assignment of management

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

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.

Share This Book

Principles of Management

(18 reviews)

ISBN 13: 9781946135186

Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing

Language: English

Formats Available

Conditions of use.

Learn more about reviews.

Reviewed by Nicole Englitsch, Lecturer, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley on 5/8/24

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The material covers relevant topics that you would expect to see in a principles of management book. It is a good basic introduction to management principles. Even though it is organized well, the structure of the resource could be improved by adapting an easier to follow structure and refer back to the big picture of POLC. Given that it was published in 2015, some cases are outdated, and instructors definitely need to add current examples and exercises.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

Text is accurate and no errors were detected. The business world has changed quite a bit from 2015, so some chapters may benefit from updating so it reflects a more accurate view.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Basics were covered well. Content could benefit from some updates but overall concepts are still relevant and will be for a long time.

Clarity rating: 4

The resource is written in a clear and concise manner. It is suited for early career college students. Some of the images/graphics could be updated to make it more visually pleasing. Some images are not extremely relevant to the text and could be omitted or replaced.

Consistency rating: 5

It follows a consistent formatting. It is consistent when it comes to terminology and the framework it uses.

Modularity rating: 5

It is easy to navigate and has a clear structure. it can easily be divided into sections and assigned accordingly.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Even though it is organized well, the structure of the resource could be improved by adapting an easier to follow structure and refer back to the big picture of POLC. The key points at the end of each chapter were helpful and so were the references for each section (sometimes too many references and not all of great quality but students may prefer the easier to understand and quick reads). As an instructor, I would have preferred more quality references.

Interface rating: 4

No navigation problems and no interface issues. Some of the images/graphics could be updated to make it more visually appealing. Some images are not extremely relevant to the text and could be omitted or replaced. Lots of empty/white space. It is not an extremely visually appealing resource. It is not possible to easily copy & paste text from (line breaks).

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

No glaring grammatical errors were noticed.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

So much is happening in the DEIB space and the text would benefit from some updates. Overall it seems relevant for mostly students in the US. The text was culturally appropriate without any bias but also did not invite for much discussion around current DEIB issues around the country and world.

This text can be a good resource and basis for a principles of management course, but instructors need to be mindful to combine it with more recent cases and discussions around current trends, best practices, and issues.

Reviewed by Anjali Chaudhry, Professor, Dominican University on 10/27/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

This open text covers all pertinent areas related to principles of management. Any core business class on management focuses on the four functions of management- planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. This material does a good job going over key concepts as well as terminology relevant in this area. Some of the examples may be outdated but that is understandable considering that this book was published in 2015 and the fact that the world of business has been experiencing a number of transitions. I am not too happy with the leadership chapter. Then again, in my opinion, most textbooks do a poor job with this topic.

The content is error-free, unbiased, and for the most part accurate. I specially appreciate the links for research and other sources from which the text draws support.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Content is mostly up-to-date and therefore, I am not too concerned about the lack of editions that such a format does not offer. My recommendation is to use the book as a basic text and then use other sources such as news articles, cases, and simulations to incorporate the role of current workplace context into the study of management. What aspects of management are relevant in the modern workplace (e.g., traditional organizational designs) or how new developments such as the gig economy can be understood using the management lens can easily be taught with a few additional resources that bolster this open source book material. If and when updates are needed, I am fairly certain that these can be done in a relatively easy and straightforward manner.

Clarity rating: 5

The text is written in a clear and easy to understand style. It introduces most of the key terms and accepted jargon from the field.

Consistency rating: 4

The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.

Modularity rating: 4

The text has been divided in chapters and sub-sections each with its own hyperlink that makes it easy to move from one section to the next.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The logical organization and simple structure of the textbook is one of its strengths.

The text uses relevant graphs and images that I frequently use to review key points from a section. The illustrations are meaningful and well-placed.

I did not notice any glaring grammatical errors.

The text has been written to be relevant for students in the US. I am not sure whether the examples will be too applicable for those studying management in other countries. I did not find any instances where the text could be perceived as culturally insensitive or offensive to any demographics.

I have adopted this book for my core management course, and I plan to continue to use it.

Reviewed by John Strifler, Associate Adjunct, University of Indianapolis on 4/22/21

The text is appears to be an excellent text to introduce the P-O-L-C management principles, and promote the key elements of strategy, entrepreneurship, and leadership development in students. Highlights: Chapter 1 introduces the concepts... read more

The text is appears to be an excellent text to introduce the P-O-L-C management principles, and promote the key elements of strategy, entrepreneurship, and leadership development in students.

Highlights: Chapter 1 introduces the concepts thoroughly and sets the approach the rest of the book utilizes. A concise history of management thought is found in chapter 3. The summary element at end of each section ( Key Takeaway) is excellent reference for learner. With the references at the end of each section, one can pull a section out for use in a teaching setting and retain the references.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The authors are clear in the beginning that they focus performance on the triple bottom line - financial, social, and environmental - and appear faithful in maintaining this approach throughout. There are no obvious errors in examples used to illustrate principles.

Examples remain accurate and relevant in explaining the concepts, however, I would utilize additional, more recent examples - noting that the text is substantially the same as its 2010 original publication.

For example, the section 3.4 addresses contemporary principles of management addressing social movements has the latest citation in 2007. Social networks have seen a significant shift.

Level of writing is suited for early college or even college prep use. A Key term summary at the end of each section or chapter would add to its usefulness.

The textbook follows a consistent formatting, allowing for scanning through thumbnails to find illustrations or desired summaries

The way the chapters are sectioned and summarized, makes for ease of modular use. Consistently starts each new section on new page, which allows for ease of sub-dividing the material. Again, the practice of placing citations at the end of each section further adds to the modularity.

The text follows logical approach in the order of topics, similar to other management texts.

Interface rating: 5

I viewed the text in its PDF format, and found it clean to view and all images were displayed properly. Searching and navigation had no issues. Having a full feature PDF viewer will simplify the process of accessing and using sections separately.

No obvious grammatical issues

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

A variety of images used with a diversity of individuals. The examples used appear to be "globally" recognized.

Will utilize sections of this text as supplemental material to provide students additional information.

Reviewed by JOE MESSER, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Manchester University on 4/2/21

I have been a business owner for 30 years and taught business management for the last 12 years. I found this text to cover all the important areas of management. Plan, Organize, Lead, and Control, were introduced early on (page 19) and each... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

This book is well suited for an entry level course in management. Students do not need a business background before reading this text. I appreciated the current examples that were used. This will keep students engaged.

