Management
Management is the process of influencing a system to achieve set goals, which includes organizing its activities, maintaining its structure, and its mode of operation. It represents a set of actions aimed at transforming resources into results, as well as coordinating and efficiently using all available resources to achieve the system's goals. Management is implemented through purposeful influence on the elements of a system and is directed at maintaining its required state and behavior.
Concept of Management
Management:
- an element or function of organized systems of various natures—biological, social, technical—that ensures the preservation of their specific structure, the maintenance of their operational mode, and the implementation of their program and goals;
- the act of influencing a managed system to ensure its required behavior;
- the process of organizing the activities of a management object by a management subject to achieve set goals.
- an action by a subject, directed at itself or at external objects/subjects, with the aim of transforming them or changing their properties.
Management:
Management:
- as a process – a set of managerial actions that ensure the achievement of set goals by transforming resources at the 'input' into products at the 'output'.
- as a science – a system of ordered knowledge in the form of concepts, theories, principles, methods, and forms of management.
- as a function – a purposeful informational influence on people and economic objects, carried out with the aim of directing their actions and obtaining desired results.
- as an apparatus – a collection of structures and people that ensure the use and coordination of all resources of social systems to achieve their goals.
Many other definitions exist, according to which management is defined as: an element, a function, an influence, a process, a result, a choice, etc. If management is carried out by a subject, then it should be considered an activity. Such an approach—management as a type of practical activity (managerial activity)—explains the 'multifaceted' nature of management and reconciles the various approaches to defining this concept.
If management is the activity of a governing body, then carrying out this activity is a function of the managing system, the management process corresponds to the activity process (managerial), the managing influence corresponds to its result, and so on. If both the managing body and the managed system are subjects, then management is the activity (of the managing bodies) of organizing the activity (of the managed subjects).
Features of Managerial Activity
Managerial activity, as a type of professional practical activity, has general features. These include: the uniqueness and unpredictability of human activity in specific conditions (including accounting for limited capabilities and resources), the ability to adapt to changing conditions, the capacity for goal-setting, and the capacity for self-organization and development. In addition, managerial activity is characterized by a number of inherent features:
Subjectivity of managerial activity. Managerial activity is fundamentally subjective. Of course, any activity is by definition subjective, as it is always carried out by some subject, but in the case of managerial activity, the personal qualities of the management subjects, their professional experience, and their ethical position play a significant role.
Independent goal-setting, carried out by the subject of managerial activity (the management subject), is an integral feature. As a rule, the subject independently formulates not only the goal of their own activity but also the goal of the managed system, decomposes them into tasks, and formulates ways to achieve the goal. In some cases, however, the management subject merely transmits goals formulated by a higher level of the system.
The mediated nature of the result of managerial activity lies in the fact that the direct result of this activity is the managing influence exerted on the managed system. But this influence is not an end in itself; it is carried out to ensure the required behavior of the managed system. The object of managerial activity is the activity of the managed system. That is, the final (mediated) result of managerial activity is the state (the result of the activity) of the managed system. And it is by this result that the effectiveness of management and managerial activity is evaluated.
The creative nature of managerial activity. In essence, management is decision making. The process of decision making cannot be fully formalized; it always contains both uncertain factors and elements of creativity. At the same time, this creativity is largely regulated by existing legal, ethical, and other norms, and constrained by resource and other limitations.
The necessity of modeling, foresight, and forecasting the behavior of the managed system in response to managing influences.
The responsibility of the management subject for the process and results of their own activity and the activity of the subjects and/or objects they manage. The management subject is responsible not only for the direct results of their own activity but also for its mediated result—the state of the managed system and the results of its activity.
Development and adaptation. A feature of managerial activity is the need for the development of both the management subject and the managed system, as well as their adaptation to changing external and internal conditions.
Management Cycle
To describe the functioning of organizational management systems, the concept of the management cycle is used—a model that describes the management process as a sequential repetition of typical stages. Today, several dozen models for describing the management cycle are known, for example:
- A. Fayol's cycle: Planning – Organizing – Motivating (stimulation) – Controlling;
- W. Deming's PDCA cycle: Plan – Do – Check – Act;
- a cycle of Information Gathering – Planning – Implementation – Accounting – Control – Analysis – Regulation;
At the core of any managerial activity lies the idea of a continuous management cycle that extensively uses metrics and indicators (for 'description and measurement') and quantitative models. The main focus is concentrated on methods, tools, and solutions aimed at increasing quantitatively expressed performance efficiency. All components of the performance management system are represented in the applied management cycle models through a system of specific quantitative descriptions, indicators, and models.
