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Project management

The four functions of management: Overview + examples

Being or becoming a manager can feel like a daunting task in today’s business world. But if you look closely, everything a manager does falls under four key functions:

Planning functions

Organizing functions

Leading functions

Controlling functions

While we can’t solve all the growing pains you face, we have some great news: No matter your industry or your level of management, you’ll perform this same set of functions. They may look different as a first-tier manager than they do as a CEO, and the problems within those functions vary endlessly.

But master each of these, and you’ll be well on your way to conquering nearly any business challenge.

A breakdown of the four functions of management

Let’s look more closely at each of the four functions — and the ways that effective managers leverage this framework to better meet their organization’s goals.

1) Planning

"Without a plan, even the most brilliant business can get lost. You need to have goals, create milestones, and have the right strategy in place to set yourself up for success." ~ Yogi Berra

Managers are responsible for the long-range vision and goals within a company. The planning function includes this vision and goal-setting along with the work of creating a plan to reach those goals. They identify business challenges, work on future-facing initiatives (such as growth plans, company goals, and business forecasting) and make decisions that move the business toward goals.

Another element of the planning phase of management is resource allocation or workload management . Typically, the manager decides which employees in the department are assigned to which projects, seeking to balance workload and maintain efficiency through this work. Managers often enlist the help of project managers ( a vital role for businesses across many industries) to determine workload and capacity. Or, in some cases where there is no formal project manager, managers may use project management tools themselves to fill this role.

Planning is essential within any organization, and it’s an important part of the management role for a few reasons. First, the rank-and-file employees are usually too busy completing tasks to step back and think strategically about the big picture. Second, people management tend to get there precisely because they have above-average decision-making, leadership, and planning skills.

Managers are typically responsible for several types of planning within an organization:

Strategic planning

The highest and most crucial level of planning looks at the long-range, big-picture view of the company. It identifies future threats and opportunities and sets long-term direction and organizational goals. Strategic planning isn’t concerned with day-to-day decisions and is looking instead at three-year plans, five-year plans, market trajectories, and similar big-picture elements.

In most organizations, top management does the bulk of the strategic planning. CEOs and other top-ranking leaders may rely on input from mid-level managers and will certainly inform them of the strategic plans, but most decisions here are made by the people in charge.

Tactical planning

Tactical planning looks at how to accomplish more midrange or short-term objectives — usually those that last a year or less. Tactical planning is more targeted than strategic planning and is informed by the strategic plan, setting a general course of action that will be fleshed out further in operational planning.

Middle managers usually complete tactical planning, taking the strategic plan and breaking down the high-level goals within it into smaller, more measurable and near-term achievable goals.

Tactical planning is more granular than strategic planning, but it still doesn’t delve into the details of day-to-day operations.

Operational planning

Operational planning, on the other hand, is all about those day-to-day operations — seeking to use the principles and strategies laid out in tactical plans to accomplish the big-picture goals in the strategic plan. Department managers, first-level leaders, and project managers often contribute to operational planning.

Weekly project team meetings are one example of operational planning in action. Project schedules, timelines, RACI charts , swimlanes, and Gantt charts are all tools used within operational planning.

2) Organizing

Next up is the organizing function, which refers to the way managers distribute resources, delegate tasks, structure departments, set staffing levels, etc. This function encompasses everything from assigning right-fit tasks to the appropriate team members to deciding how those team members relate to each other in an organizational structure .

If your company is growing rapidly, you’ll need more sales agents next year than you do this year (and more of just about every other role, too). At some point, even the structures and departments you have now will no longer make sense: you’ll need more managers to oversee those new hires, and you might need new divisions that wouldn’t have been feasible when you were smaller.

All of this takes careful organization from someone in a leadership role — which is why organizing is the second function of management.

Example of organizing functions

Managers have ongoing responsibilities to rebalance workload and even headcount as they respond to changes in the business landscape. Just 20 years ago, most marketing departments were doing little (if any) digital marketing, let alone content marketing or SEO. Today those areas comprise the majority of business for many marketing departments and agencies. And that same story plays out across numerous departments, roles, and business units.

Managers must keep jobs, job hierarchies, and resource allocation organized and appropriate for the business landscape of today — with an eye toward future needs and further changes.

Are you a manager or business leader at a creative agency? Find out why Teamwork.com is the project management software solution of choice for agencies .

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Every organization, from creative agencies to enterprise operations, needs a force to drive it forward: rallying the troops and pushing them toward a common goal. Move down through the layers of a business and you’ll find a similar need for teams, projects, departments, and any other organizational or work structure that’s in place.

This is the leading or leadership function of management — a crucial part of every manager’s job.

The leading function of management focuses on people (whether individual, teams, or groups) more than work tasks. That’s not to say that tasks don’t matter, but rather, how those people are or aren’t handling their tasks and responsibilities will influence the type of leadership response that managers ought to give.

Managers and business leaders provide both direction and inspiration to those who follow them. This can take all sorts of forms:

Instructing

Encouraging or praising

Redirecting

Demanding or commanding

Additionally, leadership includes both people management and making the tough right calls that others might miss.

There are many approaches to leadership in management, each with its own pros and cons. And it’s important to understand that there is no one right style — successful managers skillfully move between approaches, as each has its uses.

We’ll use the situational leadership model popularized by author and business coach Marshall Goldsmith , which highlights four other leadership styles: directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating.

A top-down, more authority-driven style of leadership, the director makes decisions and provides strong leadership without much, if any, input from the person or team being led. This style is useful when leading new or inexperienced teams, training new employees without a background in your industry, and potentially when forging ahead into a new market or technology (but only when the leader has experience worth trusting).

This method doesn’t work as well when the manager isn’t a powerful, experienced figure or when the people being managed have valuable input to offer.

"Each person holds so much power within themselves that needs to be let out. Sometimes they just need a little nudge, a little direction, a little support, a little coaching, and the greatest things can happen" ~ Pete Carroll

A coach comes alongside skilled contributors, guiding them as they use their skills. The coaching style of leadership is much the same, working alongside team members yet retaining authority to make the final call. Coaches also develop potential or raw talent into something better and more useful, and it works exactly the same way in business.

Coaching is highly effective for employees who have input to give or raw talent that needs refining. It’s also effective with skilled employees who need help staying on target. Just like in sports, a coach can’t be better than the sum of the players on the team. So coaching may not be the best approach for inexperienced employees or those with significant performance issues.

Supporting steps back even further than coaching. This method assumes team members know what to do and how to do it, so the manager takes a more hands-off approach. Supportive managers often step into the relational aspects of a team, helping team members work better together.

This style of leadership also comes into play when individuals grow unsteady in terms of output or performance, offering support to a person who may need a hand getting through a rough patch.

Supportive management works best with highly skilled teams that still have some issues with interpersonal relationships, consistent performance, or other metrics.

The delegating style of leadership assigns tasks to employees (delegation) and provides little more than basic oversight once assigned, freeing the leader to spend more time on high-level work — like long-term vision and goal-setting for the project.

This method is very attractive to managers because in some ways it’s the easiest and least time-consuming. However, it only works consistently well with high-performing teams and team members who don’t need directing, coaching, or support.

4) Controlling

Controlling includes all of management’s efforts to make sure the goal (established way back in the planning phase) is accomplished. It includes ongoing analysis of the plan and iterative updates to that plan as needed.

The manager’s project monitoring component (the analysis of how well the project team is adhering to the plan) may overlap slightly with project management. Not every business or project gets a dedicated project manager, either. If you’re a manager and find yourself doing more project management than you’d like, a good project management software tool can help.

Teamwork.com is a robust project management suite that managers and project leads alike can use to improve their project workflows. Take a look at Teamwork.com’s powerful Resource Management capabilities .

Examples of controlling functions

Schedule and deadline management , employee training, performance evaluations, adjustments to budgets or staffing assignments, and resource allocation are all included within the controlling function.

Lead better — stay organized with Teamwork.com

The four functions of management can be a powerful framework that helps effective leaders categorize and prioritize their tasks and responsibilities, identifying where their particular leadership skills best fit within an organization.

But even the most successful manager can struggle to stay on top of long-range plans, detailed planning processes, and the specifics of multiple concurrent projects. All of this combined is just too much information.

Teamwork.com is a powerful project management platform that helps busy managers stay organized so they can focus on leveraging their management skills, not tracking down project details.

See more of what Teamwork.com can do for your business now - get started now for free, view our comprehensive pricing plans , or book a demo today.

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Ben Brigden - Senior Content Marketing Specialist - Author

Ben is a Senior Content Marketing Specialist at Teamwork.com. Having held content roles at agencies and SaaS companies for the past 8 years, Ben loves writing about the latest tech trends and work hacks in the agency space.

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The Four Functions of Management (With Examples)

What Is A Mentor
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The four functions of management are generally accepted to be planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Managers need to be able to effectively make use of each of these functions to be successful in leading their direct reports. Properly managing a team leads to higher productivity, better relationships, and trust.

Being an effective manager is complex and requires adapting to situations. If you’re wondering what the four functions of management are, then this article will delve into the four functions and how they help you to manage a team.

Key Takeaways:

Planning requires identifying challenges and formulating objectives accurately.