Management basics were covered very well. Examples were recent and relevant. The companies that were used as examples (SAS, Xerox, Toyota, Nucor, Google, etc. are companies that should be relevant businesses years from now.

The text was easy to read and the vocabulary was appropriate for an introductory course.

The flow and layout of the book stayed the same throughout all 16 chapters.

I found some of the sections within the chapters to be too verbose. I will cut out some of the sections (modules) in order to have time to go more in detail in other areas. For that reason the modularity is good.

The organization of the book made sense to me.

Interface rating: 2

I am still struggling trying to get access to any educational resources that go along with the book. Slides, exams, etc.

I did not run into any grammatical issues.

The text was culturally appropriate with no biases.

I intend to use this text assuming a can locate the teaching resources that go along with it. I look forward to saving my students money by using this text.

Reviewed by B'Ann Dittmar, Instructor, Clarke University on 1/7/21

Like most Principles of Management textbooks, this book has a wide breadth of topics that are covered that are relevant to the subject area. Consistent with a principles course, it does not go into great depth in most areas, as those deeper dives are saved for more advanced courses. I currently use McGraw Hill's "Management: Leading & Collaborating in a Competitive World" 14th edition by authors, Thomas S. Bateman and Scott A. Snell, which is very comprehensive, and this text covers similar subject areas. The OpenStax text appears more succinct in the length of the chapters but provides adequate coverage without a lot of fluff / filler. The OpenStax text uses a couple of photo images per chapter, as well as several colorful graphics and illustrations, with adequate white space, to make it easy to read and to digest, as well as to maintain interest.

I did not see any inaccuracies within the OpenStax Principles of Management text. The text appears to remain updated with relevant examples for discussion purposes and for students to relate to.

The content provided is relevant and the examples / references to today's world provided seemed to span from 2016-2018, from what I saw. Example companies included Starbucks and Amazon, which are both relevant organizations that college students would know and have an interest in learning about. It is a contemporary text and does not feel dated. I would love to see some direct links within the text to the real-world topics that are being discussed, so students could click on them to get more information and an in-depth view, versus just a brief mention of a topic or issue. The student’s study guide contains some links like these, but it would be great to have some within the chapter, itself.

This text is easy to read, clear, and to the point. There are definitions provided for clarification, in the chapters, as well as in a list at the end of each chapter. A recommendation would be to put the chapter title and subject area on both the first page of the chapter, as well as listing it as a running head on the main window with the chapter readings. This information is currently listed along the left-hand side of the page in the table of contents, only and each chapter begins with an image and the learning outcomes on the page, but no mention of the chapter number or subject. I think this addition would provide more clarity.

Each chapter has consistency in layout and design. After each of the chapter concepts are covered, the chapter concludes with the following: • Key Terms • Summary of Learning Outcomes • Chapter Review Questions • Management Skills Application Exercises • Managerial Decision Exercises • Critical Thinking Case These resources provide a good review, as well as offering opportunities for students to synthesize / apply what they have learned. It also offers instructors the opportunity to use some of these tools for discussion.

This textbook would allow you to set up your course in a variety of modalities, as you can decide how many and which chapters you would like to use, depending on how many weeks long your course will be. It can certainly be used in a synchronous or asynchronous course, with online, hybrid, or in-person delivery. The Instructor Pack also includes several resources to take your course online and offers “cartridges” to integrate into several learning management systems, including Blackboard, Moodle, D2L Course, and Canvas.

The text appears to be well organized, overall. One chapter that could possibly be moved is the “History of Management” chapter, which is the third chapter. My current textbook addresses the history of management as an appendix to Chapter 1, which seems to make sense to me. The OpenStax text places it after Chapter 1, Managing and Performing, and after Chapter 2, Managerial Decision-Making. It may be appropriate to have Chapter 1 first, so students understand what management is, and then go into what happened in the history of management, as past events can be predictors for the future. The placement of the history chapter is not a real concern, but it just made me pause and wonder why it was placed where it was.

The interface appeared clear and functioned well. I tried it on both a laptop as well as on my iPhone. One thing I noticed as far as navigation is that when I wanted to jump to another chapter, I would click on the chapter link in the list on the left-hand tool bar, but it would not change the screen to take me there. Rather, it would open a list of drop downs for options of topics to select within that chapter. I think most people want to start at the beginning of a chapter and a click could be saved if they were taken to the beginning of the chapter when they click on the chapter title. That click could still also open the chapter options, and if they wanted to go somewhere else, they could do that.

I did not see any grammatical errors.

I appreciated that this text offered diverse images and examples that included a variety of demographics and cultural aspects. Further, you feel their commitment to diversity when you read their six-page Diversity and Representation Guidelines, which details their commitment to improving representation and diversity in OER materials. This is something that I appreciate and look for when reviewing textbook materials for use in my courses.

Overall, I believe this text is a great option for instructors and for students. I currently use the McGraw-Hill Connect access for online quizzes and exams, which include a built-in proctoring system to eliminate cheating in an online environment and would like an option for doing something similar with this open textbook. I appreciate that there are a variety of options for accessing this textbook, from an app, to a download, to viewing online, or even ordering a printed copy- all provide plenty of options for students. I also like that students can highlight within the chapters when viewing online. When I am looking to adopt a text, I am very interested in the Instructor Resources. This text offers guided lecture notes and PowerPoints as well as a test bank in Word format. Unfortunately, I found the PowerPoints to be lacking. I happen to teach Business Communications, which includes how to put together an effective PowerPoint, and typically "less is more." The PowerPoints that accompany this textbook have a plain white background with black text and no real template, so they don't look very interesting and they are inconsistent from slide to slide in their look. They also contain WAY too much text, often including full paragraphs. They should just have bullet points and save the "extra content" as lecture notes outside of the presentation slides. I did appreciate that some of the PowerPoint slides included embedded links to TED Talks and other example videos, including scenes from Apollo 13, as well as including discussion questions regarding those videos. If OpenStax: 1. Offered pre-made quiz and exam options vs. downloading a Word document with all the quiz questions and 2. They partnered with a low-cost proctoring service as an add-on solution, and 3. Updated the PowerPoint slide deck, I would be very interested in adopting this text. It offers a lot of value for an open resource.

