BS2930 Thinking about Management BAMBAFdA

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BS2930 - Thinking about ManagementBAMBA/FdA

• 4th October 2006

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Outline

• Course representative
• Induction Saturday 7th October
• What makes a good manager?
• Modern management styles
• Assignment 1
• Skills diagnostic test

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What makes a good manager?

• For next week
• Write a document (1 page A4 max) with that title.
  
• Be as creative as you want (text, diagram,
  image)
• Bring a printed page to the class

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The Role of managers

• Traditionally
• Planning, organising, leading and controlling
• someone who is responsible for the operation
  of a discrete organisational unit or function and
  who has been give authority over those working in
  that unit or function.
• (Watson Gallagher, 2005)

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Modern Managers

• Leader teams/virtual/cultural
• Personal influence position/self/expertise
• Resources people/assets/
• Ambiguity
• Adaptable
• Communicator listen/talk
• Creative

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Recent thinking on leadership skills for crisis
management (Daft, 2006)

• Stay calm
• Be visible
• Put people before business
• Tell the truth
• Know when to get back to business

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Learning Organisation

• where everyone is engaged in identifying
  solving problems change and continuously improve
  

Team based structure
Open Information
Empowered employees
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Classical Management Styles

• Bureaucracy (Weber)
• Human Relations (Hawthorne Studies Mayo)
• Needs based Maslow
• Theory X Theory Y McGregor
• X dislike of work
• Y work is as natural as rest or play
• TQM
• Psychological Contract - Guest

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A model of the Psychological Contract Prof David
Guest
Attitudinal Consequences Organisational
Commitment Job Satisfaction Employment
relations Security
Causes
Content
Involvement Climate Organisational Climate HR
Practices Experience Expectations Alternatives
Fairness Trust The delivery of the deal
Behavioural Consequences Motivation Effort Attend
ance/absence Organizational citizenship Intention
to stay/quit
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For next week

• Read up about different management approaches
  (use texts from reading lists)
• Decide subject for your research proposal
• Any items not actioned from week 1

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Assignment 1

• Your research proposal
• Present on 1st November
• Submit on 8th November

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What is a research proposal?

• Plan
• Timetable
• Define your field of interest
• What is (are) your aim(s)?
• Proposed phases of the work
• Dates
• Current knowledge (literature review)
• How you intend to add to that knowledge
• Methodology for research

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How will it look?

• Title
• Aim
• What is known
• Plan of work
• Phase 1, 2, 3 and timelines
• Methods
• References/Bibliography

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Title

• Some examples
• The popularity of the learning organisation
• An investigation into the HR issues that
  managers may face with the emergence of the
  knowledge worker.
• Organisational design and the implementation of
  office information systems

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Aim (some examples)

• To prove if the learning organisation is a
  popular myth or if organisations are implementing
  the rhetoric
• To add to the body of knowledge on how to
  successfully keep valuable knowledge workers
  engaged in the activities and success of
  organizations.
• To identify the effects of different organisation
  design strategies on the implementation and
  successful exploitation of office systems.

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What is known

• Aims to inform the reader of the state of
  knowledge concerning a particular topic area as
  represented by recognised scholars and
  researchers.
• Literature review
• E.g., The exploitation of office information
  systems is much less than anticipated in the
  early 1980s, in part because senior management is
  unsure of the strategic benefits of office
  automation, where to start or how to manage the
  change process (Price Waterhouse, 1988/89).
  Research on the organisational effects of office
  automation has focused on attitudes (Wainwright
  Francis, 1984). Less is known about
  organisational structure and performance (Olson
  Lucas, 1992). The research will focus on the
  managerial issues involved in the successful
  introduction of new technology, which seem to
  depend on organisational factors and the quality
  of the implementation process (Marcus Robey,
  1983).

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Plan of work

• Importance of time management
• Little and often
• Big projects need breaking
• down
• Manageable parts
• Timelines
• Am I on target?

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Research Methods

• Approaches
• Quantitative
• Qualitative
• Mixture of both
• E.g., survey, semi-structured interviews,
  assessment of documents such as training manuals

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References

• Harvard referencing system
• What is the difference between reference and
  bibliography?
• Plagiarism

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Key to success

• Success in life generally, comes from doing
  simple things consistently. But because it is
  simple does not mean it is easy to do.
• Eric Parsloes Law of Simplicity