To lead successfully, create a shared vision, communicate effectively, and lead by example.

Understanding and mastering these four functions will allow you to lead teams that break records and stand out in the workplace.

Using the four functions will create stronger bonds between a manager and the employee and create an overall better work environment.

The four functions of management

Tips for practicing the four functions of management, the four functions of management faq, final thoughts.

The four functions of management are often laid out as if they’re meant to be in order: plan, organize, lead, and control. Managing a project rarely goes in a straight line, meaning that your management style can get tangled up. While not being rigid is a positive thing, sometimes it’s good to return to basics so you don’t get pulled off course.

Here’s more detail on the four essential managerial tasks: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Planning. Managers must navigate the decision-making process to help their team reach company goals. Effectively mapping out a strategy to tackle a project is a must for a manager, as it breaks the project down into pieces that can be completed by team members.

Effective planning involves a few important aspects:

Identify challenges. Managers need to be aware of the challenges facing their team or business and what potential solutions are available to them.

Forecast future business. To determine the proper solution to each challenge, managers must be able to forecast the future impact of each particular solution on the business.

Formulate objectives and deadlines. Once a solution to a problem is identified, a manager needs to create a game plan to apply it. This involves planning out individual steps and setting appropriate deadlines and time frames .

Reevaluation. Managers need to stay constantly alert to changing situations. If a plan requires adjustments or isn’t working at all, it’s up to managers to identify the proper direction to lead the team.

Maintain efficiency . Throughout the entire planning process, effective managers should also understand how to allocate resources and reduce waste efficiently.

Organizing. To complete projects or meet any other company goals, managers must effectively organize resources. Doing so is often a fine balancing act, as any given team will only have a limited pool of available workers, funding, and other resources to accomplish their objectives.

Creating structure. The main purpose of organizing is to create structure and a set of rules to follow. This includes assigning authority, laying the groundwork for the project, and setting expectations for employees.

Assigning tasks. A vital part of organizing a project is deciding who does what. If a task doesn’t end up being anyone’s responsibility, there’s a good chance it won’t be finished. That’s why assignments are so important: they ensure the project runs smoothly.

Allocating resources. In order to get a project done, you’ll need resources. Budgeting, equipment, technology, and office space are all necessary resources, and personnel need access to them to be able to proceed.

Determining staffing needs. As goals change, your need for staff will also change. Who gets assigned where is an aspect of this, as is whether or not you need to hire new personnel. As times change, different departments become more important, or will need to be created, and staffing needs change as a result.

Leading. Sometimes referred to as motivating or even directing, this is where managers show their leadership skills. Managers give their direct reports goals and objectives, as well as check in to make sure that they’re accomplishing their assigned tasks.

There are generally considered to be four overarching styles of leading:

Directing. If you tend to give your employees detailed assigned tasks and then leave them to it, you’re a director . That means that you give precise instructions, but aren’t very involved in how your subordinates go about completing the task.

Coaching. This is the most hands-on of the four styles. The coaching style involves detailed instructions along with a lot of follow-up and assistance. This is most often needed for new employees who are still learning or an employee that’s taking on a new task or role.

Supporting. Almost the exact opposite of directing, supporting is not giving your employees a lot of direction in their task, but offering yourself to help whenever they need it.

Delegating. This is the most hands-off of any of the leadership styles. Delegating means that you essentially cede part of your authority to a direct report. They are then completely in charge of whatever the task is, and you trust them to make decisions where needed.

Controlling. Despite the negative aspect of the word control, this is just as import an aspect of management as any other. Keeping control of the project and the employees is a requirement, in terms of maintaining authority and keeping control of the project itself.

There are two primary aspects to controlling:

Budgeting. Making alterations to the budget may become necessary as a project progresses. This can be cutting back on certain places, or going over budget in others. Sometimes money needs to be pulled from one place to another, or pieces need to be cut out entirely.

Staffing. If your staff isn’t performing properly — or you don’t have enough — then altering the dynamic is necessary. This can be hiring new people, reassigning employees, or letting them go.

Whether you’re an engineer or marketing manager , the principles behind effective management remain the same.

Follow these tips to maximize your performance:

Planning tips

Effective planners employ strategies to help them accurately identify important tasks and their priority levels and determine appropriate timelines to complete them:

Carefully assess time frames.

Before setting any concrete time frames for a major task, carefully evaluate whether the deadline is appropriate.

Casually committing to unreasonable time frames can cause major problems for a project later down the line.

If you later realize that a certain task requires more time than originally planned, then you may need to delay other dependent tasks as a result.

This translates to a massive waste of resources in multiple areas.

Some employees will be sitting idly, while others will be overworked and lose morale . Your team may suffer the consequences of delayed deadlines, and in extreme cases, entire projects will need to be abandoned.

Perform SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis provides you with a comprehensive view of your team’s strengths, weaknesses, and potential risks.

Understanding your company’s strengths allows you to choose the right strategies for capitalizing on short-term opportunities.

Identifying weaknesses and risks are critical for improving them and setting your business on the right path for long-term growth.

Organizing tips

Effective resource coordination is a foundational requirement for any business or team’s future success. Disorganized managers result in employees being shuffled around and resource bottlenecks, which are both highly disruptive to any team’s goals.

Define and classify activities. Before assigning a single employee, clearly define the goals and duties associated with each position.

You don’t want to realize later on that although a certain employee’s job title matches the position, their experience doesn’t match what’s required in this specific case.

Many companies also fail to recognize tasks that could be easily automated , which translates to employee hours constantly wasted.

Specify reporting status/breadth of power. Even if a team or company is filled with competent employees, it’s doomed to fail if there isn’t a coherent internal structure.

Specify which roles report to which management positions, and determine the breadth of power that each supervisor holds in different departments.

Don’t be scared to alter your team’s structure. Many initially successful start-ups fail because they weren’t able to adjust to rapid growth.

As long as you’ve closely analyzed the pros and cons, don’t be scared to make necessary drastic changes to your team’s internal structure.

Leading tips

Effective leadership isn’t hard science, but there are key principles that most great leaders put into practice.

Create a shared vision. Align the success of the team with that of the individual.

Although bonuses and financial incentives are great tools, they shouldn’t be the only motivators you employ.

Try to provide training and developmental opportunities for your employees to list on their resumes and cover letters . Challenge them and make projects gratifying experiences to work through.

Establish a positive team culture where employees support each other and celebrate their progress and victories.

Lead by example. Exemplify the qualities that you want your team to have.

If team members see you tackling a difficult project with an obstacle head-on, they’ll feel compelled to put in the same amount of effort and do their part.

If you foster a positive attitude, others will react accordingly and spread that mindset around the team.

Develop strong communication skills . You need to inspire employees so that they become self-motivating.

Being a good listener and using empathy allows you to identify team members’ concerns and questions before they become problems.

Managers are responsible for ensuring that all employees understand the team’s objectives. You shouldn’t just say them and assume that everyone is on board.

Make sure that each employee knows what’s expected of them and adjust your communication methods to match the individual.

With the rise of remote work and team communications moving to platforms such as Slack , you need to adjust and make sure you’re proficient with the necessary tools.

Teams are often diverse in their personalities and backgrounds, meaning that miscommunication and conflicts will inevitably arise. You need to be able to adjudicate and resolve miscommunications in a way that’s perceived as fair by all.

Foster respect and trust. There are many ways to build respect and trust with your fellow team members.

Rather than micromanage employees, monitor their performance.

If a worker is performing poorly, then try and step in and assess how you can help them improve. If an employee is meeting performance standards, then micromanagement and constant supervision will only disrupt their activities.

Team lunches can also be a great way to get to know your coworkers and build a cohesive team dynamic.

Controlling tips

Controlling is all about making sure that objectives are met and understanding how to make appropriate adjustments when issues arise.

Set concrete quality standards.

Set concrete standards so that you can actually determine if a particular goal has been met.

This is especially important to do for project milestones. It’s bad if a team is behind schedule or underperforming, but downright disastrous if they don’t even realize it.

Concrete standards allow you and supervisors under you to identify poor performance and respond accordingly.

Monitor, but don’t micromanage. You need to develop a strategy so that managers in each department can continually monitor workers’ work quality and performance.

However, make sure that your method doesn’t micromanage and disrupt employee activities.

Prepare strategies for improving performance. You want to prepare methods for responding to poor performance and contingencies before they actually occur.

This could come in the form of training programs or resources to help employees . It could also involve alternative business procedures and processes.

What are examples of the four functions of management?

Examples of the four functions of management include planning checkpoints into a project schedule to help your team hit the end deadline, assigning tasks to team members in accordance with their skills, leading by example by assigning yourself a task and completing it well, and readjusting the team’s workload as needed throughout the project.

Planning. Incorporating checkpoints or mini-deadlines into a project to help ensure your team is going to hit their end goal on time is an example of the planning function of management. By slicing up the timeline into smaller, more manageable chunks, your team will (hopefully) be less likely to procrastinate, and you’ll be able to review their work and make adjustments along the way.

In setting up these deadlines, you’ll be identifying challenges that your team may run into along the way and creating solutions to overcome, avoid, or minimize them. You’ll also be reevaluating the project’s performance as it moves along and ensuring it’s as efficient as possible, all of which are important steps in the planning function of management.