Reviewed by Jose-Luis (Joe) Iglesias, Assistant professor of Management, USC-Beaufort on 8/25/20

I believe that the examples and cases are appropriate to demonstrate the applicability of management concepts. However, I wish that the authors could be able to update the examples and cases to a more recent world reality. Overall, the index and... read more

I believe the content is appropriate for an introductory text in management.

The text provides the authors with the opportunity for updates.

The textbook uses an easy to understand verbatim and accessible concepts for non-business major students.

Consistency rating: 3

Terminology and frameworks are acceptable for an introduction to management. However, I would advise the authors to provide detailed information on the theories that support managerial functions.

I believe that modularity is an option. However, the instructor will need to add extra readings and complementary contents such as videos.

The sequence of managerial functions is well organized and explored in the text.

No interface issues noticed.

Grammatical Errors rating: 1

No grammatical mistakes noticed.

Cultural Relevance rating: 1

I believe that the diversity of examples and in the pictures represents a good example of inclusion.

I would consider the adoption of this textbook to an elective class in management, or management 101.

Reviewed by Linda Williamson, Program Lead, Business Administration, Klamath Community College on 3/13/19

I have reviewed numerous books related to management over the past 15 years and this text includes several components that I often need to add to the textbooks I am using. For example, there is wonderful language related to the "balanced scorecard" included in this text. I also like the depth of content related to innovation and strategic thinking that is referenced across several chapters.

I thoroughly read most chapters and carefully scanned the others; accuracy across words, figures, and exhibits appears to be strong. I did not detect any bias on the part of the authors, and in fact appreciated the wide array of business examples used to support their concepts.

The overall content in this textbook appears to be extremely relevant. Current and appropriate businesses are profiled throughout and related discussion questions seem to focus on real-world issues related to management. Chapter 2 in this text focuses on the individual student and includes substantial self-assessment; this is exactly how I teach my current Management Fundamentals course as I believe effective managers need to be aware of how they communicate with others before they can implement management tools and strategies.

This book does seem to be written in clear, concise prose, with good support and definition for new terms (and for jargon). References are provided throughout the content (including the business cases) with additional explanation for new or "involved" topics. I see consistency throughout the chapters in flow and tone, which is not always true when there are multiple authors.

This textbook appear to be consistent in the use of terminology and also in the overall framework of the content. For example, consistency in starting each chapter ("What's in it for me?"), the "Key Takeaways" at the end of each section, and the consistent reference to POLC (Planning, Organizing, Leading, Controlling) figure to consistently remind the reader how/where the new chapter content fits in to the overall role of management. Very effective!

I love the "chunks" and short chapter sections in this textbook! Each chapter has clearly defined sections (which a student can navigate directly to by using the tabs on the left of the page as soon as a "chapter" is selected) and yet the conclusion of each section and chapter still ties everything in to place. Very well designed.

The text is well organized in content, though I tend to like the "POLC" sections to be more clearly defined as "sections" of the textbook (again, the POLC figure at the start of each chapter does clear show which element the new content attaches to). There is logical flow to the content within the chapters and throughout the text overall.

I like the navigation of this textbook. Like any electronic resource, it takes a bit of getting familiar with, but it appears to be very user-friendly. When I facilitate a class using an OER, I like to have the entire textbook available in the very first module of my course in addition to having each assigned chapter available for access directly within the module that includes that specific chapter. I did not experiment to see if that would be an option with this resource.

None that I could find!

I found several examples that supported very respectful references to different cultures/people. My favorite actually involves a story of Goodwill...rather than do the traditional focus on who Goodwill serves, the authors instead focus on how the company is innovative in their strategic planning. In my opinion, that reference not only shows a different light on this company but also reminds the reader of the need for nonprofit organizations to be focused on innovation. A win-win!

I will likely select this textbook next year for my Management Fundamentals course. The authors stress upfront the necessity of determining competitive advantage and continue that theme throughout the book, which is incredibly relevant for management. The cases, discussion questions, and indepth content related to assessments (for personal growth and also for company performance such as the balanced scorecard) add a great array of materials to incorporate into this course. I really like this textbook!

Reviewed by Jeanine Parolini, Teaching Partner, Bethel University on 12/3/18

Principles of Management provides a comprehensive overview of key management and leadership principles for my professional adult undergraduate students. In our program, it is vital that we offer students a progressive big picture overview of the areas they need to consider in leading and managing others, and Principles of Management is that resource for our students. It is easy to access the information in this resource.

Our professional adult students need a resource that they are able to connect with and apply directly to their professional lives. Principles of Management addresses current topics that my students are dealing with in their workplaces, and it offers insights into the personal and professional management and leadership issues that pertain to most organizations today.

My adult professional undergraduate students are able to engage with the content and apply it to their personal and professional lives. The cases and examples in this resources are also relevant to students' experiences and contexts. At the same time, please keep the book up to date with considering a future revision in 2 to 5 years so that the information, examples and cases remain current.

The information is presented to my professional adult undergraduate students in a way that is engaging, practical, and accessible. The books connects well with business students and business issues.

When I engage the students in using the terminology and frameworks from Principles of Management in their papers and presentations, I am finding that students are digesting and utilizing the information properly and insightfully. They are applying it to their personal and professional lives. As I interact with students in both face to face and online venues, my experience is that students are remembering and practically using the terms and frameworks in real life applications.

Presently, I am using most of the book in my professional adult undergraduate business management course. I am able to offer several chapters in Principles of Management each week as I integrate in other articles and videos to support the week's topics. Students have commented in their evaluations that the reading is accessible, practical, interconnected with the week's topic, and a fair amount of reading for the course.

The chapters are well organized in Principles of Management and the topics in each chapter build upon each other throughout the chapter. The progression of the information in each chapter flows well and supports the practical outcomes such as discussion forums, presentations or writing assignments in my course.

For the most part the text is free from navigation issues. The one area for development is to make sure it is clear when it is a chapter subheading and when it is a figure subheading. Perhaps using a different size font or bolding or italicizing the font for one of those titles may be helpful. I have been confused at times when a figure title falls on the previous page of the actual figure, yet the chapter subheading is at the top of the figure. I have also experienced students' questions on this as well when they are being asked to assess a certain figure in the reading material and want to be sure they have the correct figure. I'd appreciate clearing this up in the next version to avoid confusion.

The text appears to be free from mechanical issues and grammatical errors. I am proud of the way the text presents itself to our professional adult undergrad students.

