to meet all round development of the society through productive activity, occupation or profession. It is essential in all organisations and at all levels of organisation in an enterprise. Without the enlightened guidance and leadership made available by management “the productive resources will remain resources and shall never become production”.

Management is a dynamic element which gives life to a business enterprise. The productive resources such as materials, men, and money are entrusted to the administrative ability, enterprising initiative and organising skill of management.

In short, management is important for the following reasons:

(i) Provides Effectiveness to Human Efforts:

It helps achieve better equipment, plants, offices, products, services, human relations. It keeps abreast of changing conditions, and it supplies foresight and imagination. Improvement and progress are its constant watch-words.

(ii) Critical Ingredient in Nation’s Growth:

An underdeveloped nation usually lacks adequate managerial know-how. National development is not solely one of transferring capital, technology, and education to citizens of an undeveloped nations. It is also supplying or developing management which provides the generation and direction of effective human energies. Management know-how utilizes the available resources effectively toward achievement of basic needs.

(iii) Brings Order to Endeavours:

By means of management, apparently isolated events or factual information or beliefs are brought together and significant relationships discerned. These relationships bear on the immediate problem, point out future hurdles to be overcome, and assist in determining a solution to the problem.

(iv) Provides Judgement and Courage:

To determine worthwhile goals, carefully select and utilize resources efficiently by means of applying planning, organising, directing and controlling require a high degree of judgement and the exercise of great courage.

From time to time, gadgets and aids are offered to replace management, but actually at best they assist and do not represent management. Serious consideration of such devices usually points out the need for more management judgement and courage to be used. Nothing takes the place of management.

(v) Helps in Achieving Group Goals:

Management touches and influences the life of nearly every human being. Management makes us aware of our potentials, shows the way toward better accomplishment, reduces obstacles, and causes us to achieve goals that we probably would not otherwise attain.

Related Articles:

• Essay on Management: Top 5 Essays
• Essay on Manpower Planning: Top 5 Essays | Process | Personnel Management
• Essay on Management: Top 7 Essays
• Essay on Strategic Management: Top 7 Essays

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Free Business Essay Examples & Topics

If you are studying law, economics, finances, or management, the chances are that you will have to write a business essay. It is a fairly standard assignment encountered at a school or college level. Thus, every student should at the very least know the basics concerning this particular phenomenon.

What is business? Everyone has a vague understanding of the term, but there is also a specific definition. A business is a commercial, professional, or industrial organization involved in entrepreneurship. It is not necessarily motivated by financial gain – a charity can also be a business. The nature of business refers to its operations, its mission statement, and the type of service or product it provides. The organization’s size can range from sole ownership to large multinational conglomerates.

Our experts have selected some business essay examples for you to check out so that you won’t struggle with your task. Besides, in this article, you will find advice for writing these papers. You will see how to organize your work best and which elements to include in your essay.

How to Write a Business Essay

In this section, you will see the top recommendations for starting a business essay. The tips here are of most use for argumentative and persuasive writing assignments. These are the most popular styles for essays about business.

1. Pick a topic or analyze a given one.

If you’re free to choose one, select a topic that you find intriguing. Identify a relevant central idea to discuss. When writing an essay on an assigned topic, determine the exact question that needs to be addressed. Double-check the essay format that you have to follow.

2. Research and take notes.

Examine the topic to get a better understanding of the specific field. After identifying a central idea of the business essay, search for the information relevant to your paper. There are plenty of data available online. Yet, books and journals from your local library are also great resources. While researching, note all the useful sources to find them again later.

3. Create a reference list.

In most essays on business, you’ll have to illustrate your points and provide credible sources. Thus, collect the bibliography to indicate all the required citations. It’s a good idea to compile the references before you begin writing. This way, you won’t have to rush to get it all together at the end.

4. Write a thesis statement and create an outline.

Just like any successful organization requires a business plan, your essay requires a solid outline. Create your objectives and formulate your thesis statement around them. Ensure that your points and supporting evidence correspond directly to your central idea.

5. Revise and edit.

Most school and college students don’t bother to double-check their academic works once they are done. However, only with revision and editing will your essay truly achieve success. Check for grammar mistakes and the flow of your sentences. Ensure the logical order of your analysis. If anything sounds off, better to change it before submitting it.

Even after reading these steps, you may still be at a loss as to how to write a business essay. Examples of works written by other students can help you analyze relevant ideas. You can peruse the ones we have provided underneath the article.

Business Essay Outline

In the previous section, we mentioned that you need to create an outline for a successful paper. Thankfully, most essays have the same general structure they follow. We will analyze it in more detail below.

In essence, a business essay structure consists of the following:

1. Introduction. It is the place for you to explain the general idea behind your topic. This is also where you will provide a thesis statement. In the introduction, you will have to identify the central elements of the essay. Make sure you establish communication with the reader.

2. Background. You will always want to clarify specific terms or concepts essential to your audience. Thus, provide relevant definitions and context in your introduction or separate paragraph if your task allows it. For example, most people probably know what leadership is but will struggle to understand social responsibility. If you are writing a case study, important background information is necessary to include in your essay.

3. Main Body. Using your selected sources, create a detailed analysis of the topic. Make sure to incorporate:

• Arguments in favor of your position.
• Examples as evidence to support your claims.
• Counterarguments as evidence that you’ve examined the topic from different perspectives.

Don’t forget to include quotes and citations from relevant sources. These will provide credibility to your research.

4. Conclusion. In your last paragraph, provide a concise discussion of the separate points. Re-examine your thesis statement and reiterate it in different words. Summarize your findings and make sure that they relate to the purpose presented in the introduction.

Thank you for checking our recommendations. Below, you will find business essay examples on different topics. Good luck writing your assignment!

