THE BACKGROUND OF MANAGEMENT
Through the misfortunes of war,bad harvests and man-made dislocations of trade,men and women the world over have been recurrently made acutely aware of the nature and complexity of an economic system.The basis of that system today,no less in the simpler days of inter-tribal barter,is the acquisition of goods by the exchange of other goods.The difference in the modern system lies in the fact that usually money serves as the medium of exchange,because the "commodities" offered on one side are in the intangible form of mental or manual work.A man sells his services for a wage or a salary or a dividend,and with the money received he buys his goods in the shop or market.
The progress of civilisation has turned the simple mechanism of exchange into the complex structure of the twentieth-century world-wide industrial and commercial system,with its innumerable manufacturing units of all sizes and its legions of trading,transport nd financial houses.This complex pattern of economic activities forms the background of management.Despite its complexity in action,it rests on a simple principle:all economic activity is directed to a parallel twofold aim of supplying the goods and services that consumers need,and providing the means by which they can purchase those goods and services.
In this principle lies,too,the basic aim of management.
Management finds its role in this system because there are different contributory factors to be combined in the effective conduct of economic and social activities.There are the land and buildings,and the materials,whether used in raw state direct from natural sources or as the outcome of synthetic processes;the plant and equipment,machine tools,or,in the case of distribution,ships,rolling-stock and motor vehicles.Such factors of production and distribution are not of themselves productive - they need the skill and effort of man.
Throughout the entire range of economic affairs,the dominant feature is the work of the men and women employed - the human effort in part directed to the manipulative and operative tasks,and in part to the mental processes of designing,calculating,drafting,planning,corresponding,selling,deciding,managing.It is the pervasiveness of this human element that gives management its special character as a social process.However these human forces are employed,they need to be unified,co-ordinated,welded into a team effort and directed effectively towards a given purpose.In this lies the role of management.
Some emphasis needs to be placed on the duality of aim in the basic principle of economics - the exchange of goods and the maintenance of employment.The rise of a "capitalist system" in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,and the emergence of large-scale unemployment in the twentieth,have both tended to add weight to what might be called the "producer" aspect:the current popular interest in "full employment" is ample evidence of this.Yet the same people are,broadly speaking,both the producers and the consumers.
The citizens of any community are "producers" when regarded as employers,managers,shareholders,or employees and workers;but they are "consumers"(of themselves and through their families) when they give their attention to spending their earnings.
Neglect of the "consumer"aspect lies at the root of much of the topsy-turvy popular economics of our times,a topic which is outside the scope of the present volume.Management cannot afford to neglect the consumer interests in the daily conduct of its job,because their failure may well result in the breakdown of the whole system.
The various forms of enterprise or institution which provide the settings within which management operates do not call for specific description in the present context.In any country at any time, circumstances determine what the pattern of the economic system is like.At one end of the scale is a highly centralised Goverment-controlled pattern,such as the Soviet Union.At the other end lies the "free enterprise" pattern of the United States.The position in Britain lies well between:we have our national concerns like the Coal Board and British Railways,and other public corporations set up under earlier auspices,like the Port of London Authority,or the British Broadcasting Corporation but the vast majority of our economic activities are conducted by commercial undertakings:single owners,partnerships,companies.They are of great variety in structure and size,ranging from the one-man shop or market-stall to the mammoth manufacturing and trading concerns whose employees run into the six-figure categories.
The Co-operative Societies represent a different principle in ownership,but from the standpoint of the practice of management,their character is closely comparable with th that of any commercial company.