Cultural inclusion is important to me so I am sensitive to inclusivity of races, ethnicities and backgrounds in my approach to resources and the classroom environment. Principles of Management provides support to cultural inclusion in it's discussion of globalization and global trends, values-based leadership, and to some level related to ethics and culture. At the same time, this is a key area to keep up to date on and to realize that the globe is in our workplaces everyday with our diversity. In future revisions, I suggest taking this area to another level in helping readers to manage an innovative and diverse workplace to a greater level by being aware of cultural bias and learning through differences. I supplement the books information with additional material related to bias, insecurity and personal/cultural maturity.

Principles of Management is an engaging resource for my professional adult undergrad business students because it provides a general overview of key management and leadership topics with the opportunity for practical application through examples, cases, questions, and relevant frameworks that I can then incorporate into my weekly assignments.

Reviewed by Valerie Wallingford, Professor, Bemidji State University on 6/19/18

There should be a chapter devoted to the 4 functions of management (planning, leading, organizing & controlling) versus just one chapter covering all four primary functions of management so that is why I have ranked it a 3. read more

Text is accurate, case studies are outdated.

Textbook is up-to-date except cases.

The book's clarity is good as provides adequate context for terminology utilized. Easy to understand and comprehend.

Yes, the text is consistent throughout.

Yes, the text is easily readable and chapters are easily divisible into smaller reading sections which makes it nice if the professor doesn't want to cover the entire chapter just sections. There are pictures, charts, etc. that also break up the reading.

The organization/flow/structure are similar to many principles of management texts with possibly moving mission/vision chapter earlier but professor can assign chapters in the order they prefer.

The interface is good, as I had no issues with navigation, distortion, or display features.

No grammatical errors were found.

The text was not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way. It was inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.

Reviewed by K Doreen MacAulay, Instructor II, University of South Florida on 3/27/18

The material covers all the basic requirements for a principles of management course. The concepts and applications are on par with what is being taught. I feel the examples are a little dated, but that is something that could easily be augmented... read more

The content of this book is very accurate and I did not find any errors in the delivery of the information.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

The concepts are up to date with what is important and covered in a principles of management course. The examples, although relevant to the material, could be a little more up to date. As note, however, this is something that could easily be addressed through classwork.

The concepts, theories and general knowledge delivered in this book as exactly what one would expect to find in a good Principles of Management book.

There are no consistency issues that I found throughout the reading of this book.

The segments within each of the chapters of the book made for an easy and logical flow to the material. Each segment lends itself easily to the learning process for the reader.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

The actually order of the book chapters, however, did not seem to fit a traditional model. I would not teach the chapters in the order that they are provided, however, I would use all the material provided. Example: I would have motivating after leading; the structure chapter near the end and make chapter 13 - chapter 14 and chapter 14 be chapter 13.

To me a logical concept flow goes from a general introduction, strategy and the go micro level to macro level. This book's order of chapters does not seem to have a clear path.

Some of the pictures seemed out of place because they were small. As well, there was not a uniformed look to the pictures which took away a little from the appearance, but overall the material was easy to read and that is the main point.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

Easy to read and understand.

Clearly based in a American capitalist approach to knowledge, this book is on par with most American textbooks in this area.

I look forward to incorporating this textbook into my class. I believe for a survey course like this, this work is the ideal foundation to help the students learn.

Reviewed by Debby Thomas, Assistant Professor of Management, George Fox University on 2/1/18

The text covers the basics that other Principles of Management texts do. read more

The text covers the basics that other Principles of Management texts do.

I have found this textbook to be clear and accurate. The case studies are a bit dated, but relevant.

The content of this book is organized around management concepts and principles that will not quickly go out of date. The case studies are concise, practical and relevant and should be fairly easy for the publishers to update occasionally.

This book is written in a way that the concepts are covered thoroughly without being verbose or difficult to understand. The concepts are presented in a way that is easy to comprehend and encourages application.

The terminology and framework of the text are consistent. One minor improvement would be to have a comprehensive table of contents at the beginning of the book (presently there is a table of contents of each chapter at the beginning of the chapter). This would help students follow the overall flow of the text more easily.

This text provides numbered sections for each chapter. I find this helpful and I don't always assign the whole chapter as reading for one class. I can be precise about exactly which parts of which chapters I want the students to read. The text has pictures and charts or graphs to break up the text, and the sections are generally short enough to hold a student's attention.

The topics are presented in a logical fashion. As with most Principles of Management textbooks its impossible to get through all of the content in one semester, but the set up works well to emphasize certain chapters more than others.

The book comes in multiple formats for the convenience of the reader. The PDF is usable only with the use of the built in table of contents (no clickable links to chapters in the PDF).

The text does not contain grammatical errors.

The pictures in the text include people of a variety of ethnicities. I have not found anything in the book that is insensitive or offensive in any way. It also introduces the concepts of unconscious bias early in the text.

Reviewed by Mindy Bean, Faculty, Linn-Benton Community College on 6/20/17

The Principles of Management heavily relies of the POLC method of Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling. The text was unique in covering the basics of each area within each context while tying it in with many factors that managers deal... read more

The books content was very accurate to the date that the sources were presented. A lot of resources were during the recession or before the recession. I feel like an OER that was adapted from 2010 should have included a few more updated examples.

The books concepts will keep for a while, when it comes to management theories there are always more being presented (fades) and there are those that keep the core concepts. I believe this book covers on the hard fundamentals of management while expressing the common trends of management in certain business industries. With technological advances and competitive nature of business, this book's relevance and longevity is based more on the subject matter.

The writing is adequate for the topics being presented. The many examples of firm situations and how they applied the concepts were well placed and had a good consistency until the end of the text. The jargon was appropriate for the subject matter.

The book carried consistent terminology and framework. The rhythm in which the reader gets used to is consistent except for two chapters toward the end in which it extended on my laptop to being about 25 pages. The way in which terms are presented are not in bold but mainly italic or overly emphasized. I believe it to be an easier read then most materials I have came across.

The book was easy and readily divisible into smaller reading sections besides the two chapters I previously mentioned towards the end. I personally would use the OER in that way due to its design to prevent good amounts of information without disruption.

The organization of the text was presented well. It was different from other materials that focus on the POLC and cover each section individually in order. I was impressed by the clear fashion that information was laid out by relating each topic outside of POLC that managers have to deal with and correlating to how it works with POLC when necessary.