Organizing. Organizing is the second function of management, and a large part of this is assigning tasks to your team members according to their abilities. This requires knowing what needs to be done to finish a project and understanding what each of your team members brings to the table as far as strengths, weaknesses, available time, and the assumed time it will take to complete.

Leading. The third function of management is leadership, and one of the most powerful forms of this is leading by example. Don’t just assign a bunch of tasks and then go hide in your office until the project’s done. Show your team that you’re invested in the project by taking on some tasks yourself.

That doesn’t mean micromanaging or taking over someone else’s job, but you can take on appropriate tasks such as ensuring your team has all the resources they need when they need them, setting up clear communication channels so no one is confused or frustrated, and providing support with anything else you can, even if that’s buying everyone lunch during crunch time.

Controlling. Finally, being willing to readjust the workload as the project progresses is an example of the controlling function of management. You can’t just set a project in motion and walk away: You need to keep tabs on it and make adjustments as it progresses. This often means reassigning tasks as some turn out to be more time-consuming, challenging, or unproductive than expected.

How do you describe the type of management activity with each function of management?

You can describe the type of management activity with the planning function of management as looking ahead at the goals your team needs to reach and the challenges they might encounter along the way. Then, you make a plan to get to those goals and conquer those challenges.

For the organizing function of management, you can describe it as taking stock of and managing resources in a way that allows your team to reach their goals. These resources may be physical materials and finances, but they also may be people, which means you need to be able to assess each team member’s strengths and weaknesses and train them and assign them tasks accordingly.

You can describe the leading function of management as directing and motivating your team members so that they can accomplish their goals. This involves communicating with them, motivating them, and providing them with opportunities to grow, as well as standing up for them, getting them the resources they need, and leading by example.

What are the three levels of management and their functions?

The three levels of management are administrative, executive, and supervisory. Their functions are to oversee the company’s direction, policies, and strategies, to ensure departments are functioning in accordance with that direction and those policies and strategies, and to oversee and direct the day-to-day activities of employees, respectively.

Administrative. The administrative level of management is also called the managerial or top level of management, and it comprises companies’ CEOs and boards of directors. These leaders are responsible for the big picture of the company: What its ultimate mission is and the widespread policies and practices that will allow it to get there.

Executive. The executive or middle-level management’s job is to ensure that those policies and practices are successfully put into practice in their respective departments. These managers do more day-to-day than the administrative managers do, but they’re also in charge of the big-picture success of their departments, giving them a unique set of responsibilities.

This level of management is made up of branch managers, department heads, and vice presidents, and it can often include multiple layers of managers.

Supervisory. The third level of management is the supervisory level, also referred to as the operative or lower level of management. These managers work directly with employees to ensure their work is furthering goals and strategies put into place by middle- and upper-level managers.

These managers have the most day-to-day responsibilities such as creating work schedules, assigning tasks, motivating employees, and handling workers’ mistakes or complaints. They’re the ones tasked with making sure the week’s work gets done correctly and on time so that the company can meet its overarching goals.

Why are the four functions of management important?

The four functions of management are important because they’re a way to order management’s duties and ensure that projects are done properly. Managers aren’t required to follow them to the letter, but they do offer guidelines and guardrails in terms of how to manage, as well as a roadmap to being an effective manager.

Developing your leadership skills will lead to career success, but knowing how to make decisions and execute plans is only half the battle. Understanding the key functions of your role will help keep you on track and make you a more effective leader .

For managers looking to improve employee performance and engagement, taking the time to assess your own leadership style and identify areas for improvement will help make you a more effective leader. Whether it’s planning, organizing, leading, or controlling, every manager can take steps toward better adhering to the four functions of management.

Fort Hays State University – The Four Functions of Management: An Essential Guide to Management Principles

Forbes — The Role of the Successful Manager in Four Simple Functions

Harvard Business Review — The Role of a Manager Has to Change in 5 Key Ways

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Kate is a graduate of Brigham Young University, where she completed a degree in Comparative Literature with a minor in Mathematics. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and enjoys hiking and reading.

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The Four Functions of Management (with Examples)

Dive into the four functions of management: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Learn how they drive business success and how Motion can help.

In today’s dynamic and competitive business landscape, effective management is crucial for achieving growth, optimizing performance, and staying ahead of the curve. That’s where the four functions of management come into play.

Although originally identified in the early 20th century by visionary Henri Fayol, this time-tested framework is still applicable to business leaders and managers today. It provides a roadmap through which to navigate the complexities of the modern business world.

In this article, we’ll explain what each of the four functions of management entails and offer some practical examples. We’ll also show you how Motion can help you apply these management functions in your team.

The four functions of management, with examples

The four functions of management — planning, organizing, leading, and controlling — serve as the pillars that allow organizations to meet their goals. These functions are interdependent and equally important for ensuring the smooth operation of any business.

Planning is the foundational function of management. It involves setting objectives and determining the best ways to achieve them. Planning by management is crucial, as it sets the direction for the business and helps prepare for potential challenges and uncertainties.

‎Common steps in the planning process include the following:

Setting objectives
Analyzing the situation
Developing strategies
Evaluating your options
Implementing the plan
Monitoring and reviewing

Imagine you are the manager of a marketing department and responsible for planning the launch of a new product. You would plan by setting clear objectives, conducting market research, and identifying target demographics. You would also develop a pricing strategy, create a marketing campaign timeline, and allocate resources effectively . Planning ensures that the product launch is strategically organized, aligning with customer needs and market opportunities.

The organizing function involves arranging and structuring work to accomplish organizational goals. In other words, this function of management is about setting things up so that the business runs efficiently.

‎Proper organization is crucial for several reasons, including the following:

Resource efficiency: Organizing ensures that vital resources, such as time, money, and equipment, are allocated optimally. This not only prevents wastage but also maximizes the return on investment. With the right organizational structure, businesses can avoid redundancy, and employees can avoid duplicating their efforts.
Clear roles: A well-organized system means that every member of the team knows exactly what they’re responsible for. This reduces confusion and the chances that tasks will fall through the cracks. It also promotes accountability and helps team members focus on their specific roles without overstepping their boundaries or leaving tasks undone.
Defined authority: Knowing who is in charge of what is more than just a hierarchy — it’s about streamlining decision-making processes. By defining authority, organizations ensure that decisions are made at the right levels without unnecessary bureaucracy or delay. This clear delineation of roles and reporting lines fosters an environment of respect and understanding, leading to quicker resolutions and more efficient operations.

Let’s continue with the example of the marketing department manager. Once the objectives and plans for the product launch are set, organization comes into play. This step involves assigning roles and responsibilities to team members, creating a marketing campaign team, and establishing the budget and resources needed.

You would organize regular meetings, develop a project plan, and ensure effective communication channels are in place for team collaboration.

In management, leading involves guiding and motivating a team toward a common goal. Leaders ensure that all team members understand their roles and how best to execute them. With the right leadership and inspiration, everyone works together efficiently to achieve the company’s objectives.

‎Effective leaders possess the following qualities:

Emotional intelligence
Good communication skills
The ability to inspire
Task delegation skills

A good example of successful leadership is Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella , who focuses on a “growth mindset.” His emphasis on cooperation and empathy has made significant improvements in the company’s performance and employee satisfaction.

In our marketing manager example, you would inspire and motivate your marketing team by providing guidance and direction and clearly communicating the company’s vision and goals for the marketing campaign.

Effective leadership also involves supporting team members, encouraging innovation, and resolving any conflicts that arise during the product launch process.

Controlling

The term “controlling” often has negative connotations. In the world of management, it can sound as though managers are trying to dominate or micromanage their employees.

However, the controlling function of management is about monitoring progress toward goal achievement and taking corrective action when necessary. Taking a certain level of control helps managers ensure proper resource allocation, maintain quality control, and keep the team on track toward its objectives.

‎Toyota’s production system, known as “Just-in-Time” production , is an excellent example of successful controlling. This system emphasizes efficiency by controlling inventory and reducing waste, which leads to improved product quality and reduced costs.

Controlling plays a vital role in the success of a product launch. As a manager, you would establish performance metrics to measure the progress of the marketing campaign. You could use sales numbers or website traffic, for instance, to monitor and compare the actual results against the set goals.

If there is a big difference between them, you would take corrective action. For instance, if actual sales are lower than what was forecasted, you could adjust the marketing strategy or reallocate resources to improve performance.

How the four management functions work together

The four functions of management don’t operate in isolation. Instead, they are interrelated and mutually dependent. They work together in a cyclical nature, with each one influencing and supporting the others.

For example, the feedback from controlling can lead to new planning. Effective organization depends on a clear plan, while effective leadership depends on a well-organized team. Finally, effective control measures rely on clear leadership and direction.

‎If any one of these functions is weak or not performed well, the entire management process can suffer. For example, without proper planning, organization becomes chaotic. Without effective leadership, even the best plans might not be correctly executed. And without control, managers won’t know if they’re on track or need to adjust their strategies.

Successfully apply the four functions of management with Motion

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Motion is the ultimate ally for successful managers, saving them time, providing clarity, and helping to prevent them from feeling overwhelmed. Our intuitive platform enhances every management function, promoting streamlined operations and decisive leadership.