Systems Approach to Management
The systems approach, by implementing the principle of analyzing any management objects and structures 'from the general to the specific,' proposed viewing organizations as systems of elements for which goals and objectives must be formulated to ensure their optimal development.
Key components of the systems approach to management:
- solving any problem begins with a clear formulation of goals;
- a problem or task should be viewed as a tree of goals, with each specific decision interconnected with the ultimate goals;
- when determining ways to achieve goals, other possible and alternative options should be considered;
- the goals of individual subsystems must not be allowed to contradict the ultimate goals of the system.
Management from the Perspective of the Systems Approach
Management from a systems perspective is a complex process consisting of regulation and management proper. The task of regulation is to maintain certain parameters of the system at a given level. Management proper consists of defining precisely this given state of the system. Management involves design and planning, i.e., strategic functions, while regulation is operational guidance and all related functions.
To study the functioning of a complex stochastic system, it is advisable to represent it as a managing and a managed subsystem. Having set the parameters of the managed subsystem, the managing subsystem must maintain them at the specified level based on the principle of feedback.
Regulation with feedback guarantees compensation not only for specific types of disturbances but for any disturbances in general. This compensates for the influence of disturbances on the system whose cause, in general, is unknown. This is especially important when dealing with very complex systems that are not amenable to detailed description.
From the viewpoint of systems analysis, the term 'system' can be defined as a collection of many components united to achieve a specific strategic goal. In this connection, a goal (or task) arises for the achievement (solution) of which the system was created. And since this goal is strategic, the system must also solve many tactical tasks to achieve it.
It is quite understandable that some managers wish to concentrate their efforts on individual, specific issues. They try to expand the boundaries of these specifics, leaving aside the task of integrating the results obtained by many departments, although for them the problem of management integration is central. The essence of leadership lies in coordination, and it is clear that a synthesis process like the one mentioned can be useful to managers at various levels. When managers focus on individual specialized areas, they may lose sight of the overall goals of their enterprises and their role in larger systems. If they have a clear understanding of the 'big picture,' they can perform their duties more effectively.
The neglect of a holistic systems approach can be intentional, as department or functional unit managers tend to exaggerate the importance of their own actions for the overall results. Sometimes this neglect is unintentional, resulting from the inability of a person making decisions on specific issues to imagine the consequences of their decisions for other areas of the enterprise's activities. The key to using the systems approach to management is to get a clear picture of the network of subsystems and interconnected parts that form a single whole.
The ideas of the systems approach are inconceivable without a clear concept of a system. A system is an integral complex of dynamically interconnected elements. A system can only be considered in unity with its environment. As a rule, any system is an element of a higher-order system, and any element of a system can, in turn, be viewed as a lower-order system.
The integrity of a system and the interconnection of its elements are determined exclusively in relation to the system's goal. In this context, a system should not be identified with a real object, as any object can be viewed from different perspectives, and depending on this, many systems can be identified that reflect one or another aspect of the object's functioning. It is impossible to study the operation of complex systems by examining their individual elements, as complex systems possess the property of emergence—the ability of a system to exhibit properties not inherent in any of its individual elements.
The use of the systems approach and systems theory has helped to see organizations and any management hierarchies in the unity of their constituent parts, as well as within the global system of the external world. Simultaneously, it became possible to integrate the ideas and approaches of other schools that dominated management practice and theory at different times. The systems approach brought into management theory methods and achievements that were obtained in the exact sciences, engineering, and the natural and social sciences.
However, the main contribution of the systems approach to management theory was the formation of a new way of thinking. The systems approach allowed managers to determine the place of their organization in the external world, to understand that any management structure is an open system, and as a consequence, that the management of an organization cannot be built as if it were a closed system, i.e., without considering the influence of the external environment on internal management processes. Only since the application of the systems approach to management has the environment been considered one of the main management variables.
An important result of applying the systems approach to management theory and practice is that it became possible to unite all the ideas and achievements of different management schools. To do this, it was sufficient to represent them not as systems but as subsystems within management theory. This immediately gave rise to an understanding of the limitations of these approaches and the possibilities for their use, especially since each school of management focused its efforts on one particular aspect (subsystem) of organizations: people, structures, management methods, etc. The behavioral school studied the social domain of management. The schools of scientific management and quantitative methods mainly studied aspects of management in technical systems. Only the systems approach made it possible to unite all the components of organizations into a single whole.
The systems approach made it possible to represent an organization as an open system, where the 'inputs' are human, material, financial, and informational resources. These are transformed within the system according to management algorithms, approaches, methods, means, and technologies into 'outputs' in the form of achieved goals and organizational results (profits, increased product volume and quality, improved performance indicators, material incentives, productivity growth, etc.).