In all these varied types of enterprise,the process of management arises and flows in much the same way.There is, first,the need for lines of direction - the determination of objectives or purposes,the laying down of broad policy as the foundation for the achievement of such objectives and the translation of the policy into the plans and programmes of operation. Secondly arises the need for means of decision in exercising direction over the operations: the provision of the data as the medium for the mature mental process of responsible julgment in formulating reliable plans (decisions) and in attaining effective and economical outcome from putting the plans into action.Next come the requirements for the initiation and execution of action - the methods and procedures for guiding and regulating the personnel of the organisation in the performance of their tasks and for maintaining adequate co-ordination;coupled with these,the techniques of supervision to ensure that performance is in keeping with policy and plan. Finally,there is a need for methods of assessing achievement and result,as well as costs of operation,to ensure that tasks are being carried out at appropriate levels of quality of work and with adequate effectiveness and economy.Underlying each phase of the complex process is the human facet inherent in the all-pervading personal contribution - by those who carry out the mundane tasks as well as by those whose lot it is to govern.What-ever its setting as to type if industry,trade or as to type and of unit,responsibility of management is to attain the fulfilment of a given purpose as a contribution to the wealth and social living of the community.Peculiar features of setting or of organisation will affect in some details the structure and working of management,but not its basic responsibility or function.Mr. John Mantle,with his tiny workshop for the making-up of women's dresses,has no Board of Directors or elaborate books of account;he has no hierarchy of organisation,no techniques of production control;his personnel management is in his own daily contact with his few workers.But hs contribution to real wealth and the character of his function as a chief executive are directly parallel to those of his namesake,Sir Joseph Mantle,the Managing Director of the million-pound Mantle Dressmaking Company,Ltd.,employing over 2,000 persons,with elaborate schemes of organisation,of planning and of control to ensure the steady maintenance of a large programme of output,directed to its subsidiary retail shops.
In their respective ways,the two Mantles have the same purpose to fulfil and the same factors to develop;they are responsible for attaining an objective,for providing a polcy for decisions on economic direction,for establishing an organisation (simple or complex) with plans and programmes for production and distribution,planning of rooms,equipment,material supplies,and storage or transport facilities,teams of operatives and staff appropriate to the work to be done,motivation (leadership) of such teams,co-ordination of effort and outcome,financial provisions,means of assessing results.Both,in other words,a
Through the misfortunes of war,bad harvests and man-made dislocations of trade,men and women the world over have been recurrently made acutely aware of the nature and complexity of an economic system.The basis of that system today,no less in the simpler days of inter-tribal barter,is the acquisition of goods by the exchange of other goods.The difference in the modern system lies in the fact that usually money serves as the medium of exchange,because the "commodities" offered on one side are in the intangible form of mental or manual work.A man sells his services for a wage or a salary or a dividend,and with the money received he buys his goods in the shop or market.
The progress of civilisation has turned the simple mechanism of exchange into the complex structure of the twentieth-century world-wide industrial and commercial system,with its innumerable manufacturing units of all sizes and its legions of trading,transport nd financial houses.This complex pattern of economic activities forms the background of management.Despite its complexity in action,it rests on a simple principle:all economic activity is directed to a parallel twofold aim of supplying the goods and services that consumers need,and providing the means by which they can purchase those goods and services.
In this principle lies,too,the basic aim of management.
Management finds its role in this system because there are different contributory factors to be combined in the effective conduct of economic and social activities.There are the land and buildings,and the materials,whether used in raw state direct from natural sources or as the outcome of synthetic processes;the plant and equipment,machine tools,or,in the case of distribution,ships,rolling-stock and motor vehicles.Such factors of production and distribution are not of themselves productive - they need the skill and effort of man.
Throughout the entire range of economic affairs,the dominant feature is the work of the men and women employed - the human effort in part directed to the manipulative and operative tasks,and in part to the mental processes of designing,calculating,drafting,planning,corresponding,selling,deciding,managing.It is the pervasiveness of this human element that gives management its special character as a social process.However these human forces are employed,they need to be unified,co-ordinated,welded into a team effort and directed effectively towards a given purpose.In this lies the role of management.
