What id Management?

Management

The term "management" characterizes the process of and/or the personnel leading and directing all or part of an organization (often a business) through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, capital, natural, intellectual or intangible).
Functions of management
Management operates through various functions, often classified as planning, organizing, leading/motivating and controlling.
• Planning: deciding what has to happen in the future (today, next week, next month, next year, over the next five years, etc.) and generating plans for action.
• Organizing: making optimum use of the resources required to enable the successful carrying out of plans.
• Leading/Motivating: exhibiting skills in these areas for getting others to play an effective part in achieving plans.
• Controlling: monitoring — checking progress against plans, which may need modification based on feedback.
Theoretical scope
Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933), who wrote on the topic in the early twentieth-century, defined management as "the art of getting things done through people". One can also think of management functionally, as the action of measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan; or as the actions taken to reach one's intended goal. This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Frenchman Henri Fayol considers management to consist of five functions:
1. planning
2. organizing
3. leading
4. co-ordinating
5. controlling
Some people, however, find this definition, while useful, far too narrow. The phrase "management is what managers do" occurs widely, suggesting the difficulty of defining management, the shifting nature of definitions, and the connection of managerial practices with the existence of a managerial cadre or class.
One habit of thought regards management as equivalent to "business administration", although this then excludes management in places outside commerce, as for example in charities and in the public sector. Nonetheless, many people refer to university departments which teach management as "business schools", and some institutions (such as the Harvard Business School) use that name.
Speakers of English may also use the term "management" or "the management" as a collective word describing the managers of an organization, for example of a corporation.
Historical development
Difficulties arise in tracing the history of management. Some see it (by definition) as a late modern (in the sense of late modernity) conceptualization. On those terms it cannot have a pre-modern history, only harbingers (such as stewards). Others, however, detect management-like activities in the pre-modern past. Some writers trace the development of management-thought back to Sumerian traders and to the builders of the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Slave-owners through the centuries faced the problems of exploiting/motivating a dependent but sometimes unenthusiastic or recalcitrant workforce, but many pre-industrial enterprises, given their small scale, did not feel compelled to face the issues of management systematically. However, innovations such as the spread of Hindu-Arabic numerals (5th to 15th centuries) and the codification of double-entry book-keeping (1494) provided tools for management assessment, planning and control.
Given the scale of most commercial operations and the lack of mechanized record-keeping and recording before the industrial revolution, it made sense for most owners of enterprises in those times to carry out management functions by and for themselves. But with growing size and complexity of organizations, the split between owners (individuals, industrial dynasties or groups of shareholders) and day-to-day managers (independent specialists in planning and control) gradually became more common.
Towards the end of the 20th century, business management came to consist of six separate branches, namely:
• Human resource management
• Operations management or production management
• Strategic management
• Marketing management
• Financial management
• Information technology management responsible for management information systems
21st century
In the 21st century observers find it increasingly difficult to subdivide management into functional categories in this way. More and more processes simultaneously involve several categories. Instead, one tends to think in terms of the various processes, tasks, and objects subject to management. A list of some of the areas of management appears later in this article.
Branches of management theory also exist relating to nonprofits and to government: such as public administration, public management, and educational management. Further, management programs related to civil-society organizations have also spawned programs in nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship.
Note that many of the assumptions made by management have come under attack from business ethics viewpoints, critical management studies, and anti-corporate activism.
As one consequence, workplace democracy has become both more common, and more advocated, in some places distributing all management functions among the workers, each of whom takes on a portion of the work. However, these models predate any current political issue, and may occur more naturally than does a command hierarchy. All management to some degree embraces democratic principles in that in the long term workers must give majority support to management; otherwise they leave to find other work, or go on strike. Hence management has started to become less based on the conceptualisation of classical military command-and-control, and more about facilitation and support of collaborative activity, utilizing principles such as those of human interaction management to deal with the complexities of human interaction. Indeed, the concept of Ubiquitous command-and-control posits such a transformation for 21st century military management.
Nature of managerial work
In for-profit work, management has as its primary function the satisfaction of a range of stakeholders. This typically involves making a profit (for the shareholders), creating valued products at a reasonable cost (for customers), and providing rewarding employment opportunities (for employees). In nonprofit management, add the importance of keeping the faith of donors. In most models of management/governance, shareholders vote for the board of directors, and the board then hires senior management. Some organizations have experimented with other methods (such as employee-voting models) of selecting or reviewing managers; but this occurs only very rarely.
In the public sector of countries constituted as representative democracies, voters elect politicians to public office. Such politicians hire many managers and administrators, and in some countries like the United States political appointees lose their jobs on the election of a new president/governor/mayor. Some 2500 people serve at the pleasure of the United States Chief Executive, including all of the top US government executives.
Public, private, and voluntary sectors place different demands on managers, but all must retain the faith of those who select them (if they wish to retain their jobs), retain the faith of those people that fund the organization, and retain the faith of those who work for the organization. If they fail to convince employees of the advantages of staying rather than leaving, they may tip the organization into a downward spiral of hiring, training, firing, and recruiting. Management also has the task of innovating and of improving the functioning of organizations.
The importance of control
At least two perspectives on role of control exist:
1. Top management expects to control everything, making all decisions, while middle and lower managers implement decisions, and production workers operate only as instructed
2. Top management does not decide the "right" way to do something, and lower-level staff become involved in decision-making processes.
3. Some companies use "slopey should syndrome" style management, where people will take credit for when things go right. However when things go wrong they will pass the blame and responsibility to people either below or adjacent in the company structure
Managerial levels/hierarchy
The management of a large organisation may have three levels:
1. Senior management (or "top management" or "upper management")
2. Middle management
3. Low-level management (compare "team leadership")

Dear Sir,

Historical background of Management covers the question of "management has evolved through various civilizations over centuries.If it not then please guide me.



Regards

Shazia

To Some extent it covers it, but basically historically it means how over centuries management has evolved. Right from time of ancient chinese, egyptians to modern day management when Management gurus like Henri fayol, Charles Babbage, Fredrick Taylor etc.