The interface worked well. I pulled the book up on three different forms and systems. It was consistent, the visual aids/charts were presented well and I was able to see them all clearly. The only thing I personally didn't like was downloaded on iBooks you had to swipe versus clicking to turn the page.

The cultural relevance was accurate. I did not see any insensitive or offensive material.

I did have problems trying to get this on my Kindle.

Reviewed by Irene Seto, Faculty, Portland Community College on 6/20/17

I was involved with modifying an existing course to utilizes Open Education Resources in our introduction to Management Supervisory course. This text book is one that we selected a few chapters from for our course. I found this book covers all the... read more

I did not encounter any biased or inaccurate information in the textbook.

The principles of Business be the same, but the business world and our technology is constantly changing. I would imagine minor updates of examples and case studies would be needed every 2-3 years.

I found the chapters easy to read and follow. Key terminologies were highlighted and explained well.

Each chapter's layout is consistent and created an easy to follow framework.

The chapters are well organized, similar to many introductory Management textbook. The learning objective and summary for each chapter is good.

The flow of the chapters are fine. But we did not use all of the chapters for our course. Personally, I would put Globalization and Valued Based Leadership (Chapter 3) toward the end.

The embedded links that I came across to and tested were fine. There were not many graphics.

I did not found grammatical errors.

Nothing really stood out that seem to be culturally insensitive.

Page numbers would be helpful!

Reviewed by Holly Jean Greene, Lecturer, University of Tennessee, Knoxville on 6/20/17

The textbook covers subject matter found in most management texts such as the four foundations of management - planning, organizing, leading and controlling ( P-O-L-C). In fact, each chapter links back to P-O-L-C very well. The textbook covers... read more

The textbook covers organizational structure & culture, planning & goal setting, strategy & decision making, teams, leadership & motivation too. A few additional topics covered are social media and communication. One of the text strengths is in it's brevity: It covers a swath of terrain succinctly and would work well in course where an instructor wants to add additional learning tools such as videos and case studies.

I didn't find any areas of obvious inaccuracy or bias. In fact, I find the text is written without the opinion of the authors.

Each chapter includes a "case in point" story that's current or at least covers an event that's occurred within the last ten years.

I like the style in which the text is written - simple, easy to read prose. There are instances where I felt as if the text was written for an 8th grader, yet, if an instructor's goal is to use a text that simply introduces students to the foundations of management and they plan on adding additional learning tools, this is a great text to use.

I didn't see any obvious areas of inconsistency.

Using this text modularity and assigning just the sections students need is one of the text strengths. Each chapter stands on its own.

Organization of the text is clear and logical. In some instances, the text is not in the order I would assign but structuring the subject matter to an instructor's discretion is one of the advantages of using this text.

A few of the images seem small and I believe more images could have been used.

I didn't find any glaring grammatical errors.

Another one of the text strengths is its focus on helping students understand their own behavior. Each chapter contains an activity for students to complete that allows them the opportunity to learn more about their own behavior and biases.

This text in combination with additional learning materials - videos, case studies, self-assessment assignment - is a solid choice to use.

Reviewed by Paul Jacques, Associate Professor, Rhode Island College on 4/11/17

Each of the concepts that are typically covered in a Principles of Management course are included in this manuscript. The table of contents, chapter index, are helpful. Glossary of key terms is embedded within each chapter and could perhaps be broken out in a separate chapter section (end of chapter?) to aid comprehension. There was no index included in this reviewer’s copy of the text.

The concepts included are presented accurately.

To be sure, each of the topics covered in this text are within the scope of the body of knowledge that an Introduction to Management student would be expected to master. The references are quite dated, however, with the bulk of the most recent references being from 2008. That said, and perhaps in the interest of providing the most updated references possible, citations from seminal work (example: NEO-PI, Costa and McCrae, 1985) are largely ignored in lieu of more recent, but relatively lightweight, work s. While major concepts are explained, the impact of these concepts on the world of work/management are given much less emphasis. To the reader, this approach can be perceived as being presented with a stream of facts, one after the other, with little attempt at anchoring the concepts to applications.

Clarity rating: 3

What’s here is good with my main concern being that there’s large sections of pure, unbroken text. I would think that the “Key takeaway” segments could be more numerous throughout the chapter. The Moreover, these takeaways would seem to benefit from several “key implications for managers” summaries throughout the chapter. As it stands now, it appears to be left to the student to pull out the relevance of the various concepts explained.

It seems apparent that there was a great deal of work involved in the preparation of the book manuscript. Each chapter’s flow and appearance are similar to that in each of the other chapters.

Each chapter appears to be designed to stand alone.

The “What’s in it for me?” chapter introductions are a useful and clever way of avoiding the more sterile term “chapter learning objectives.” The significant challenge to the student, however, is to internalize the chapter readings so that he/she sees the applicability.

Not sure if it’s a browser/printer issue, but some of the images were inordinately small (ex: figure 2.11, p. 63). Moreover, several of the figures are orphaned in the text – no reference/support afforded by surrounding paragraphs.

This reviewer observed no instances of grammatical errors which, in a work of this size (over 600 pages) is compelling evidence of polished, thoughtful preparation.

There were no examples of cultural insensitivity. To the contrary, the authors added to the reader’s understanding of the topic by presentation of findings related to the GLOBE study. Perhaps a more comprehensive treatment of the topic would have resulted had the authors presented the idea of diversity from a “levels of analysis” perspective – individual, dyad, group/collective. This approach would seem to result in a more efficient presentation of the topic and one that is applicable to all levels of management.

Overall, it seems that a strength of this text is that it encompasses a full gamut of topics that are typically included in a Principles of Management course at the undergraduate level. This reviewer found the content to be quite strong, but the interface between content and learner to be the main opportunity that exists with this title. Specifically, cases are interspersed throughout the text/chapters, but there are no questions related to any of the cases and so the cases come across more as stories than they do point of convergence/learning. In addition, the segments that are labelled “Exercises” at the end of each chapter’s segments would be more aptly referred to as simply “chapter segment questions.” The reality that there is no real deep thought required to answer the questions nor are they reflective of any experiential/active learning. The word that this reviewer keeps coming back to is “Application.” The text boasts truly excellent content, but the application portion is largely missing.

Reviewed by David Bess, Professor, University of Hawaii on 8/21/16

The text covers the major topics taught in a typical introduction to management course quite thoroughly. read more

The text covers the major topics taught in a typical introduction to management course quite thoroughly.

It read well and seemed to be quite accurate in terms of the theories/concepts and their applications.

It is up to date...other than maybe some cases.

It is easy to read; has nice summary sections; flows well./

It is consistent.

It is easy to read and has nice short sections with summaries.

The topics are presented in a logical fashion. They are offered in the rough order found in many principles texts. It is not the order in which I teach them...but it is logical and clear.

The interface is sound.

The grammar is sound.

I believe it is ;culturally relevant for most cultures.

I wish it had page numbers....it is a bit difficult to navigate.

Reviewed by Kim bishop, Adjunct Faculty, Portland Community College on 8/21/16

Yes, the subjects match up with what our school has for Course content and outcome Guides, for this course. It covers all subjects adequately. read more

Yes, the subjects match up with what our school has for Course content and outcome Guides, for this course. It covers all subjects adequately.

I did not find any errors and I did not see it as biased in any way. I guess it would depend on what you call accuracy and unbiased. For my needs, from what I have been taught and from what I have learned in the working world, I found it adequate.

The only things that would need updating would be case studies that could be more current since it was written in 2010. Having more current up to date case studies would be more interesting to the students and more engaging since it would be current or within the last couple of years at least.

very easy to read and understand. There were a couple of acronyms that were new to me, but the way they were laid out in the objectives and then addressed were helpful.

I love the way it is laid out. each chapter was easy to navigate and set up. It is the same for each objective and chapter giving you lots of options for discussion and for assigning work.

It is organized excellently. as mentioned before I like how it is laid out with learning objectives, content, key take away and exercises for each section. I like the What's in it for Me, at the beginning of the chapter so it shows students what they will get out of the chapter and then it ties in with each section. I really like how this book is laid out.

Yes, very logical and easy to read as mentioned before. Student gets to see what they will learn and how they can apply it, then each section is broken down to address the learning objectives.

There was not a lot of graphics or pictures, but the links do work that are embedded for external work.

I could not find any glaring grammatical errors.

I did not find any examples of cultural insentitivity

I really like this book and I am going to use for my course in the fall as a resource. I really like how it is laid out and the case studies the exercises, discussion points as well as the external resources like finding out what your learning style is. I like that it does not have a bunch of fluff and pictures and graphics as I will use this as a resource. It is intuitive and as current as it can be. Management concepts do not change much over time, but how they are implemented and communicated do and I feel this addresses that need for change. it was an easy read and did not feel like you were reading a textbook but interesting information about management. There are enough outside links to other information that you do not really need the textbook and the online content they have extra that you have to pay for. I would recommend the book, with some updates periodically to the case studies.

Reviewed by Brian Richardson, Adjunct Faculty, University of Hawaii at Manoa on 8/21/16

In the introduction to Principles of Management, the authors state that there are three themes in the book: strategic thinking, entrepreneurial thinking, and active management. The entrepreneurial theme is not as prevalent as their introduction would suggest. There is some discussion of creativity, although references to writers and books beyond the single book by Edward De Bono would have enhanced the section. Sections that stand out as useful include the discussions of fairness, groupthink, employee performance review, and predictors of job performance. Some sub-sections and minor topics should have been separate sections with more details, such as the discussion of meetings, of interviewing, and of HR rules and policies. Finally, sections that would have useful additions to the textbook include how to write a good survey, how to deal with very difficult employees, and how to improve morale, which was referenced superficially but not focused on. The selection of management writers and level of detail provided for their positions is uneven. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is given three pages while Collins' discussion of changing good companies into great ones has two passing references and a short summary of the idea of a BAHG (big, hairy, audacious goal). Some thinkers were left out or not considered. Senge is not mentioned, even in the short section on "Learning Organizations". Likewise, academic writers and many historical thinkers, such as Max Weber, are not mentioned at all. Also lacking was a sense of how these different thinkers or ideas might disagree with each other or people outside of the management field. Instead, the text offers a series of disconnected concepts and models, which likely improved the modularity of the overall book, but at the cost of limiting the interactions between the topics and positions. As a result, there was little logical or conceptual analysis and the book relied on exposition.

Much of the textbook is made up of summaries of different concepts and models connected to management, with an emphasis on contemporary writers and psychosocial theories. There were no obvious inaccuracies in the summaries of the concepts and thinkers, although some sections could be criticized as limited, vague, superficial, or uncritical.

A textbook on management principles will become less relevant over time as updated information becomes available and new thinkers offer different concepts and models. One reference that stood out was the quote that "According to one source, there will be 11.5 million more jobs than workers in the United States by 2010." Given that this is a book last updated in 2015, the data should have been updated as well, especially given how wrong it turned out to be. Interestingly, this source is a Wired magazine article from 2007, published just before the economic crash. The examples and illustrations may become dated fairly quickly. References to specific CEOs and other leaders, for instance, will become less relevant over time. In this edition, there is a reference to and picture of Condoleeza Rice but no mention of Obama, for instance. Obama only occurs as a marginal participant in a group shot of world leaders

The clarity of the discussion is generally good, although there is some room for improvement. The photographs, for instance, do not support the text very well. A glossary would have been useful for clarifying all of terms used while an index would have helped readers access specific sections more effectively. The choice of examples is sometimes not clear. For instance, the examples used to illustrate organizations dealing with uncertain conditions, and thus needing flexible strategies were "a gang of car thieves or a construction company located in the Gaza Strip" (page 182). Both of these examples are strange and much better examples taken from businesses could have been provided and then discussed in some detail. Likewise, the example that they give of resistance to change was that people have been unwilling to adopt Dvorak keyboard and have stuck with the QWERT keyboard, despite the obvious efficiency of the Dvorak system (page 281). This is a great example of resistance to change, but one wonders why the authors could not find an example from business, such as how the railroads ignored the rise of the airplane.

While the book is generally consistent overall, it book sometimes strays from a discussion of the "principles" of management and does not adopt a consistent idea of what kinds of businesses are being talked about. The book would have been clearer if the authors had started with a classification of types of business that they are talking about (manufacturing, marketing, services, non-profits, perhaps) and be clear about what they were not covering (like government bureaucracies). For instance, I was thinking of using this textbook to support a course in Library management, and while some of it was useful, much of it would have been irrelevant or confusing. Had the book been clearer on how the different topics connected to different types of organizations, it would have been clearer which topics were relevant to specific readers or situations

The textbook is very modular, although there are times when this modularity breaks down. For instance, the discussion of data in the early part of the book was useful, but it would have been more appropriately connected to the discussion of budgeting, which occurs much later in the section on control. Another example is the discussion of globalization and intercultural issues, which occurs sporadically throughout the book and is never really brought into focus.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

The overall structure of the textbook follows Fayol's POLC model of management (Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling) with the overall narrative following the different stages in the process. Each section includes learning objectives, key takeaways, and discussion questions. These parts are very good at focusing the conversation in the larger sections. However, these additional parts are sometimes longer than the main text for that section and seem unnecessarily repetitive. The shift between institutional management and personal management is a bit strained at times, making it unclear whether the focus of the book is management or the personal growth of the manager. Each section included a list of references. In one section, there is simply a reference to the Columbia Encyclopedia, which was not helpful. Typically, however, there are a lot of references in each section. In fact, there are too many references that have minimal value. With some exceptions, the references are to short articles that could easily be retrieved by a Google search. Given that this is an introductory textbook, it would have been better to have an annotated "Further Reading" section that could lead readers to important writings and videos that expend on the different modules.

Interface rating: 3

The layout of the textbook follows standard page layout formatting. There are some things that could be improved. First, some of the text, such as some paragraph headers and keywords, are blue, which suggests that it is hyperlinked (as are the captions for pictures), but this is not the case. The full URLs in the text, also blue, are the only hyperlinks in the textbook. Another feature that could be improved is the way that the text, at least in the PDF version, has line breaks at the end of each line, which means that copying text leads to broken paragraphs that require additional editing if they are copied to another document or web page. The greatest issue with the interface, however, is the amount of white space that is included in the text. Given how short the different sections are and the way that the layout is organized, there is likely 100 pages worth of unnecessary white space in the text, which turns a 500-odd page book into over 600 pages. Added to this that the pictures and list of references are not that relevant, and the book appears to be laid out very inefficiently.

Beyond a few minor typos, the book was clearly written. The prose was a straightforward expository style, although at times it could have been more concise. The writers would often begin their paragraphs with rhetorical questions and then answer them right away, which did not help clarify the prose and typically made the writing more verbose. On page 279, the caption and the picture do not match.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

The book is focused on ideas and problems connected to American private-sector management. As a result, it is largely uncritical of large-scale organizations. Non-profits are discussed on a single page in the context of internal controls. Bureaucracy, as a term with negative connotations, is only mentioned in passing as an example of mechanistic structures, which are seen as an exception. Discrimination, likewise, is mentioned in passing three times, once in terms of how issues of discrimination have become a broader concern for "diversity management". Finally, unions are mentioned a few times in a long list of stakeholders (pages 150 and 151), even though the sample table for tracking stakeholders (page 148) does not mention them. Unions are seen as a punishment for businesses that appear to be unjust (page 529). At-will employment, on the other hand, is discussed in a focused paragraph in a way that does not consider the debate between union and at-will employment. For a textbook on industrial-focused management, the relative silence to the contrast between union and at-will employment conditions is unfortunate. When the book discusses global trends, it tends to be simplistic, taking trends such as "becoming more connected" as more important than such things as economic inequality, resource depletion, surveillance, war and terrorism, or social instability. In that sense, the book would not be very useful to people outside of the United States or to those who were actively engaged in intercultural management. At best, the book points to some of the problems that could be faced.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Principles of Management

1.1 Introduction to Principles of Management
1.2 Case in Point: Doing Good as a Core Business Strategy
1.3 Who Are Managers?
1.4 Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Strategy
1.5 Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling
1.6 Economic, Social, and Environmental Performance
1.7 Performance of Individuals and Groups
1.8 Your Principles of Management Survivor's Guide

Chapter 2: Personality, Attitudes, and Work Behaviors

2.1 Chapter Introduction
2.2 Case in Point: SAS Institute Invests in Employees
2.3 Personality and Values
2.4 Perception
2.5 Work Attitudes
2.6 The Interactionist Perspective: The Role of Fit
2.7 Work Behaviors
2.8 Developing Your Positive Attitude Skills

Chapter 3: History, Globalization, and Values-Based Leadership

3.1 History, Globalization, and Values-Based Leadership
3.2 Case in Point: Hanna Andersson Corporation Changes for Good
3.3 Ancient History: Management Through the 1990s
3.4 Contemporary Principles of Management
3.5 Global Trends
3.6 Globalization and Principles of Management
3.7 Developing Your Values-Based Leadership Skills

Chapter 4: Developing Mission, Vision, and Values

4.1 Developing Mission, Vision, and Values
4.2 Case in Point: Xerox Motivates Employees for Success
4.3 The Roles of Mission, Vision, and Values
4.4 Mission and Vision in the P-O-L-C Framework
4.5 Creativity and Passion
4.6 Stakeholders
4.7 Crafting Mission and Vision Statements
4.8 Developing Your Personal Mission and Vision

Chapter 5: Strategizing

5.1 Strategizing
5.2 Case in Point: Unnamed Publisher Transforms Textbook Industry
5.3 Strategic Management in the P-O-L-C Framew

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Principles of Management teaches management principles to tomorrow's business leaders by weaving three threads through every chapter: strategy, entrepreneurship and active leadership.

Strategic — All business school teachings have some orientation toward performance and strategy and are concerned with making choices that lead to high performance. Principles of Management will frame performance using the notion of the triple bottom-line — the idea that economic performance allows individuals and organizations to perform positively in social and environmental ways as well. The triple bottom line is financial, social, and environmental performance. It is important for all students to understand the interdependence of these three facets of organizational performance.

The Entrepreneurial Manager — While the "General Management" course at Harvard Business School was historically one of its most popular and impactful courses (pioneered in the 1960s by Joe Bower), recent Harvard MBAs did not see themselves as "general managers." This course was relabeled "The Entrepreneurial Manager" in 2006, and has regained its title as one of the most popular courses. This reflects and underlying and growing trend that students, including the undergraduates this book targets, can see themselves as entrepreneurs and active change agents, but not just as managers.

By starting fresh with an entrepreneurial/change management orientation, this text provides an exciting perspective on the art of management that students can relate to. At the same time, this perspective is as relevant to existing for-profit organizations (in the form intrapreneurship) as it is to not-for-profits and new entrepreneurial ventures.

Active Leadership — Starting with the opening chapter, Principles of Management shows students how leaders and leadership are essential to personal and organizational effectiveness and effective organizational change. Students are increasingly active as leaders at an early age, and are sometimes painfully aware of the leadership failings they see in public and private organizations. It is the leader and leadership that combine the principles of management (the artist's palette, tools, and techniques) to create the art of management.