Some emphasis needs to be placed on the duality of aim in the basic principle of economics - the exchange of goods and the maintenance of employment.The rise of a "capitalist system" in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,and the emergence of large-scale unemployment in the twentieth,have both tended to add weight to what might be called the "producer" aspect:the current popular interest in "full employment" is ample evidence of this.Yet the same people are,broadly speaking,both the producers and the consumers.
The citizens of any community are "producers" when regarded as employers,managers,shareholders,or employees and workers;but they are "consumers"(of themselves and through their families) when they give their attention to spending their earnings.
Neglect of the "consumer"aspect lies at the root of much of the topsy-turvy popular economics of our times,a topic which is outside the scope of the present volume.Management cannot afford to neglect the consumer interests in the daily conduct of its job,because their failure may well result in the breakdown of the whole system.
The various forms of enterprise or institution which provide the settings within which management operates do not call for specific description in the present context.In any country at any time, circumstances determine what the pattern of the economic system is like.At one end of the scale is a highly centralised Goverment-controlled pattern,such as the Soviet Union.At the other end lies the "free enterprise" pattern of the United States.The position in Britain lies well between:we have our national concerns like the Coal Board and British Railways,and other public corporations set up under earlier auspices,like the Port of London Authority,or the British Broadcasting Corporation but the vast majority of our economic activities are conducted by commercial undertakings:single owners,partnerships,companies.They are of great variety in structure and size,ranging from the one-man shop or market-stall to the mammoth manufacturing and trading concerns whose employees run into the six-figure categories.
The Co-operative Societies represent a different principle in ownership,but from the standpoint of the practice of management,their character is closely comparable with th that of any commercial company.
In all these varied types of enterprise,the process of management arises and flows in much the same way.There is, first,the need for lines of direction - the determination of objectives or purposes,the laying down of broad policy as the foundation for the achievement of such objectives and the translation of the policy into the plans and programmes of operation. Secondly arises the need for means of decision in exercising direction over the operations: the provision of the data as the medium for the mature mental process of responsible julgment in formulating reliable plans (decisions) and in attaining effective and economical outcome from putting the plans into action.Next come the requirements for the initiation and execution of action - the methods and procedures for guiding and regulating the personnel of the organisation in the performance of their tasks and for maintaining adequate co-ordination;coupled with these,the techniques of supervision to ensure that performance is in keeping with policy and plan. Finally,there is a need for methods of assessing achievement and result,as well as costs of operation,to ensure that tasks are being carried out at appropriate levels of quality of work and with adequate effectiveness and economy.Underlying each phase of the complex process is the human facet inherent in the all-pervading personal contribution - by those who carry out the mundane tasks as well as by those whose lot it is to govern.What-ever its setting as to type if industry,trade or as to type and of unit,responsibility of management is to attain the fulfilment of a given purpose as a contribution to the wealth and social living of the community.Peculiar features of setting or of organisation will affect in some details the structure and working of management,but not its basic responsibility or function.Mr. John Mantle,with his tiny workshop for the making-up of women's dresses,has no Board of Directors or elaborate books of account;he has no hierarchy of organisation,no techniques of production control;his personnel management is in his own daily contact with his few workers.But hs contribution to real wealth and the character of his function as a chief executive are directly parallel to those of his namesake,Sir Joseph Mantle,the Managing Director of the million-pound Mantle Dressmaking Company,Ltd.,employing over 2,000 persons,with elaborate schemes of organisation,of planning and of control to ensure the steady maintenance of a large programme of output,directed to its subsidiary retail shops.
In their respective ways,the two Mantles have the same purpose to fulfil and the same factors to develop;they are responsible for attaining an objective,for providing a polcy for decisions on economic direction,for establishing an organisation (simple or complex) with plans and programmes for production and distribution,planning of rooms,equipment,material supplies,and storage or transport facilities,teams of operatives and staff appropriate to the work to be done,motivation (leadership) of such teams,co-ordination of effort and outcome,financial provisions,means of assessing results.Both,in other words,a
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