31129 Best Essay Examples on Business

Implementation of total quality management (tqm): toyota case study.

• Subjects: Management
• Words: 2733

The Flower of Services: Marketing Concept

• Subjects: Marketing

“Men Make Better Leaders Than Women”: Discussion of the Statement

• Subjects: Leadership Styles

Intern Performance Evaluation at an Organization

• Subjects: Employees Management

Historical Development of Operations Management

• Words: 2180

Leaders are Made, Not Born: Examples and Debate Points Essay

Mcdonald’s marketing plan and strategy report.

• Words: 4291

Time Management Theories and Models Report

• Words: 3158

Walmart Problems and Solutions Essay

• Subjects: Case Study
• Words: 1081

H&M Target Market Analysis – Case Study

• Subjects: Company Analysis

Samsung Company Main Challenges Essay

Mcdonald’s case study problem statement: improper resource management.

• Subjects: Company Missions

KFC Marketing Strategies: Business, Branding, Advertising, and More | Report Example

• Subjects: Strategy
• Words: 3244

Apple Strategic Management: Planning and Management Process — Apple Company Essay

• Subjects: Financial Management
• Words: 5021

Coca Cola Operations Management and Inventory

• Words: 1192

External and Internal Analysis of Starbucks: Case Study

• Subjects: Recognizable Brand
• Words: 2391

Recruitment and Selection Process of Apple Company

• Words: 1163

Nicosia Model and Engel Blackwell Miniard Model of Consumer Behaviour

• Words: 1195

Objectives of Nike Corporation: Marketing Strategies Report

• Words: 1849

Apple Corporate Strategy & Business Strategies Essay

• Words: 1715

21st Century Human Resource Management: Its Role and Changes — Report

• Words: 2796

An Analysis of External and Internal Environments of McDonald’s

• Words: 2309

The Coca Cola Public Relations: PR Strategy and Examples — Case Study Example

• Words: 3954

Apple Marketing Objectives and Strategies: Iphone | Report

• Words: 3810

Issues and Recommendations for Apple Case Study

• Words: 1118

Nike Distribution Channels Essay

• Words: 1119

Apple Company: Problems and Solutions Essay Example

• Subjects: Business Controversies
• Words: 1008

McDonald’s Operation Management & Supply Chain

• Words: 2479

Factors Affecting Employee Relationships

• Subjects: Employee Relationships
• Words: 6901

Organization Development: Define Open and Closed Systems

• Subjects: Organizational Management

Management of KFC – Organizational Communication System

• Subjects: Business Communication

McDonald’s Ethical Issues: Examples of Unethical Marketing Practices

• Subjects: Business Ethics
• Words: 17732

Justice Theory: Business Ethics, Utilitarianism, Rights, Caring, and Virtue

• Words: 3792

Apple External & Internal Analysis: Environment Analysis Research Paper

• Words: 2918

IKEA Human Resources

• Words: 2881

Strategic Management: The Case of Coca-Cola

Nestle: production and operations management analysis report.

• Words: 1000

The Four-Day Workweek and Its Positive Effects

• Subjects: Workforce

Planning Recruitment and Selection in Human Resources Management

• Words: 1724

Pepsi Company Advantages and Disadvantages

Human resource management at the apple inc. and sony corporation.

• Words: 3822

What I Learned in Human Resource Management – Essay

• Words: 5457

Rolex Target Market & Brand Positioning

• Words: 3449

Unitarist Perspective vs. Pluralist Perspective Case Study

• Words: 3685

BMW: Case Study Essay

• Words: 1417

Business Plan: Coffee Shop Report

• Words: 3413

Apple Case Study

• Words: 3300

Starbucks Quality Management and Performance Improvement

• Words: 1440

Porter’s Five Forces Analysis on the Hospitality Industry

International hrm case study: apple inc..

• Words: 2234

British Airways Challenges Report Example

• Words: 2845

The Difference Between Organizational Conflict and Misbehavior

• Words: 1114

The Impact of Scientific Management in the 21st Century Essay

• Words: 2140

Tesco Strategy Analysis & Recommendations

• Words: 2283

The Uppsala Model Example: IKEA in Brazil, Serbia, and India

• Words: 1388

Marriott Target Market Segmentation – Analysis Report

• Words: 1120

Promotional Techniques and Target Market of Fruit Juice: Essay

• Subjects: Marketing Project

Nike New Product Development: Strategy and Ideas | Nike Report

• Words: 2600

Impact of Culture on Communication Reflective Essay

• Words: 1153

Application of the Porter’s Five Forces: Beer Industry

• Subjects: Industry
• Words: 1356

Nike Strategic Management: The Case Study Essay

• Words: 3907

Traditional Training Methods Report

The link between professionalism and ethics.

• Subjects: Professions

Apple Business Plan

• Words: 2907

Importance of Ethics in Business

Samsung company’s management information system.

• Words: 2715

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo: A Comparative Study of Various Strategies

• Words: 7836

Nike Company: Costs of Production and Overall Market

Walmart information system processes report, interviews, questionnaires and observations.

• Words: 1898

An Ethical Dilemma Faced by Nestle: Case Analysis

Online shopping vs. traditional shopping.

• Subjects: E-Commerce
• Words: 1278

Recruitment and Selection Report Example

• Words: 2328

The Power of a Balanced Score Card: Apple Case Study

• Subjects: Strategic Management
• Words: 2379

International Product Life Cycle Theory with Example

Rumelt’s criteria for strategy evaluation, comparative analysis of apple and samsung.

• Words: 21518

ZARA Logistics System & Transportation Strategy

• Words: 2578

IKEA Company Total Quality Management

• Subjects: Company Information
• Words: 1162

Cotton On: Growing Retail Brands

• Words: 2268

IMC Plan of Melo Fruitti Ice Cream Report

• Words: 4551

Organizational Communication Theories Report (Assessment)

• Words: 1500

Fashion Clothing Company’s Financial Statements

• Words: 1124

McDonald’s Company SWOT and SPACE Matrices

Calopeia: supply chain game write-up.

• Subjects: Logistics

Importance of Marketing in an Organization

• Subjects: Strategic Marketing
• Words: 1201

An Analysis of the Experience of Teamwork

Tesla corporate social responsibility: issues, activities, and strategy | essay example.

• Words: 1185

Operations Management Case Study: Toyota

• Words: 2179

Back Bay Battery Strategic Innovation Simulation

• Subjects: Decision Making

Brief Description of Nike Inc: Is Nike a Monopoly?

• Words: 2814

Challenges of HRM: Conclusion & Solutions

• Subjects: Managerial Duties

Strategic Management: McDonald’s

• Words: 1048

Walmart Balanced Scorecard – A Case Study

• Words: 1117

Coca-Cola Business Communication in Practice

• Words: 2025

Satyam Scandal and Corporate Governance Failure

• Words: 1939

Porter’s Five Factor Model in Hospitality (Restaurants)

• Words: 1608

BP Oil Company Ethical Dilemma

• Words: 2280

Scientific Management and Human Relations

• Subjects: Management Priorities
• Words: 2787

Toyota Motor Corporation: Strategic Human Resource Planning and Strategic Recruitment

• Words: 3071

Human Resource Management Structure of Toyota

• Words: 3029

Cosmetic Industry Five Forces Analysis

• Subjects: Brand Management

Harborco Negotiation Solution: Process and Outcomes

• Subjects: Managerial Negotiation
• Words: 1455

McDonald’s Corporation Case Study Analysis

• Words: 2764

A Clothing Boutique as a Business Idea

• Subjects: Entrepreneurship
• Words: 1227

Anthropologie Retail Store Company Analysis

Strategic management project: emirates airlines.

• Words: 3397

Impact of Technology on Business Essay

Starting a business: advantages and disadvantages.

• Words: 1730

Samsung Performance Management and Appraisal Report

• Words: 1987

Burberry Competitive Advantage: Business Strategy Analysis

• Words: 3045

Transformational Leadership Essay

• Words: 2428

Why Is Tesco Successful: Tescos Success Factors Essay

• Words: 2422

KFC Micro- and Macro-Environment Report

Samsung strategic plan and formulation.

• Words: 1087

Real-Life Examples of Organizational Behavior: Essay

• Words: 1676

Strategic Analysis of McDonald’s Corporation

• Words: 3330

Apple Company and Its Effects on Society | Apple Analytical Essay

Alibaba corporate strategy and analysis case study.

• Words: 1936

Business Ethics Is an Oxymoron: Essay Example

Business Essay and the Best Way of Its Writing

• Academic Writing Tips

• Social Science
• Political Science

Business is an essential aspect of today’s evolving world. It is a lucrative industry that impacts many sectors, including education. Business-related courses are popular as many students are pursuing the programs. There are many branches in the business field, from business management to finance. College tutors often give students different business papers to test their knowledge as part of the assessment.

A business essay is an academic assignment that involves writing a paper that responds with a strategic and analytical approach to specific situations occurring in the market. Each business essay has a different topic that students tackle. However, the primary purpose of such essays is to collect relevant facts that align with the research question and analyze the data to get solutions.

Writing a business essay might seem simple, but it requires impressive writing skills and extensive research. You must be familiar with the topic to know the paper’s direction. Topic selection is a tricky section that affects the entire writing process. It is essential to identify a relevant topic to assist you in crafting a remarkable paper. You have to write a well-structured and compelling paper to get good grades. Presenting accurate arguments with supporting examples from reliable sources is an essential research aspect. Thus, a business essay must follow the required academic standards and theoretical frameworks.

However, writing is not everyone’s cup of tea, and incorporating logical arguments can be challenging. If you are stuck, you can check any business essay example online to understand the format. You will know how to structure the paper and relate it to the relevant themes.

That is why our writing service is here to help needy students craft exceptional essays. We will connect with a proficient business essay writer to help with the research and writing process. Get flawless documents from us and earn the best score in your class.

Business Essay Format

Most learners often overlook the importance of having a business essay format. It is imperative to use a format to help you outline your work. Proper thought organization and articulation are essential aspects that translate into a well-written business essay.

Below is an example of the format:

• Introduction
• Background information
• Introduce main topics
• Thesis statement
• Topic sentence
• Research explanation
• Restate points
• Significance of the study

The above outline is a map that will guide you to know what to include in each section. In addition, you will understand what the assignment requires you to do from the introduction to the conclusion.

If you still find it challenging to get the proper format, you can study a relevant business essay example from our site and jumpstart your paper. Whether you need a business school essay or a business plan essay, we have you covered.

Write Business Essay In 5 Steps

While writing might seem challenging, with the proper format and topic familiarity, you are on the right track. It is imperative to understand the writing process before composing your business essay. You need to read the prompt carefully to know what you are supposed to research and write about.

Here is an overview of the writing process in 5 simple steps:

• Topic Selection

Choosing a good topic is mandatory in crafting an excellent paper. You must select a theme that aligns with the research question. Additionally, ensure you select a familiar topic you are passionate about to avoid writing mistakes and illogical paragraphs.

• Extensive Research

Conduct extensive research to get facts and supporting evidence. Narrow down your theme and include only good points. Avoid broad topics because you will waste time during research.

• Essay Outline

Make sure you use a proper outline to organize your thoughts and line of arguments. Follow the format essay

Start writing your paper while using the required academic format. Organize your work and include the introduction, main body paragraphs, or conclusion.

• Editing and Proofreading

Finally, edit and proofread your essay to eliminate grammatical and spelling mistakes.

The above steps will help you during business essay writing to craft remarkable papers. It would be best to plan your time adequately to avoid rushing through the process. However, you must select an appropriate topic for your paper. It could be a business management essay or a marketing paper. No matter the subject discipline, ensure you follow the correct procedure.

Business Essay Topics

Our experts have compiled a list of different business essay topics to inspire your writing:

• Discuss the importance of bookkeeping in a business.
• Evaluate the impact of value addition in products.
• An analysis of income and expenditure transactions.
• Analyze the supply-chain industry.
• The effects of product promotion in business growth.
• How to develop an effective marketing strategy.
• Impact of policymaking in enhancing company productivity.
• What is multilevel marketing?
• Impact of technology in the business world.
• Discuss the challenges affecting entrepreneurship.
• Significance of human resource management.
• Explore the importance of budget analysis.
• How does technology impact advertising?
• The importance of a financial strategy.
• How to start an online business.
• How can organizations profit from sustainable practices?
• How to develop a positive organizational culture.
• The importance of employee diversity in an organization.
• Effective ways of fraud prevention in a company.
• Explore the communication channels in an organization.

Let us look at interesting argumentative business essay topics

• Discuss the influence of cultural differences on international companies.
• A comprehensive analysis of cryptocurrencies.
• Discuss the ethical dilemmas in international organizations.
• The influence of globalization on the business community.
• Should large organizations have a social media presence?
• Causes and effects of economic recession.
• Impact of politics on business growth.
• Discuss the effective strategies of negotiating cross-cultural business deals.
• Explore the integrity of online entrepreneurship.
• The impact of corporate social responsibility in an organization.

The field is quite diverse with various course programs. You can derive different topics from these programs to get logical arguments. So, get inspiration from the compelling business school essay examples and craft exceptional papers.

How To Start A Business Essay

Knowing how to start a business essay is essential for academic writing. The first step entails topic selection because it will determine the essay’s direction. Identifying a relevant topic is vital, and you need to ensure you get the suitable theme. It will also help save you time during research and simplify the writing process.

When it comes to essay writing service , business papers are among the assignments that require extensive research and analysis. Read the essay prompt carefully to understand the tutor’s expectations. Then, make sure you conduct a comprehensive brainstorming session to get the major points for your paper. Having the right points will help you compose logical arguments in a flawless manner.

Moreover, it would help to read previous essays and publications from reliable essays widely. You will get essential data to support your arguments. Besides, the sources will help you cite your essay correctly.

Start your essay with an insightful introduction and include your perspective regarding the topic. Incorporate a powerful thesis statement that informs your readers of the paper’s direction and the major points you will discuss.

Proceed to write the body paragraphs with a topic sentence that captures all significant arguments. Each paragraph should have well-explained arguments that flow logically.

Finally, conclude your business essay by restating your main points and the significance of the study.

Still, need help with your paper? Worry no more. Our competent business essay writers are on standby, ready to assist you with any academic paper. Stop wasting time and reach out to us. We will help you score top-of-the-class grades within no time.

The paper “Enterprises Resource Planning Success and Failure” is an outstanding example of a business essay. An Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system according to Aslan et al. (2012, p.693) is a management system within an organization that has sets of connected inclusive software, which may be used when espoused and put into practice effectively, to oversee and connect every organizational function. Basically, ERP systems may be employed as a tool for helping to improve the supply chain network as well as the level of performance by helping in decreasing cycle times.

Besides that, ERP systems have been utilized routinely in capital-intensive industries like building, construction, manufacturing, as well as defence. Latterly, ERP systems have advanced further and nowadays they are prevalent in industries such as education, health care, finance, hospitality, and telecommunications. Fundamentally, the benefits of ERP systems are hard to realise not unless a strong disposition, as well as participation, is established within the organisation; so, the article seeks to critically analyse ERP success and failure experienced by organisations.

BodyAs mentioned by Hellens et al. (2005, p.283), ERP systems are built upon a single database and application, as well as a coordinate that is unified in the whole organization. For that reason, every application serving different departments such as HR, accounting, and supply chain are integrated firmly under a single ERP system. Al-as observed by Al-Masha et al. (2003, p.354), ERP systems are useful when successfully implemented because they accelerate the process of decision-making. So, the success of ERP systems depends on the ability of an organisation’s managers to efficiently oversee the operation of a business, given that ERP systems can help them reduces operation costs.

Success drivers of ERP systems can be categorised into two: operational and technological drivers. In this case, operational drivers are associated with ways of improving organisational performance, supporting business strategies, as well as cutting production costs. On the other hand, technological drivers are predominantly associated with compliance with existing rules and regulations. The notion of success varies as the process of implementation continues, in that for planning and implementation (the first two stages of the cycle) success is mainly rooted in completing the ERP project to the standards that are acceptable within the budget as well as a time limit.

As pointed out by Hanafizadeh et al. (2010), stabilization as well as Improvement (the last two stages of the cycle) success is founded on the seeming impact of the ERP system on the performance of the organization. As indicated in Hanafizadeh et al. (2010) study, there are scores of factors vital for the success of ERP systems; support is top management one of the factors, and it involves encouraging commitment, positivity, and support of top management in the ERP project. Another factor is the utilization of knowledge as well as experience of system and technology consultants.

Additionally, the balanced project team is crucial for the success of ERP systems because it includes the integration of employees and information technology with the broad knowledge of the processes in the organization. As evidenced in Hellens et al. (2005) study, the accuracy of the information is crucial to the success of ERP project, so, data loaded from accessible legacy systems must at all times be of high quality. ERP project cannot succeed if the project management teams do not have a well-defined, detailed project plan related to the goals of the project.

Change management is also a success factor in the implementation of ERP project; so, careful attention has to be offered to this, considering that several changes in business processes are experienced during ERP systems implementation. Training and education are also important given that technical expertise regarding the ERP system, its reference model, and facts regarding its working are useful in the process of implementation. Other factors crucial for success consists of, availability of experts who aside from being in top management will frequently help the organization realize ERP system benefits.

Failure of ERP projects has been prevalent, and this has continued to bite worldwide across all business platforms. As pointed out in Xue et al. (2005, p.279) study, ERP poise substantial benefits like improving customer service, reducing manufacturing costs and boosts productivity, but these benefits are only realised after successfully implementing the ERP systems. Nevertheless, statistics show that implementation of ERP systems is still a failure amongst scores of companies. Statistically, 90 per cent of ERP systems implementations in Asia countries, especially China are either completed late or use more money and resources than those stipulated in budget.

In Xue et al. (2005) study, where they differentiated implementation success of ERP system in China as well as western countries, they noted that China had a higher percentage of failure which was attributed mainly to lack of support from top management as well as data inaccuracy. Other factors that led to ERP failure include poor participation, education and training, insignificant time ensuing from a minimal understanding of cross-operational organisational processes (Dechow & Mouritsen, 2005, p.691). Furthermore, ERP systems are exceedingly expensive, and also the need for the organisation to hire consultants to assist in the configuration as well as implementation, results in further escalation of price; thus, creating a high possibility of failure.

The cost used on consultants is almost thrice the cost of an ERP system; this negatively affects the productivity of the company and can lead also to the failure of the ERP system. ConclusionIn conclusion, it has been argued that ERP systems are beneficial because they improve the flow of information between every function of the company and also manages the connections to external stakeholders. Currently, the key basis of competitive advantage is the capability of a business to improve the processes of the supply chain.

This necessity has created the need for more advanced information systems like ERP systems. The articles have heightened numerous factors critical to the success of ERP, and which have allowed companies to efficiently plan their resources resulting in business efficient functionality and increased productivity. Failures as discussed in the article are caused by lack of support from top management, data inaccuracy, and lack of sufficient education and training.

The paper “New iPhones Show a Hit For Apple as Quarterly Profit Fluctuate 13 Percent” is an outstanding example of a business literature review. Yao (2014) explains that China is expected to provide information about its weakest growth since the occurrence of the global financial crisis within the third quarter while the property downturn is assessed based on manufacturing and investment. As a result, more pressure has been put on Beijing to unveil new stimulus measures. According to Yao (2014), the market assumes that the Communist Party leader will be able to adjust to the gradual slowdown. This will happen only in circumstances where there are no possibilities of experiencing a potentially destabilizing fluctuation in unemployment. However, anything weaker would lead to more speculations of key stimulus measures, for instance, an interest rate cut. Although the leadership has consistently provided steady aid specifically to vulnerable sectors of the economy, it has been noted that several stimuli have been ignored because China is still struggling to pay a huge local government debt (Yao 2014).

Article 2: New iPhones show a hit for Apple as quarterly profit fluctuate 13 percent

Due to strong demand for APPLE’s new larger-screen iPhones released in September, its quarterly profit increased by 13 percent. This also enabled APPLE to overcome the sluggish iPad sales (Jones 2014). Despite the more intensifying competition felt by Samsung Electronics as APPLE’s leading Smartphone competitor, Jones (2014) points out that the iPhone is attracting more consumers who are also ready to pay high prices particularly for cutting-edge handsets. Through its latest phones, Apple is profitably catching with its major competitors, such as, Samsung that have from time to time managed to post attractive sales of larger phones. It has also been noted that the marketing strength that iPhone has gained stands in contrast to sluggish iPad sales and the issues affecting Samsung’s Smartphone business (Jones 2014).

Article 3: Coal not the solution for poverty

Couchi (2014) examines that cheap coal-fueled electricity is highly considered by miners and politicians as the best alternative way out of poverty, particularly for developing nations. However, Africa has not considered this. In the business report provided by Couchi (2014) about the U.S financial group Citi, it can be noted that the booming market for African electricity has been a result of the coal approach. In the attempt to reinforce coals bearish outlook, Couchi (2014) reports that Citi discovered that a new International Energy Agency (IEA) outlook on the commodity is in contrast with the idea of BHP, the US coal producer Peabody as well as the Minerals Council of Australia which maintains that coal would play an integral role in minimizing energy poverty, particularly for developing countries. Despite its metallurgical and thermal forms, coal is considered the second-biggest mineral exported from Australia after iron ore (Couchi 2014).

Article 4: Ebola could be in the headlines, but tobacco is yet another killer in Africa

Research conducted by The Guardian (2014) shows that although Ebola dominates the headlines, there is yet another killer pandemic of great importance that continues to kill many people in the African continent unnoticeably. It is has been noted that tobacco kills at least one between two long term smokers. Currently, it is anticipated to kill 1 billion people globally before 2100. This is relatively more compared to the current number of people who die of Ebola. The Guardian (2014) terms this global issue as injustice and inequality because Transnational Tobacco Companies (TTCs), such as UK-based British American Tobacco (BAT) earn humungous profits yet they cause economic damage worthy over half a trillion dollars each year. Besides, TTCs contribute more to environmental degradation and thus create risks that compromise the health as well as the sustainability of populations. To earn more profits, TTCs are currently shifting and expanding their business to untapped markets in regions with unrestricted opportunities for growth (The Guardian 2014).

Article 5: NAB, ANZ lead pack in building home-lending share

The home loan is still considered the major driving force in recovering credit growth for banks. In this case, National Australian Bank (NAB) and ANZ are on the frontline to encourage the big banks in taking the advantage of the mortgage market, while home and business lending are sustainably becoming strong. Therefore, NAB and ANZ have put on media their fastest growth out of the big in all the past three months (Yeates 2014). Despite the faster growth and expansion made by NAB compared to their rivals in home lending, Yeates (2014) notes that analysts see business lending as a bigger concern because the bank has lost shares and faced more pressure, particularly on its margins. Generally, the home loan market is considered a major driving force that enables banks to recover from credit growth regardless of the risks associated with life specifically in business lending (Yeates 2014).

The paper “Globalization and Culture” is an outstanding example of a business essay. Today, it is common to hear people refer to the world as ‘a global village’. This has been a result of the process of globalization. This process has opened up and improved trade across regional and national borders. Not only has globalization enhanced economic interactions across nations but also improved access to information and uplifted the fight for human rights, among other benefits. Recent technological and communication developments along with improved road networks have been the key drivers of globalization. However, critics of globalization say that these benefits have been realized at a very high price: that of surrendering regional and national cultural values, mainly, for Western morals (Kwame, 2007).

Regarding this debate, two key schools of thought emerge. From one angle critics argue that globalization spreads out any and every culture all over the realm, leading to cultural heterogeneity and deeper understanding between diverse groups. This is mainly defined through the global production and distribution of commodities such that people in different parts of the world have access to commodities they would otherwise have never seen. A case in point is the cultural interaction between the United States and Japan. Teens in the U.S interact with the Japanese culture through their comic books, animations and video games, while teens in Japan interact with the American culture through watching TV shows and Hollywood movies produced in the U.S (Kwame, 2007).

On the flip side, critics argue that globalization erodes the regional and national cultural identity through cultural homogeneity. This leads to a cohesive global culture constituting diluted varieties of regional and national cultural nuances. For instance, French pastries, ‘American’ fried chicken, and Japanese sushi can be eaten in almost any part of the world. Restraint chains such as MacDonald’s and Starbucks have influenced traditions and behaviors in different countries. Even though champions of globalization claim that this merely affects consumer goods and media broadcasting, critics contend that it deteriorates customary culture ((Kwame, 2007; Czinkota, 2003).

Culture is a prevalent aspect in business whether it is in marketing, production, or human resource management. It is a key variable in the function of success in new markets (Czinkota, 2003). People’s purchasing decisions are based on a product’s design, style or color that supports their religious beliefs and practices. Empirical evidence shows that the success or failure of a company, especially, in a foreign market is reliant upon the effective managerial exercise of local religious beliefs and practices. Therefore, managers ought to be on familiar terms with their market’s religious differences given that religion influences people’s attitudes. For instance, Asians have a different attitude toward authority and women that differs from Western beliefs and practices. Whereas many parts of the world, including Asia, South America, and Africa, value collectivism very much, Americans are more individualistic. Chinese, Latin Americans and Koreans take time casually even as Americans are more proactive.

Failing to appreciate the religious beliefs and practices of the market will often lead to lots of inadvertent mistakes, such as being socially violent, cultural mix-ups, tarnished interpersonal relations, poor negotiations. As a consequence, the company’s future performance dwindles as profits decline. Lack of religious competence, or religious dogmatism, can easily put at risk millions of dollars through fruitless negotiations, lost purchases or sales, and pitiable customer relationships (Czinkota, 2003).

Cultural Literacy

Culture is a broad system that includes traditions, beliefs, attitudes, values, institutions and social interactions. This system reflects the global crunch facing the human race, and so it is a cultural catastrophe (UNESCO 1997). Dealing with such a cultural diversity calls for an important skill referred to as cultural competence. Chrisman (2007) defines cultural competence as ‘attitudes, practice skills, and system savvy for cross-cultural conditions’. The key force in work involving cultural competence is the people’s flexibility and ability to appropriately consider and treat the general public politely and in a proper way fitting their culture. Cultural literacy takes account of cultural competence plus the capacity to analytically mirror, and if needed institute change in, one’s a specific culture. Cultural literacy also comprises the capacity to examine the actions of central cultures measured against other cultures. This becomes very much useful in business. A case in point is the understanding of the effect of globalization or cross-cultural businesses on indigenous cultures all over the world.

Cultural literacy has been likened to an iceberg, through the iceberg model of culture. This is due to the expanse contextual material one requires to understand the culture. Cultural literacy often involves much more than the information essentially spoken. In other words, to understand the meaning of a cultural term, one has got to have much information that is not revealed by the bare meaning of that term. The clear cultural meaning of the term is like the ‘tip of an iceberg’ meaning that the deeper understanding lies below the casual meaning of the term and it constitutes a person’s own applicable information. It is known that 15 per cent or less of an iceberg can be seen above the water surface, 85 per cent or more of the iceberg is submerged below the water surface. This means that there is quite a different picture depicted shallowly from that which is the actual translation in the literature, giving the imprint that implied information comprises relatively tiny bits and pieces of information, left out by the correspondent due to dismissal or suitability (Hawkes, 2001).

Figure 1: Iceberg Model of Culture

It has been stated earlier that culture is a broad system that among other aspects involves religion. The world is very diverse in terms of culture as well as religion. Each culture embodies a creation in itself and yet it is not closed. Cultures give religious convictions semantics, and religions provide decisive connotation to each culture. Religion is a way of life for numerous cultures saturating every one human action. In other cultures, it characterizes the utmost ambitions of human life, and for others, religion is an institution that claims to convey a meaning of deliverance (Hawkes, 2001).

The paper “The Different Communications ” is an outstanding example of a management assignment. Phone: 23 rd August: the communication was made to remind that the bill for the mobile phone is outstanding and if not paid within the date will have a fine imposed on it. The communication was successful as it helped to fulfill my need and acted as a reminder. Further, the call also ensured that it was complete and all the details like outstanding amount, due date, late fine, and other details were provided. The call was complete and highlighted the important aspect which if ignored could have an impact on my usage.

Radio: 24 th August: The communication was made regarding the areas which are having huge traffic and showed the roads which should be avoided. The communication was successful as it helped to fulfill my requirements by highlighting the different roads which need to be avoided and which need to be used. The communication was further clear and loud regarding the different roads and path which should be avoided. This method acted as one where proper guidance was provided and acting in the correct way was highlighted so those correct decisions can be taken.

Communications that were unsuccessful

Television: 24 th August: The communication was made regarding the sale of women’s garments. The communication was ineffective because in the first instance it didn’t meet my needs and requirements as I was not looking to shop. Secondly, the message was not constructed properly as it didn’t speak about the brands which were available on sale, the different garments which were available, and also didn’t highlight the date when the sale would end.

Phone: 25 th August: The communication was made regarding the mobile bill payment which has already been made. The call was ineffective because it was not required as the payment has been made and I had the required receipt. The call was instead a wastage of time. In addition to it, the call was not constructed properly and required to focus on areas through which a message would have been enough as a source of communication to ensure that the payment was correctly entered.

Reasons for communication not to be successful

The communication process can be improved in the following ways

Firstly, ensuring that the communication which is made is required and is addressed properly so that the person who receives the communication gains from it (Nicholas, 2013)

Secondly, providing complete information is essential as it will serve as a benchmark to evaluate the manner in which different information is passed (Anne & Bochner, 2007). It will also help to understand the important matter which has been spoken and will help to highlight the manner in which changes can make so that proper communication and message is passed

Thirdly, the targeted audience was wrong and it is important to correct the audience (Mehrabian and Susan, 2007). This will help to improve the validity and reliability of the communication and will ensure that the process of communication becomes effective and is directed towards the correct person

Fourthly, the process of communication needs to be improved and changed so that the message is correctly interpreted and passed with the same intention (Imahori & Lanigan, 2012). This will help the listeners to evaluate the message in the correct form and will help to ensure maximum response.

Fifthly, the media which are used needs to be chosen wisely as the usage of a message instead of a phone call for bill paid confirmation would have been more helpful and could have caught the attention of the audience in a better way. This would have multiplied the effectiveness of communication and would have helped to understand the important points and issues.

The process of communication thereby requires working on the smaller and important aspect so that the overall process of communication improves and helps to provide the required dimensions through which effectiveness can be gained in the manner messages are passed.

The paper “Why Did Telefonica Initially Focus on Latin America” is a perfect example of a business assignment. Based on Telefonica’s objectives of rapidly increasing shareholder value, profits and achieving growth, it had to take advantage of location economies. Hence, the company initially focused on Latin America, as it must have perceived FDI to be a means for circumnavigating trade barriers. Indeed, the reasons why Telefonica initially focused on Latin America are perceivable through the lens of the Uppsala Model Theory.

According to the theory, the internalisation of a company across many foreign markets is correlated to psychic distance, where the first entry is to foreign markets that are familiar and closer in regards to the psychic distance of the host country, before making subsequent entries in foreign markets with greater psychic distance. Psychic distance comprises the differences in culture, language and political systems (Falvo & Parshad 2005).

Within the perspective of Uppsala Model Theory, it should be argued that companies tend to gradually increase their activities in international markets through a series of incremental stages, where the succeeding steps are anchored in learning and adapting to foreign markets (Pandian & Sim 2002).

This implies that the firms fast gain experience from the markets, where they have closer cultural ties before expanding to foreign markets. For instance, Telefonica had to first gain experience as a telecoms operator in Latin America, since the region has deep cultural ties with Spain, where it is headquartered.

Strategic competitive advantages

The company’s decision to slowly expand to Europe appeared opportunistic as well as strategic. Europe had initially possessed trade barriers that lowered the chances of successful entries. Essentially, there is a correlation between culture and national competitive advantage, where countries that are likely to impose trade barriers, in terms of competition are bypassed in preference to those that are less competitive (Enu & Attah-Obeng 2010). This argument is based on Dunning’s Eclectic Theory, which hypothesises that a company will always seek to leverage their specific advantages, including marketing, knowledge, skilled personnel, technology and information (Dunning 2001).

In this case, the Latin American markets were growing rapidly. They also experienced an increased high adoption rate and usage of mobile phones and internet connections. Additionally, after the Spanish government privatised Telefonica and deregulated the Spanish telecommunications market, the company’s core objective became increasing shareholder value, profits and achieving growth.

This implies that profit maximisation is a major drive to foreign direct development; through the use of particular advantages the company has (Glesem et al. 1990). It, therefore, had to select a region that would enable it to achieve higher profits. The company selected Latin America over Europe. Latin America had few entry barriers, such as competition and government regulations, while Europe had greater barriers due to more competitors. This implies that imperfect competition within the marketplace is a key incentive for expanding abroad. Besides, European mobile telecommunications operators had agreed they would not invade each other’s markets. However, after the entry of America Movil into Latin America, Telefonica faced a stronger competitor, forcing it to expand to Europe.

Commenting on other student’s post:

Why did Telefonica initially focus on Latin America?  Why was it slower to expand in Europe, even though Spain is a member of the European Union?

While the student hinted at the growth of multinational enterprises, a brief outline detailing why the company expanded and reasons for expansion could have provided a more relevant backdrop. Additionally, the reference to the Socialist Party by Popular Part in the general election of 1996 was irrelevant and out of context. The student’s decision to link the factors for the European Union to the opening of the telecommunications sector was misplaced. Rather, the student should have selected reasons why Telefonica selected to begin operating in Latin America before making headway to Europe. However, reference to high competition in the sector in Europe was justified.

Accordingly, the student should have explored the close cultural ties between Spain and Latin America, as the major drivers that triggered Telefonica to first launch in the region before expanding to Europe. In supporting the argument, a reference to a relevant theory, such as the Uppsala Model Theory could have pointed to the reasons why internationalisation of a company across many foreign markets is correlated to psychic distance (Uhasselt. be 2005). This includes why the initial entry is mostly made in foreign markets that are familiar and closer in regards to the psychic distance of the host country. Afterward, an explanation of what this meant to Telefonica based on the theory could have been appropriate (Gustafsson & Zasada 2011). For instance, the student should have stated that firms get to fast gain experience from the markets where they have closer cultural ties before expanding to foreign markets.

The student should have based his arguments on Dunning’s Eclectic Theory, which proposes that firms tend to use their peculiar advantages such as marketing, knowledge, skilled personnel, technology and information (Rugman 2010). Further, he should have stated that companies view FDI as a means to circumnavigate trade barriers before going forth to describe the correlation between culture and national competitive advantage, where countries that are likely to impose trade barriers in terms of competition are bypassed in preference to those that are less competitive.

While the student was also justified in arguing that the company sought to maximise profitability and to increase shareholder value, no basis was provided to support the argument, based on the case study. At this stage, the student should have suggested a theory to support his argument (Morgan & Katsikeas 1999). Later, the student should have provided examples from the case study to defend the choice of the theory he selected. However, the student provided examples outside the case study, such as “Telefonica has been able to establish footprints in 24 countries and having an average of 120,000 professionals with consolidated revenues of 24,957 million euros in January-June 2014 and more than 315.7 million customers at June 2014”

Additionally, the reasons the student outlined as the likely motivators for Telefonica to launch first in Latin America before making entries in Europe cannot be justified, as they have not been argued appropriately. For instance, in suggesting political developments, taking policy advantage and the fact that the markets shared a common language, the student should have discussed the concept of psychic distance and the related theory, such as the Uppsala Model Theory.

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Writing A Decent Business Management Definition Essay

Introduction.

A decent business management definition essay should have proper structure, content, logic, and conclusion. One should remember that this is a composition of the description of business management, but it does not mean every part of the essay must only define the meaning. In the first paragraph, the writer should give a broad and well-accepted meaning. Later, he or she should compare various types of meanings and conclude with his or her definition. As one can see that the approach for writing a composition on a broader topic like this requires pyramid approach. A pyramid approach can be defined as progressive writing from broader to a single precise meaning. In this regard, one must pre-plan a proper structure for various paragraphs.

Building the content

Moving ahead, after first paragraph one must give a supporting comparison between the various type of explanation for business and management. Here one must use references to support the source of each explanation. In this paragraph, the reader should be made aware of different definitions and their context. Also, one must introduce the various component of a system. For example, in the field of shipping industry description business and management completely differ from that of a research organization. One should give supporting evidence for the terms and explanation from various fields. It is also the second paragraph where, one can highlight main objective of this article and how it deals with it.

Supporting statements

One must define various components of business management system such as a manager, organization, and the qualities each component have. A suitable reference must support meaning of each component. Students generally do not cite proper reference because they do not read through the references. It is advised that students should cite articles and papers with coherence. Further, each paragraph of the article must be coherent which means should speak common goal. Proper referencing, supporting, argument and examples can help in maintaining coherence in the essay. Depending on the size of composition writer, should adjust the length of definition, example, and supporting arguments.

In the end, we can conclude that a good business management definition composition must have a pyramid approach to the structure, and coherent throughout all paragraphs. In the end, a solid conclusion must be written. End conclusion needs to have the specific demarcation of business management, with respect to the examples and argument in the essay.

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Management: short essay on management.

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Management: Short Essay on Management!

Management, unlike other subjects such as economics, philosophy, political science is of a recent origin and hence, a relatively new subject. Being an evolving concept (George 1972), it is still in its developing stage. So far as the meaning of management is concerned, like other socio-economic terms, it has also been defined differently by different authorities.

As a result, there is no single definition on the term but many. We do not have unified views on what management is precisely. The following are a few of the important definitions of the term ‘management’. Mary Parker Follett views, “Management is the art of getting things done through people (Follett 1941).”

According to Henri Fayol (1949) who is considered the father of principles of administrative management, “To manage is to forecast, to plan, to organize, to command, to co-ordinate, and to control.”

In the opinion of Fredrick Winslow Taylor (1947), “Management is knowing exactly what you want men to do and then seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way.”

According to George R. Terry (1953), “Management is a distinct process consisting of planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling performance to determine and accomplish the objectives by the use of people and resources.”

Peter F. Drucker opines, “Management is a multi-purpose organ that manages business, manages manager and manages workers and work (Drucker 1970).”

Having gone through the above definitions of management, now it can be simply defined as management is getting things done along with others/ subordinates. In other words, it is a process of various functions like planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the business operations in such a manner as to achieve the objectives set by the business firm. It consists of all activities beginning from business planning to its actual survival.

Characteristics of Management :

The salient characteristics of management that flow from above definitions are:

1. Management is a purposeful activity.

2. It is getting things done through and with others in a desired manner.

3. It concerns with the efforts of people working in the enterprise.

4. It relates to decision-making.

5. It is a process consisting of various functions such as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

6. Management is both the science and art. It is science because it has developed certain principles and laws. At the same time, it is an art also because it is concerned with the application of knowledge or principles for the solutions of the organizational problems.

7. It is a fast developing profession.

8. It deals with decision and control of business activities.

9. Management as an evolving concept is dynamic in nature which adapts itself to changing business conditions.

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• Human Resource Management: Definitions and Features of Human Resources Management
• Essay on Management as a Science and an Art

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