Here’s how Motion helps with each of the four management functions:

Whether you’re a visual person who loves the clarity a Kanban board offers or thrive on using lists, Motion’s got you covered. You can lay out tasks, structure your day , and even sketch out an entire project timeline .

‎But the Motion Task Manager takes task management to the next level, not only organizing your tasks but also scheduling and prioritizing them for on-time completion. No more disjointed tools or overwhelming to-do lists — just enhanced productivity!

Forget scattered notes and isolated data. With Motion, everything you need to manage a project is in one central hub. The platform fosters team collaboration, ensuring everyone’s on the same page.

‎‎And with its resource allocation and task assignment features, you can ensure each team member has a clear direction.

Great leadership thrives on information. Motion provides managers with a clear window into team schedules and task updates, ensuring they have all the intel they need to guide their troops effectively. Then, armed with this knowledge, they can make swift and informed decisions.

‎Controlling

Whether you’re heading up a sales team or a group of IT specialists , staying on track is paramount. Motion offers valuable insights into how individuals and teams spend their hours. By monitoring progress and recognizing trends, management can adapt and maintain a firm grip on the team’s workload, ensuring every challenge is met head-on.

‎Embrace a world where efficiency meets simplicity with Motion, and let every management challenge become a walk in the park.

Experience the difference first-hand and sign up today for a free 7-day trial .

13 Time Management Techniques to Boost Your Productivity

Understanding the Sprint Backlog and How to Use It

The Poetry of Purpose: Inspirational Purpose Statement Examples

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Principles of Management

(17 reviews)

ISBN 13: 9781946135186

Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing

Language: English

Formats Available

Conditions of use.

Learn more about reviews.

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.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

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.

Interface rating: 4

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.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any glaring grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

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

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

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.

Consistency rating: 5

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

Modularity rating: 5

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.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

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.

Clarity rating: 4

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.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

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.

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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.

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The Control Function of Management

After strategies are set and plans are made, management’s primary task is to ensure that these plans are carried out.

Workplace, Teams, & Culture
Organizational Behavior

After strategies are set and plans are made, management’s primary task is to take steps to ensure that these plans are carried out, or, if conditions warrant, that the plans are modified. This is the critical control function of management. And since management involves directing the activities of others, a major part of the control function is making sure other people do what should be done.

The management literature is filled with advice on how to achieve better control. This advice usually includes a description of some type of measurement and feedback process:

The basic control process, wherever it is found and whatever it is found and whatever it controls, involves three steps: (1) establishing standards. (2) measuring performance against these standards. and (3) correcting deviations from standards and plans. 1
A good management control system stimulates action by spotting the significant variations from the original plan and highlighting them for the people who can set things right . 2
Controls need to focus on results. 3

This focus on measurement and feedback, however, can be seriously misleading. In many circumstances, a control system built around measurement and feedback is not feasible. And even when feasibility is not a limitation, use of a feedback-oriented control system is often an inferior solution. Yet, good controls can be established and maintained using other techniques.

What is needed is a broader perspective on control as a management function: this article addresses such a perspective. The first part summarizes the general control problem by discussing the underlying reasons for implementing controls and by describing what can realistically be achieved. In the second part, the various types of controls available are identified. The last part discusses why the appropriate choice of controls is and should be different in different settings.

Why Are Controls Needed?

If all personnel always did what was best for the organization, control — and even management — would not be needed. But, obviously individuals are sometimes unable or unwilling to act in the organization’s best interest, and a set of controls must be implemented to guard against undesirable behavior and to encourage desirable actions.

One important class of problems against which control systems guard may be called personal limitations. People do not always understand what is expected of them nor how they can best perform their jobs, as they may lack some requisite ability, training, or information.

About the Author

Kenneth A. Merchant is Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University. Dr. Merchant holds the B.A. degree from Union College, the M.B.A. degree from Columbia University, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley. His main interests lie in the areas of accounting, information systems, and planning and control. Dr. Merchant has published articles for such journals as The Accounting Review and Accounting, Organizations, and Society.

1. See H. Koontz, C. O'Donnell, and H. Weihrich. Management, 7th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980). p. 722.

2. See W. D. Brinckloe and M. T. Coughlin, Managing Organizations (Encino, CA: Glencoe Press. 1977). p. 298.

3. See P. F. Drucker. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (New York: Harper & Row. 1974). p. 497.

4. A recent summary of many of the findings in this area (illustrating such cognitive limitations as conservative revision of prior subjective probabilities when new information is provided. and the use of simplifying decision-making heuristics when faced with complex problems) is provided by W. F. Wright, “Cognitive Information Processing Biases: Implications for Producers and Users of Financial Information,” Decision Sciences (April 1980): 284–298.

5. A similar scheme is presented in W. G. Ouchi, “A Conceptual Framework for the Design of Organizational Control Mechanisms,” Management Science (September 1979): 833–848.

6. See H. Klein, “At Harley-Davidson, Life without AMF Is Upbeat but Full of Financial Problems,” Wall Street Journal . 13 April 1982, p. 37.

7. See N. Babchukand W. J. Goode. “Work Incentives in a Self-Determined Group,” American Sociological Review (1951): 679–687.

8. For a summary of criticisms of return-an-investment (ROI) measures of performance, see J. Dearden, “The Case against ROI Control,” Harvard Business Review , May–June 1969, pp. 124–135.

9. See D. Mitchell. Control without Bureaucracy (London: McGraw-Hill Book Company Limited, 1979), p. 6.

Acknowledgments

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Functions of Management

Management in some form or another is an integral part of living and is essential wherever human efforts are to be undertaken to achieve desired objectives. The basic ingredients of management are always at play, whether we manage our lives or business.

“Management is a set of principles relating to the functions of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling, and the applications of these principles in harnessing physical, financial, human, and informational resources efficiently and effectively to achieve organizational goals”.

Management is essential for an organized life and necessary to run all types of organizations. Managing life means getting things done to achieve life’s objectives and managing an organization means getting things done with and through other people to achieve its objectives.

There are basically five primary functions of management. These are:

1. Planning 2. Organizing 3. Staffing 4. Directing 5. Controlling

The controlling function comprises coordination, reporting, and budgeting, and hence the controlling function can be broken into these three separate functions. Based upon these seven functions, Luther Gulick coined the word POSDCORB , which generally represents the initials of these seven functions i.e. P stands for Planning, O for Organizing, S for Staffing, D for Directing, Co for Co-ordination, R for reporting & B for Budgeting.

But, Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, and Controlling are widely recognized functions of management.

Five Functions of Management

1. planning.

Planning is future-oriented and determines an organization’s direction. It is a rational and systematic way of making decisions today that will affect the future of the company. It is a kind of organized foresight as well as corrective hindsight. It involves predicting of the future as well as attempting to control the events. It involves the ability to foresee the effects of current actions in the long run in the future.

Peter Drucker has defined planning as follows:

“Planning is the continuous process of making present entrepreneurial decisions systematically and with best possible knowledge of their futurity, organizing systematically the efforts needed to carry out these decisions and measuring the results of these decisions against the expectations through organized and systematic feedback”.

An effective planning program incorporates the effect of both external as well as internal factors. The external factors are shortages of resources; both capital and material, general economic trend as far as interest rates and inflation are concerned, dynamic technological advancements, increased governmental regulation regarding community interests, unstable international political environments, etc.

The internal factors that affect planning are limited growth opportunities due to saturation requiring diversification, changing patterns of the workforce, more complex organizational structures, decentralization, etc

2. Organizing

Organizing requires a formal structure of authority and the direction and flow of such authority through which work subdivisions are defined, arranged and coordinated so that each part relates to the other part in a united and coherent manner so as to attain the prescribed objectives.

According to Henry Fayol , “To organize a business is to provide it with everything useful or its functioning i.e. raw material, tools, capital and personnel’s”.

Thus the function of organizing involves the determination of activities that need to be done in order to reach the company goals, assigning these activities to the proper personnel, and delegating the necessary authority to carry out these activities in a coordinated and cohesive manner.

It follows, therefore, that the function of organizing is concerned with:

Identifying the tasks that must be performed and grouping them whenever necessary
Assigning these tasks to the personnel while defining their authority and responsibility .
Delegating this authority to these employees
Establishing a relationship between authority and responsibility
Coordinating these activities

3. Staffing

Staffing is the function of hiring and retaining a suitable work-force for the enterprise both at managerial as well as non-managerial levels. It involves the process of recruiting , training, developing, compensating and evaluating employees and maintaining this workforce with proper incentives and motivations. Since the human element is the most vital factor in the process of management , it is important to recruit the right personnel.

According to Kootz & O’Donnell, “Managerial function of staffing involves manning the organization structure through the proper and effective selection, appraisal & development of personnel to fill the roles designed in the structure”.

This function is even more critically important since people differ in their intelligence, knowledge, skills, experience, physical condition, age and attitudes, and this complicates the function. Hence, management must understand, in addition to the technical and operational competence, the sociological and psychological structure of the workforce.

4. Directing

The directing function is concerned with leadership , communication , motivation , and supervision so that the employees perform their activities in the most efficient manner possible, in order to achieve the desired goals.

The leadership element involves issuing of instructions and guiding the subordinates about procedures and methods.

The communication must be open both ways so that the information can be passed on to the subordinates and the feedback received from them.

Motivation is very important since highly motivated people show excellent performance with less direction from superiors.

Supervising subordinates would lead to continuous progress reports as well as assure the superiors that the directions are being properly carried out.

5. Controlling

The function of control consists of those activities that are undertaken to ensure that the events do not deviate from the pre-arranged plans. The activities consist of establishing standards for work performance, measuring performance and comparing it to these set standards and taking corrective actions as and when needed, to correct any deviations.

According to Koontz & O’Donnell, “Controlling is the measurement & correction of performance activities of subordinates in order to make sure that the enterprise objectives and plans desired to obtain them as being accomplished”.

The controlling function involves:

a. Establishment of standard performance.

b. Measurement of actual performance.

c. Measuring actual performance with the pre-determined standard and finding out the deviations.

d. Taking corrective action.

All these five functions of management are closely interrelated. However, these functions are highly indistinguishable and virtually unrecognizable on the job. It is necessary, though, to put each function separately into focus and deal with it.

About Sonia Kukreja

I am a mother of a lovely kid, and an avid fan technology, computing and management related topics. I hold a degree in MBA from well known management college in India. After completing my post graduation I thought to start a website where I can share management related concepts with rest of the people.

CBSE Class 12 Case Studies In Business Studies – Nature and Significance of Management

Management: Definition Management is the process of designing and maintaining an environment in which individuals working together in groups efficiently and effectively accomplish selected goals.

Objectives of Management

Use eco-friendly methods
Generate employment opportunities
Fair wages and salary
Good working conditions
Growth prospects

Effectiveness: Definition According to Koontz, “Effectiveness means doing the right thing.” It means taking correct decisions and actions in every situation to achieve the targets.

Importance of Management

Management helps in achieving group goals.
Management increases efficiency of the employees.
Management creates a dynamic organization.
Management helps in achieving personal objectives.
Management helps in the development of society.

Features of Management

Management is goal oriented as it seeks to integrate the efforts of different individuals towards the accomplishment of both organizational and individual goals.
Management is pervasive as it is applicable to all types of organizations (economic, social and political), all sizes of organization (small, medium and large) and at all levels of management (top, middle and lower).
Management of work i.e. to translate the work in terms of goals to be achieved and to assign the means to achieve it.
Management of people, which implies dealing with employees as individuals with diverse needs and also as a group of people.
Management of operations, in order to ensure the conversion of inputs into desired outputs for consumption.
Management is a continuous process as it is a series of continuous, composite, but separate functions i.e. planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling to be performed simultaneously all the time till an organization exists.
Management is a group activity requiring team work and coordination of the efforts of the diverse individuals in a common direction.
Management is a dynamic function as a business operates in an ever changing environment and this necessitates a constant review and revision of its goals and operations so as to adapt itself effectively to these changes.
Management is an intangible force which cannot be seen but the good quality of management is reflected through various indicators like achievement of goals, satisfaction among employees etc.

Functions of Management

Managment as a process contains a series of interrelated and interdependent functions namely, planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling.
Planning relates to determining in advance what is to be done and who is to do it.
Organizing is the process of bringing together human, physical and financial resources and establishing productive relations among them for the purpose of achieving the desired goals efficiently and effectively.
Staffing involves manning the organizational structure in order to fill in the roles designed into the structure.
Directing involves leading, influencing and motivating employees to perform the tasks assigned to them.
Controlling is the management function of ensuring that events conform to plans.

Functions of Levels of Management

COORDINATION

Coordination: Definition Coordination is the process of integrating the individual and group efforts in pursuit of common goals.

Importance of Coordination

Growth in size: With the growth in the size of an organisation, there is a proportionate increase in the number of its employees.So there is a greater need to unify the efforts of diverse individuals towards the realisation of organisational goals.
Functional differentiation: As a result of functional differentiation in an organisation, its people and activities get divided into It facilitates the achievement of desired objectives with minimum conflicts by providing the necessary amount, quality, timing and sequence of efforts.small departments on the basis of functions like marketing, finance etc. Therefore, there is a need to reconcile the goals pursued by each of the departments with the goals of the organisation as a whole.
Specialisation: More number of specialists are deployed in the present day organizations keeping in mind the need for specialisation due to greater complexity and diversity in their way of functioning. In order to integrate the different approaches, interests or opinion of the specialists and resolve conflicts between them, coordination is essential

Features of Coordination:

It integrates group efforts into purposeful work activity.
It ensures unity of action as it acts as a binding force between and among departments.
It is a continuous on-going process as it is required till an organisation exists.
It is all pervasive as it is required at all levels of management.
It is the responsibility of all managers however the scope of their operations varies.
It is a deliberate function.

Coordination – The Essence of Management:

Although sometimes coordination is considered a separate function of management, it is the essence of management. It helps in creating harmony among individual efforts towards the realization of group goals.
It is the force that binds all the other functions of management.
It is the common thread that runs through all organizational activities like production, marketing, finance etc. to ensure continuity in the business operations.
It prevails through all the functions of management starting from the planning stage itself. The organizational structure is developed in line with the plans. The staffing function is carried out in accordance with the organizational structure. The directing function is performed by guiding, inspiring and motivating employees in the desired manner. The controlling function helps to take care of any discrepancies between actual and planned activities.
If facilities the achievement of desired objectives with minimum conflicts by providing the necessary amount, quality, timing and sequence of efforts.

LATEST CBSE QUESTIONS

Question 1: Ashutosh Goenka was working in ‘Axe Ltd.’, a company manufacturing air purifiers. He found that the profits has started declining from the last six months. Profit has an implication for the survival of the firm, so he analysed the business environment to find out the reasons for this decline.

Identify the level of management at which Ashutosh Goenka was working.
State three other functions being performed by Ashutosh Goenka.

Answer: Ashutosh Goenka was working at top level of management. The three functions being performed by him at this level are outlined below:

He is responsible for formulating the overall organizational goals and strategies.
He is responsible for all the business activities and its impact on society.
He has to coordinate the activities of different departments in pursuit of common goals.

Question 2: Rishitosh Mukerjee has recently joined AMV Ltd, a company manufacturing refrigerators. He found that his department was under-staffed and other departments were not cooperating with his deparment for smooth functioning of the organisation. Therefore, he ensured that his department has the required number of employees and its cooperation with other deparments is improved.

Idenfity the level at which Rishitosh Mukerjee was working.
Also, state three more functions required to be performed by Rishitosh Mukerjee at this level.

Answer: Rishitosh Mukerjee is working at middle level of the management. The three more functions that he has to perform at this level are stated below:

He has to assign duties and responsibilities to the people in his department.
He has to motivate the people in his department to achieve the desired objectives.
He has to interpret the policies framed by top management.

Question 3: Sridhar’s father is working as a section in-charge in a government office. Identify the level of management at which he is working? State any five functions that he has to perform at this level. Answer: Sridhar’s father is working as a section in-charge in a government office. He is working at the lower level of management. He has to perform the following functions at this level of management:

He has to directly oversee the efforts of the workforce.
He has to serve as a link between the workers and middle level managers.
He has to ensure sufficient availability of resources and good quality of output.
He has to provide guidance and training to workers.
He has to ensure that good working conditions are provided to the workers.

Question 4: Mega Ltd. manufactured water-heaters. In the first year of its operations, the revenue earned by the company was just sufficient to meet its costs. To increase the revenue, the company analysed the reasons behind the less revenues. After analysis, the company decided:

to reduce the labour costs by shifting the manufacturing unit to a backward area where labour was available at a very low rate.
to start manufacturing solar water-heaters and reduce the production of electric water- heaters slowly.

This will not only help in covering the risks but also help in meeting other objectives.

Identify and explain the objectives of management discussed above.
State any two values which the company wanted to communicate to society.
Organisational objectives: An organisation strives to achieve multiple organizational objectives in the interest of its stakeholders like owners, employees etc.The main organizational objectives are survival, profit and growth.
Social Objectives: It is the obligation of every organisation to undertake such activities which will benefit the society at large like using eco-friendly methods, contributing towards weaker sections of the society, generating employment opportunities, promoting literacy etc.
Rural development
Environment sustainability

Question 5: XYZ Power Ltd. set up a factory for manufacturing solar lanterns in a remote village as there was no reliable supply of electricity in rural areas. The revenue earned by the company was sufficient to cover the costs and the risks. As the demand of lanterns was increasing day- by-day, the company decided to increase production to generate higher sales. For this/they decided to employ people from a nearby village as very few job opportunities were available in that area. The company also decided to open schools and creches for the children of its employees.

State any two values which the company wanted to communicate to the society.
Organisational objectives: An organisation strives to achieve multiple organizational objectives in the interest of its stakeholders like owners, employees etc. The main organisational objectives are survival, profit and growth.
Promoting literacy

Question 6: Your grandfather has retired as the Director of a manufacturing company. At what level of management was he working? What functions do you think he was performing at that level? State any two, Answer: : Since he has retired from the post of Director of a manufacturing company, he was working at the top level of management. The main functions that he was performing at this level are outlined below:

He was responsible for the success and failure of the organization.
He was responsible for all the business activities and its impact on society.
He had to coordinate the activities of different departments in pursuit of common goals.

Question 7: Ritu is the manager of the northern division of a large corporate house. At what level does she work in the organisation? What are her basic functions? OR Your grandfather has retired from an organisation in which he was responsible for implementing the plans developed by the top management. At which level of management was he working? State one more function performed at this level. OR Deepak’s father has retired as a purchase manager of a company. At what level of management was he working? What function do you think he was performing at that level of management? OR Dheeraj is working as an Operations Manager in Tifco Ltd. Name the managerial level at which he is working. State any four functions he will perform as the Operations Manager in this company. OR Rajat is working as a Regional Manager in Tifco Ltd. Name the level at which he is working. State any four functions he will perform as the Regional Manager in this company. Answer: : Ritu / grandfather / Deepak’s father / Deeraj / Rajat, all of them are working at the middle level of management. The four functions that he will have to perform at this level are stated below:

He has to ensure that his department has the necessary staff.
He has to co-operate with the other departments for ensuring smooth functioning of the organization.

Question 8: Vaibhav Garments Ltd/s target is to produce 10,000 shirts per month at a cost of ?150 per shirt. The production manager could achieve this target at the cost of ?160 per shirt. Do you think the production manager is effective? Give reasons for your answer. Answer: Yes, the production manager of Vaibhav Garments Ltd. is effective as he could achieve the target to produce 10,000 shirts in a month.

Question 9: Mr. Nitin Singhania’s father has a good business of iron and steel. He wants to go to the USA for his MBA but his father thinks that he should join the business. On the basis of emerging- trends, do you think that Mr. Singhania should send his son to the USA? Give any three reasons in support of your answer. Answer: Yes, according to me, Mr. Singhania should send his son to USA for his MBA because management is being recognised as a profession to a great extent because of the following reasons:

Well defined body of knowledge: Management is considered to be a well-defined body of knowledge that can be acquired through instructions. As a separate discipline, it contains a set of theories and principles formulated by various management experts. Moreover, it is taught in various schools and colleges all over the world.
Ethical code of conduct: Management, in practice, like other professions, is bound by a code of conduct which guides the behaviour of its members. Therefore, acquiring a degree in management will equip him with the good managerial,, skills and approach.
Service motive: A good management course will provide him an insight into the multiple goals that an organisation should pursue. This knowledge will help him to serve both the objectives of profit maximization and social welfare effectively for his company.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS

Question 1: Jayant is working as Head Relationship Manager in the wealth management division of a private sector bank. He has created an internal environment which is conducive to an effective and efficient performance of his team of ten relationship management executive” A typical day at work in Jay ant’s life consists of a series of interrelated and continue functions. He decides the targets for his department which are in line with the objectives of the organization as a whole. The future course of action for his team members is laid out well in advance. The various resources required by the relationship managers like an iPad with GPS system, account opening forms, brochures, details of account holders etc. are made readily available to them. The executives are given sufficient authority to carry out the work assigned to them. Jayant works in close coordination with the Human Resource Manager in order to ensure that he is able to create and maintain a satisfactory and satisfied workforce in his department.Through constant guidance and motivation, Jayant inspires them to realise their full potential. He offers them various types of incentives from time to time keeping in view their diverse individual needs.Moreover, he keeps a close watch on their individual performances in order to ensure that they are in accordance with the standards set and takes corrective actions whenever needed. In context of the above case:

Identify the concept being referred to in the following line, “He has created an internal environment which is conducive to an effective and efficient performance of his team of ten relationship management executives.”
Identify and describe the various functions of the concept as identified in part (a) of the question by quoting lines from the paragraph.
The concept of management is being referred to in the following line, “He has created an internal environment which is conducive to an effective and efficient performance of his team of ten relationship management executives.”
Planning: It is the function of determining in advance what is to be done and who is to do it. “He decides the targets for his department which are in line with the objectives of the organization as a whole. The future course of actions for the team members are laid out well in advance.”
Organising: Organising is the process of bringing together human, physical and financial resources and establishing productive relations among them for the purpose of achieving the desired goals efficiently and effectively. “The various resources required by the relationship managers like an iPad with GPS system, account opening forms, brochures, details of account holders etc. are made readily available to them. The executives are given sufficient authority to carry out the work assigned to them.”
Staffing: The managerial function of staffing involves manning the organisational structure in order to fill in the roles designed into the structure. “Jayant works in close coordination with the human resource manager in order to ensure that he is able to create and maintain a satisfactory and satisfied workforce in his department.”
Directing: Directing involves leading, influencing and motivating employees to perform the tasks assigned to them. “Through constant guidance and motivation, Jayant inspires them to realise their full potential. He offers them various types of incentives from time to time keeping in view their diverse individual needs.”
Controlling: Controlling is the management function of ensuring that events conform to plans.”Moreover, he keeps a close watch on their individual performances in order to ensure that they are in accordance with the standards set and takes corrective actions whenever needed.”

Question 2: Sooraj works as a salesman in a company selling pet accessories and food. He has been given a target of selling 1200 units of the food packets in a month by offering a maximum of 10% discount to his customers. In order to meet his monthly sales target, on the last two days of the month, he offers 15% discount to his customers. In the context of the above case: Is Sooraj effective in his work? Explain by giving a suitable reason in support of your answer. Answer: Yes, Sooraj is effective in his work as he has been able to meet his monthly sales target of selling 1200 units of the food packets.

Question 3: Sujata works as a designer in an export house. As per the terms of an order received by the export house, she has to get 1000 units of denim jackets made in 15 days @ ? 2000 per jacket. She is able to complete her target production in 20 days because in order to complete the order in 15 days she would have made the workers work over time. As a result, the cost of production per jacket may have increased by ? 100. In the context of the above case: Is Sujata efficient in her work? Explain by giving a suitable reason in support of your answer. Answer: Yes, Sujata is efficient in her work as she has been able to get 1000 units of denim jackets made @ ? 2000 per jacket.

Question 4: Anju and Manju are good friends. Considering the fact that the activities involved in managing an enterprise are common to all organizations, after completing their masters in business management, both of them take up a job at managerial level in different organizations as per their individual areas of interest. Anju takes up a marketing job in a retail company and strives to increase sales whereas Manju joins an NGO and works diligently to realize its objective related to providing employment to specially abled persons. Both of them have to perform a series of continuous, composite, but separate functions. On some days, Anju may spend more time in planning a future display layout and on another day, she may spend time in sorting out an employee’s problem. Both Anju and Manju make conscious efforts to build a feeling of team spirit and coordination among diverse individuals with different needs who work under them. The effect of their management is noticeable in their respective departments as the targets are met according to plans, employees are happy and satisfied, and there is orderliness in its functioning rather than chaos. In context of the above case: Identify the various features of management highlighted in the above paragraph by quoting lines from it. Answer: The various features of management highlighted in the above paragraph are stated below:

Management is all pervasive: “Considering the fact that the activities involved in managing an enterprise are common to all organizations, after completing their masters in business management, both of them take up a job at managerial level in different organizations as per their individual areas of interest.”
Management is a goal-oriented process: “Anju takes up a marketing job in a retail company and strives to increase sales whereas Manju joins an NGO and works diligently to realize its objective related to providing employment to specially abled persons.”
Management is a continuous process: “Both of them have to perform a series of continuous, composite, but separate functions. Like on some days, Anju may spend more time in planning a future display layout and on another day, she may spend time in sorting out an employee’s problem.”
Management is a group activity: “Both Anju and Manju make conscious efforts to build a feeling of team spirit and coordination among diverse individuals with different needs who work under them.”
Management is an intangible force: “The effect of their management is noticeable in their respective departments as the targets are met according to plans, employees are happy and satisfied, and there is orderliness in its functioning rather than chaos.”

Question 5: Real Alliance Ltd. is a well-known cement company in India. It is able to earn adequate revenues to cover costs. Its capital base, number of employees and production turnover has increased manifolds over the years. The rate of profitability of the business is also creditable. The employees of the company are happy and satisfied with their remuneration, working conditions, promotion policy etc. As a part of its moral obligation, the company has taken many initiatives for providing employment to specially abled persons and promoting literacy in the villages adopted by it. In the context of the above case:

Identify and explain the various types of objectives of management being fulfilled by Real Alliance Ltd by quoting lines from the paragraph.
List any two values that Real Alliance Ltd. wants to communicate to the society.

Answer: The various objectives of management being fulfilled by Real Alliance Ltd are stated below:

Survival: “It is able to earn adequate revenues to cover costs.”
Growth: “Its capital base, number of employees and production turnover has increased manifolds over the years.”
Profit: “The rate of profitability of the business is also creditable.”
Personal objectives: These objectives relate to the needs of the employees of the organization which must be given due consideration. “The employees of the company are happy and satisfied with their remuneration, working conditions, promotion policy etc.”
Social objectives: It is expected that every organization should undertake certain initiatives for the welfare of the society at large. “As a part of its moral obligation, the company has taken many initiatives for providing employment to specially abled persons and promoting literacy in the villages adopted by it.”
Social welfare
Respect for their employees

Question 6: Esha works as the cost and risk management head of a company in power sector. As a result of her excellent managerial competence, the company is able to reduce costs and increase productivity. The company belongs to infrastructure sector, wherein regular amendments are made in the government regulations and policies. She holds regular meetings to ensure that people in her department are not only aware of the related changes but are also able to adapt to these changes effectively. This helps the company to maintain its competitive edge. She motivates and leads her team in such a manner that individual members are able to achieve personal goals while contributing to the overall organisational objective. In the process of fulfilling her duties for the growth of the organisation, she helps in providing competitive services, adopting new technology, creating more employment opportunities etc. for the greater good of the people at large. In context of the above case: Identify the various reasons that have made management so important by quoting lines from the paragraph. Answer: The various reasons mentioned in the above paragraph that have made management so important are stated below:

Management increases efficiency as it leads to reduction in costs due to optimum utilisation of resources. “As a result of her excellent managerial competence the company is able to reduce costs and increase productivity.”
Management creates a dynamic organisation so that it is able to incorporate the corresponding changes in its working with any change in its business environment. “The company belongs to infrastructure sector, wherein regular amendments are made in the government regulations and policies. She holds regular meetings to ensure that people in her department are not only aware of the related changes but are also able to adapt to these changes effectively. This helps the company to maintain its competitive edge.”
Management helps in achieving personal objectives of the employees in the organisation. “She motivates and leads her team in such a manner that individual members are able to achieve personal goals while contributing to the overall organisational objective.” “The employees of the company are happy and satisfied with their remuneration, working conditions, promotion policy etc.”
Management helps in the development of society by contributing effectively towards it in multiple ways.”In the process of fulfilling her duties for the growth of the organization, she helps in providing competitive services, adopting new technology, creating more employment opportunities etc. for the greater good of the people at large.”

Question 7: Ramarjuna joins an IT firm as a system analyst after completing his masters in Computer Science. As the nature of his work demands he has to work in very close coordination with all the departmental heads in the firm, very soon Ramarjuna realizes that each departmental head has own individual style of working. They differ greatly in their day-to-day approach to work. They tend to deal with a given situation, an issue or a problem through a combination of their own experience, creativity, imagination, initiative and innovation. In the context of the above case: Identify and explain the nature of management highlighted in the above case. Answer: In the above case, management is being considered as an art. Art is the skillful and personal application of existing knowledge to achieve desired results. The evaluation of management as an art is given below:

Existence of theoretical knowledge: Art presupposes the existence of certain knowledge. Management fulfills this criterion as there exist a number of theories and principles on management which have been formulated by various management experts.
Personalised applications: Art is a personalised concept. Management fulfills this criterion as a good manager works through a combination of his own experience, creativity, imagination, initiative and innovation to carry out the assigned work.
Based on practice and creativity: All art is practical. Management fulfills this criterion as a person becomes a better manager with constant practice and experience. This also leads to emergence of different styles of management.

Question 8: Dharam is a well-known businessman in the field of publishing. He owes the success of his business to his own education in business management and his team of certified management consultants. Therefore, he decides to send both his children Danush and Damini abroad to acquire a degree in business management in their individual area of expertise. He feels that all over the world there is marked growth in management as a discipline, but still it is not considered to be a full-fledged profession for certain reasons. In the context of the above case:

Explain the reasons because of which Dharam considers management as a discipline.
Critically examine the various reasons because of which management is not considered to be a full-fledged profession.
Dharam considers management as a discipline because there exist a number of theories and principles on management which have been formulated by various management experts. It is taught in various schools and colleges, all over the world, as a separate subject of study.
Restricted entry. Unlike management, the entry to the other professions is restricted through an examination or eligibility criteria like specific percentage in a particular degree or diploma. However, management as profession does not fulfill this criterion as anyone can be called a manager regardless of his/her academic qualifications.
Professional association: Unlike managers, all working professionals have to be a member of an affiliated professional association which regulates their entry, grants certificate of practice and formulates and enforces code of conduct. For example,the practicing lawyers have to be a member of Bar Council of India, the practicing doctors should have membership of All India Medical Association etc. However, in case of management, although there exist several management associations like the AIMA (All India Management Association), neither does it have any statutory backing nor is it mandatory for the practicing managers to a member of such associations.

Question 9: Kartik joins a garment factory as a plant supervisor in Lucknow. He observes that the output of some workers is very low as compared to the standards set for their performance. On analyzing the reasons for the same, he finds out that a lot of time of the workers is wasted in getting the requisite materials issued from the store. Whereas on asking, the store keeper complains that there is no harmony in the working of the production department as a whole. Everyday the workers approach him at the last minute to procure different kinds of threads, laces, mirrors, buttons etc. If it is not available in the store then he has to place an order with the purchase officer. As a result, a lot of time of the workers is wasted. So, in order to integrate the various production activities, henceforth, Kartik ensures,that the store keeper is informed well three days in advance about the requisite material. Consequently, the store keeper is able to keep the materials ready for the workers every morning in accordance with their requirements. In context of the above case:

Identify and explain the quality of management that Kartik has introduced in the working of the production department as a corrective measure to control the output of the workers.
State briefly any two points highlighting the importance of quality of management identified in part (a).
Coordination is the quality of management that Kartik has introduced in the working of the production department as a corrective measure to control the output of the workers. Coordination is the process which helps to integrate the efforts of different individuals with diverse needs to secure a unity of action in the pursuit of common goals.
Growth in the size: With the growth in the size of an organisation, there is a proportionate increase in the number of its employees. So there is a greater need to unify the efforts of diverse individuals towards the realisation of organisational goals.
Functional differentiation: As a result of functional differentiation in an organization, its people and activities get divided into small departments on the basis of functions like marketing, finance etc. Since each such department tends to formulate its own objectives, policies etc., there is a need to reconcile the goals pursued by each of such departments with the goals of the organization as a whole.

Question 10: Geetika is working in a private sector bank. One of her key function relates to the formulation of the overall organisational goals and strategies of the bank. Identify the level of management at which she is working? State any three other functions that she has to perform at this level. Answer: Geetika is working at the top level of management in the private sector bank. The three other functions that she has to perform at this level are outlined below:

She is responsible for the success and failure of the organisation.
She is responsible for all the business activities and its impact on society.
She has to coordinate the activities of different departments in pursuit of common goals.

Question 11: Arundhati has been promoted to the post of Marketing Division Head of a soft drink company. Identify the level of management at which she will be working henceforth. State any four functions that she will have to perform at this level. Answer: Henceforth, Arundhati will be working at middle level of management. The four functions that she will have to perform at this level are stated below:

She has to ensure that her department has the necessary staff.
She has to assign duties and responsibilities to the people in her department.
She has to motivate the people in her department to achieve the desired objectives.
She has to co-operate with the other departments for ensuring smooth functioning of the organization.

Question 12: Ajay and Sanjay are childhood friends. Sanjay had lost his right hand in an accident in childhood. They meet after a long time in a restaurant. On being asked, Sanjay tells Ajay that he feels very discontented in managing his family business after the death of his father as it doesn’t match with his areas of interest. Ajay knows that Sanjay possess extraordinary skills in management although he hasn’t acquired any professional degree in management. Therefore, he asks Sanjay to wind up his business in India and join him in his hotel business in Dubai as an Assistant Manager in Sales and Marketing Division. In context of the above case:

Can Sanjay be deployed at the post of Assistant Manager in Sales and Marketing Division though he hasn’t acquired any professional degree in management? Explain by giving suitable justifications in support of your answer.
List any two values that are reflected in this act of Ajay.
Restricted entry: Unlike management, the entry to the other professions is restricted through an examination or eligibility criteria like specific percentage in a particular degree or diploma. However, management as a profession does not fulfill this criteria as anyone can be called a manager regardless of his/her academic qualifications.
Professional association: Unlike managers, all working professionals have to be a member of an affiliated professional association which regulates their entry, grants certificate of practice and formulates and enforces code of conduct. For example, the practicing lawyers have to be a member of Bar Council of India, the practicing doctors should have membership of All India Medical Association etc. However, in case of management, although there exist several management association like the AIMA (All India Management Association), neither does it have any statutory backing nor is it mandatory for the practicing managers to a member of such associations.
Responsibility.

Case Studies in Business Studies Business Studies Case Studies Business Studies Commerce

Open access
Published: 10 April 2024

“So at least now I know how to deal with things myself, what I can do if it gets really bad again”—experiences with a long-term cross-sectoral advocacy care and case management for severe multiple sclerosis: a qualitative study

Anne Müller ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2456-2492 1 ,
Fabian Hebben ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0003-6401-3433 1 ,
Kim Dillen 1 ,
Veronika Dunkl 1 ,
Yasemin Goereci 2 ,
Raymond Voltz 1 , 3 , 4 ,
Peter Löcherbach 5 ,
Clemens Warnke ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3510-9255 2 &
Heidrun Golla ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4403-630X 1

on behalf of the COCOS-MS trial group represented by Martin Hellmich

BMC Health Services Research volume 24 , Article number: 453 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

Persons with severe Multiple Sclerosis (PwsMS) face complex needs and daily limitations that make it challenging to receive optimal care. The implementation and coordination of health care, social services, and support in financial affairs can be particularly time consuming and burdensome for both PwsMS and caregivers. Care and case management (CCM) helps ensure optimal individual care as well as care at a higher-level. The goal of the current qualitative study was to determine the experiences of PwsMS, caregivers and health care specialists (HCSs) with the CCM.

In the current qualitative sub study, as part of a larger trial, in-depth semi-structured interviews with PwsMS, caregivers and HCSs who had been in contact with the CCM were conducted between 02/2022 and 01/2023. Data was transcribed, pseudonymized, tested for saturation and analyzed using structuring content analysis according to Kuckartz. Sociodemographic and interview characteristics were analyzed descriptively.

Thirteen PwsMS, 12 caregivers and 10 HCSs completed interviews. Main categories of CCM functions were derived deductively: (1) gatekeeper function, (2) broker function, (3) advocacy function, (4) outlook on CCM in standard care. Subcategories were then derived inductively from the interview material. 852 segments were coded. Participants appreciated the CCM as a continuous and objective contact person, a person of trust (92 codes), a competent source of information and advice (on MS) (68 codes) and comprehensive cross-insurance support (128 codes), relieving and supporting PwsMS, their caregivers and HCSs (67 codes).

Conclusions

Through the cross-sectoral continuous support in health-related, social, financial and everyday bureaucratic matters, the CCM provides comprehensive and overriding support and relief for PwsMS, caregivers and HCSs. This intervention bears the potential to be fine-tuned and applied to similar complex patient groups.

Trial registration

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Cologne (#20–1436), registered at the German Register for Clinical Studies (DRKS00022771) and in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most frequent and incurable chronic inflammatory and degenerative disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Illness awareness and the number of specialized MS clinics have increased since the 1990s, paralleled by the increased availability of disease-modifying therapies [ 1 ]. There are attempts in the literature for the definition of severe MS [ 2 , 3 ]. These include a high EDSS (Expanded disability Status Scale [ 4 ]) of ≥ 6, which we took into account in our study. There are also other factors to consider, such as a highly active disease course with complex therapies that are associated with side effects. These persons are (still) less disabled, but may feel overwhelmed with regard to therapy, side effects and risk monitoring of therapies [ 5 , 6 ].

Persons with severe MS (PwsMS) develop individual disease trajectories marked by a spectrum of heterogeneous symptoms, functional limitations, and uncertainties [ 7 , 8 ] manifesting individually and unpredictably [ 9 ]. This variability can lead to irreversible physical and mental impairment culminating in complex needs and daily challenges, particularly for those with progressive and severe MS [ 5 , 10 , 11 ]. Such challenges span the spectrum from reorganizing biographical continuity and organizing care and everyday live, to monitoring disease-specific therapies and integrating palliative and hospice care [ 5 , 10 ]. Moreover, severe MS exerts a profound of social and economic impact [ 9 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]. PwsMS and their caregivers (defined in this manuscript as relatives or closely related individuals directly involved in patients’ care) often find themselves grappling with overwhelming challenges. The process of organizing and coordinating optimal care becomes demanding, as they contend with the perceived unmanageability of searching for, implementing and coordinating health care and social services [ 5 , 15 , 16 , 17 ].

Case management (CM) proved to have a positive effect on patients with neurological disorders and/or patients with palliative care needs [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. However, a focus on severe MS has been missed so far Case managers primarily function as: (1) gatekeeper involving the allocation of necessary and available resources to a case, ensuring the equitable distribution of resources; as (2) broker assisting clients in pursuing their interests, requiring negotiation to provide individualized assistance that aligns as closely as possible with individual needs and (3) advocate working to enhance clients’ individual autonomy, to advocate for essential care offers, and to identify gaps in care [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ].

Difficulties in understanding, acting, and making decisions regarding health care-related aspects (health literacy) poses a significant challenge for 54% of the German population [ 30 ]. Additionally acting on a superordinate level as an overarching link, a care and case management (CCM) tries to reduce disintegration in the social and health care system [ 31 , 32 ]. Our hypothesis is that a CCM allows PwsMS and their caregivers to regain time and resources outside of disease management and to facilitate the recovery and establishment of biographical continuity that might be disrupted due to severe MS [ 33 , 34 ].

Health care specialists (HCSs) often perceive their work with numerous time and economic constraints, especially when treating complex and severely ill individuals like PwsMS and often have concerns about being blamed by patients when expectations could not be met [ 35 , 36 ]. Our hypothesis is that the CCM will help to reduce time constraints and free up resources for specialized tasks.

To the best of our knowledge there is no long-term cross-sectoral and outreaching authority or service dedicated to assisting in the organization and coordination of the complex care concerns of PwsMS within the framework of standard care addressing needs in health, social, financial, every day and bureaucratic aspects. While some studies have attempted to design and test care programs for persons with MS (PwMS), severely affected individuals were often not included [ 37 , 38 , 39 ]. They often remain overlooked by existing health and social care structures [ 5 , 9 , 15 ].

The COCOS-MS trial developed and applied a long-term cross-sectoral CCM intervention consisting of weekly telephone contacts and monthly re-assessments with PwsMS and caregivers, aiming to provide optimal care. Their problems, resources and (unmet) needs were assessed holistically including physical health, mental health, self-sufficiency and social situation and participation. Based on assessed (unmet) needs, individual care plans with individual actions and goals were developed and constantly adapted during the CCM intervention. Contacts with HCSs were established to ensure optimal care. The CCM intervention was structured through and documented in a CCM manual designed for the trial [ 40 , 41 ].

Our aim was to find out how PwsMS, caregivers and HCSs experienced the cross-sectoral long-term, outreaching patient advocacy CCM.

This study is part of a larger phase II, randomized, controlled clinical trial “Communication, Coordination and Security for people with severe Multiple Sclerosis (COCOS-MS)” [ 41 ]. This explorative clinical trial, employing a mixed-method design, incorporates a qualitative study component with PwsMS, caregivers and HCSs to enrich the findings of the quantitative data. This manuscript focuses on the qualitative data collected between February 2022 and January 2023, following the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) guidelines [ 42 ].

Research team

Three trained authors AM, KD and FH (AM, female, research associate, M.A. degree in Rehabilitation Sciences; KD, female, researcher, Dr. rer. medic.; FH, male, research assistant, B.Sc. degree in Health Care Management), who had no prior relationship with patients, caregivers or HCSs conducted qualitative interviews. A research team, consisting of clinical experts and health services researchers, discussed the development of the interview guides and the finalized category system.

Theoretical framework

Interview data was analyzed with the structuring content analysis according to Kuckartz. This method enables a deductive structuring of interview material, as well as the integration of new aspects found in the interview material through the inductive addition of categories in an iterative analysis process [ 43 ].

Sociodemographic and interview characteristics were analyzed descriptively (mean, median, range, SD). PwsMS, caregivers and HCSs were contacted by the authors AM, KD or FH via telephone or e-mail after providing full written informed consent. Participants had the option to choose between online interviews conducted via the GoToMeeting 10.19.0® Software or face-to-face. Peasgood et al. (2023) found no significant differences in understanding questions, engagement or concentration between face-to-face and online interviews [ 44 , 45 ]. Digital assessments were familiar to participants due to pandemic-related adjustments within the trial.

Out of 14 PwsMS and 14 caregivers who were approached to participate in interviews, three declined to complete interviews, resulting in 13 PwsMS (5 male, 8 female) and 12 caregiver (7 male, 5 female) interviews, respectively (see Fig. 1 ). Thirty-one HCSs were contacted of whom ten (2 male, 8 female) agreed to be interviewed (see Fig. 2 ).

Flowchart of PwsMS and caregiver participation in the intervention group of the COCOS-MS trial. Patients could participate with and without a respective caregiver taking part in the trial. Therefore, number of caregivers does not correspond to patients. For detailed inclusion criteria see also Table 1 in Golla et al. [ 41 ]

Flowchart of HCSs interview participation

Setting and data collection

Interviews were carried out where participants preferred, e.g. at home, workplace, online, and no third person being present. In total, we conducted 35 interviews whereof 7 interviews face-to-face (3 PwsMS, 3 caregivers, 1 HCS).

The research team developed a topic guide which was meticulously discussed with research and clinical staff to enhance credibility. It included relevant aspects for the evaluation of the CCM (see Tables 1 and 2 , for detailed topic guides see Supplementary Material ). Patient and caregiver characteristics (covering age, sex, marital status, living situation, EDSS (patients only), subgroup) were collected during the first assessment of the COCOS-MS trial and HCSs characteristics (age, sex, profession) as well as interview information (length and setting) were collected during the interviews. The interview guides developed for this study addressed consistent aspects both for PwsMS and caregivers (see Supplementary Material ):

For HCSs it contained the following guides:

Probing questions were asked to get more specific and in-depth information. Interviews were carried out once and recorded using a recording device or the recording function of the GoToMeeting 10.19.0® Software. Data were pseudonymized (including sensitive information, such as personal names, dates of birth, or addresses), audio files were safely stored in a data protection folder. The interview duration ranged from 11 to 56 min (mean: 23.9 min, SD: 11.1 min). Interviews were continued until we found that data saturation was reached. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim by an external source and not returned to participants.

Data analysis

Two coders (AM, FH) coded the interviews. