Week 1 - Management, Models, and Frameworks Flashcards
Who are entrepreneurs?
People who see opportunities in a market and quickly mobilise the necessary resources to deliver the good or service profitably (focus is on financial gain 💵)
Who are social entrepreneurs?
People who see opportunities in market and quickly mobilise the necessary resources to deliver the good or service to disadvantaged groups
Same as normal entrepreneurs BUT focus on disadvantaged groups- promote social equality instead of financial gain 💵 like normal entrepreneurs
How do all organisations run and how can they fail?
People who run business draw resources from external world
They then transform these resources into outputs
The output is then returned to the outside/external world
Value (money/goodwill/reputation) gained by business in return for providing output used to gain further resources from external/outside world and … continue in business
An organisation/enterprise will fail if the outputs given to the world do not attract sufficient value to keep the business going
What is management as a universal human activity?
Management in everyday life- taking responsibility for an activity and consciously trying to shape its progress and outcome
E.g. managing children, elderly, households etc
Define manager and their role
A manager is someone who is expected to add value to the resources they use with the help of people and other resources
Define management
Activity of intending to add value to resources with the help of people and other resources
Define role
expectations that others have about the responsibilities of a person occupying a position
How does the role of an entrepreneur who just started their own business change as the business grows?
Initially they do a lot of the work themselves whether that involves designing T-shirt’s, writing software etc and also need to think about how to raise money and which markets to sell to etc
As the business experiences growth, the entrepreneur may employ more staff and now the priority may change to working on interpersonal tasks such as training and supervision
As the business experiences even more growth, the entrepreneur may take on some management roles and may even share them with other staff members to form a management team whilst workers are employed to do the actual work and are managed by the owners and other managerial staff
Give an example of a successful entrepreneur and business
Tony Ryan of Ryanair was an experienced entrepreneur who built Ryanair from the ground up- he added value to the resources he had and persuaded others to provide more (investors willing to provide money for the aircraft and the costs of operating it)
He organised these resources into a service which he sold to customers
What are the 2 way in which management can occur?
1) Management can exist as a universal human activity
2) Management can exist in a distinct role
What is management as a distinct role and how does it emerge?
Develops when activities previously embedded in the work itself become the responsibility of the owners who now take up more or only the management side of the work and instead workers are employed to do the work itself
The owners would, at the beginning of the enterprise, have to do both the work and manage themselves but this can change as a business grows
How does management occur in the real life world- give real life examples?
1) At Google there was a divide between the engineers who wanted managers and the founders who didn’t think it was necessary- to reach a resolution, Google has now a developed a robust system to measure the effectiveness of managers and improve their skills where necessary- here management and non-management work is separated with the engineers having a largely non-management role and the managers having a largely managing role
2) However this separation isn’t always the case e.g. Ryanair has a fluid boundary between managers and non-managers- all roles are expected to perform a mixture of tasks
What is an organisation?
An organisation is a social arrangement for achieving goals that create value
How does a manager add value?
A manager adds value by doing the following:
1) Obtain resources
2) Develop the competences (working relationship with workers, procedures, systems etc) to use them productively
3) When workers use resources productively and produce outputs that are more valuable to customers than the cost of the resources used, value is added
Define competences and why they’re important for managers
Good managers develop effective ways of working, effective systems and procedures- motivate staff to ‘go the extra mile’- these ‘ways of working’ and procedures are called competences and are important to ensure that workers use the available resources productively (resources obtained and provided by the managers)
Define value
A managers role is to add value to resources with the aid of people etc (see definition of managers and their role)
Value is added to resources when they are transformed into goods or services that are worth more than the cost of the resources used to make/produce them plus the cost of transformation
What is the most common way value is measured?
Money 💵 (financial terms)- organisations spend money on resources in the hope that what they produce and sell will bring in enough money to at least repay the original investment but ideally also an acceptable profit
What are others ways in which value can be measured?
Value can be measured in terms of cultural, social and natural values
This is typically the focus of social entrepreneurs (see definition)- e.g. charities who add value by educating people
Give a real life example of an organisation which adds non-financial value
Parkrun 🏃♂️- they arrange hundreds of free runs in parks each weekend for the health and benefit of local residents in the community (social and health value)- volunteers do most of the organising
What is sustainability?
Economic activities that meet the needs of the present population whilst preserving the environment for the needs of future generations
Is sustainability important for an organisation and if so, why?
Hawken et al used years of experience to show that companies who achieve sustainability in their performance do well
By turning waste into profit using approaches e.g. energy efficient in buildings and by creating work practices that are satisfying and rewarding for employees, an organisation is bound to do well
What term sums up the idea that sustainability is a crucial element for the success of an organisation?
Triple bottom line- shows the idea that performance is dependent on 3 things (3 P’s):
1) Planet- environmental impact of organisation
2) People- impact of organisation on quality of people’s lives
3) Profit- organisations profitability
Why can deciding if managers have created value be subjective and controversial?
If a manager is overlooking the creation of a motorway- they have provided value for the drivers, local residents and shareholder but destroyed value if the route destroys wildlife or greenery etc
Do all organisations add value?
No- if resources aren’t used productively and efficiently, workers use more resources to make a product than what customers will pay for … they destroy value (financial 💵)
If pollution and waste is a by product of creating output the this also destroys value
Explain how managers add value
3 stage model:
1) Task- the task that is the focus of the individual or team (managers plan, organise, lead and control)
2) Process- how people work together- what they say or do to complete the task at hand to the required standard (managers communicate, motivate, decide)
3) Context- refers to settings in which people and organisations work (managers can work various parts of the organisation as well as the external environment)