This book's modular format easily maps to a POLC (Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling) course organization, which was created by Henri Fayol (General and industrial management (1949). London: Pitman Publishing company), and suits the needs of both undergraduate and graduate course in Principles of Management.

This textbook has been used in classes at: College of Alameda, Columbia Basin College, Flagler College, Johnson County Community College, Pasadena City College, Penn State University, Renton Technical College, San Diego Mesa College, Sierra College, Yuba College.

Contribute to this Page

Introduction

Learning outcomes.

After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer these questions:

What do managers do to help organizations achieve top performance?
What are the roles that managers play in organizations?
What are the characteristics that effective managers display?

Exploring Managerial Careers

So, you’re in this course and you may have pondered, or discussed with others, what this course will be about. You probably have some preconceptions of what management is all about. You must manage your time, deciding on how much study time you will devote to your management and accounting classes, for instance. You may have had a summer or part-time job where you had a manager whom you had to report to. You may have followed news reports on successful managers like Jeff Bezos of Amazon or Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and want to learn what made them successful so you can emulate their practices in your business career. You may have the impression (not an accurate one) that management is basically just common sense and that you really don’t need to take this course except that you must meet your degree requirement.

You may be an accounting or marketing major who is taking this class because it is required for completion of your degree requirements, but you don’t think that you will ever require what you learn in this class during your career since you don’t plan on applying for HR jobs upon graduation. If you’re believing this, you could not be more mistaken. Regardless of where you are in your career, be it as an individual contributor, project leader, or middle or senior manager, what you will get out of this course will be valuable. If your first job out of college is as an accountant, sales representative, or another entry-level position, you will appreciate the roles that your managers, both direct and senior level, play in an organization and the behaviors and actions that will get you recognized and appreciated. Best of luck!

Most management textbooks would say, as does this one, that managers spend their time engaged in planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and controlling. These activities, as Hannaway found in her study of managers at work, “do not, in fact, describe what managers do.” 1 At best they seem to describe vague objectives that managers are continually trying to accomplish. The real world, however, is far from being that simple. The world in which most managers work is a “messy and hectic stream of ongoing activity.” 2

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-management/pages/1-introduction

Authors: David S. Bright, Anastasia H. Cortes
Publisher/website: OpenStax
Book title: Principles of Management
Publication date: Mar 20, 2019
Location: Houston, Texas
Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-management/pages/1-introduction
Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-management/pages/1-introduction

© Jan 9, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

Module 1: Introduction to Management

Assignment: primary functions of management, preparation.

Our text describes the four important and dynamic primary functions of management as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. In this assignment you will identify, describe, and differentiate the four functions. The following steps will help you prepare for your written assignment:

Thoroughly read the Introduction to Management module.
Carefully consider the four primary functions of management in the context of a business you know. This could be your workplace, Nokia or ThyssenKrupp introduced to you earlier, or another selected business you are familiar with.
Select one of the four functions of management that your reading and consideration leads you to believe is the most important. If you believe no single function stands out, then you may select the interoperability of all four.

Write a three-paragraph essay describing your chosen function, and why you rank its importance so highly. Your essay must include three properly referenced and defined terms from the module reading. For example, if you select Controlling, you could include the definition of feedback loop . Answer and address these questions:

What is the primary function you selected?
How does it interact with the other functions?
What would happen to “management” without your selected function?
What factors cause you to rank its importance above the others?

In addition to the text, you are encouraged to research your topic using reliable and properly cited Internet resources.

Your written assignment will be graded using the Written Assignment Rubric . Please review and keep it in mind as you prepare your assignment. Each component is weighted as follows:

10% Organization and Format

Adequate: Writing is coherent and logically organized, using a format suitable for the material presented. Transitions used between ideas and paragraphs create coherence. Overall unity of ideas is supported by the format and organization of the material presented.

40% Content

Adequate: All required questions are addressed with thoughtful consideration reﬂecting both proper use of content terminology and additional original thought. Some additional concepts are presented from properly cited sources, or originated by the author following logic and reasoning they’ve clearly presented throughout the writing.

40% Development – Critical Thinking

Adequate: Content indicates original thinking, cohesive conclusions, and developed ideas with suﬃcient and ﬁrm evidence. Ideas presented are not merely the opinion of the writer, and clearly address all of the questions or requirements asked with evidence presented to support conclusions drawn.

10% Grammar, Mechanics, Style

Adequate: Writing is free of spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, allowing the reader to follow ideas clearly. There are no sentence fragments and run-ons. The style of writing, tone, and use of rhetorical devices is presented in a cohesive style that enhances the content of the message.

Assignment: Primary Functions of Management. Authored by : Betty Fitte and Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

COMMENTS

Assignments
Assignments | Principles of Management. The assignments in this course are openly licensed, and are available as-is, or can be modified to suit your students’ needs. Selected answer keys are available to faculty who adopt Waymaker, OHM, or Candela courses with paid support from Lumen Learning.
Introduction to Management
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.
Assignments
Assignment. Discussion. Module 1: Introduction to Management. Assignment: Primary Functions of Management. Discussion: The Importance of “Why”. Module 2: History of Management. Assignment: History of Management. Discussion: How the Past Influences the Present. Module 3: Planning and Mission.
Principles of Management
Principles of Management meets scope and sequence of introductory management courses and covers many areas such as human resource and strategic management. OpenStax offers free college textbooks for all types of students, making education accessible & affordable for everyone.
Principles of Management
Principles of Management teaches management principles to tomorrow's business leaders by weaving three threads through every chapter: strategy, entrepreneurship and active leadership.
Principles of Management Course by Johns Hopkins University
Welcome to Principles of Management • 1 minute • Preview module; Management: Easy to Understand, Hard to Do • 4 minutes; Why Do Managers Matter? • 6 minutes; Are Good Managers Born or Made? • 6 minutes; What Do Managers Actually Do? • 4 minutes; Managing Teams • 7 minutes; Creating Successful Teams • 5 minutes; Launching ...
Ch. 1 Introduction
OpenStax. This free textbook is an OpenStax resource written to increase student access to high-quality, peer-reviewed learning materials.
Assignment: Primary Functions of Management
Our text describes the four important and dynamic primary functions of management as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. In this assignment you will identify, describe, and differentiate the four functions. The following steps will help you prepare for your written assignment: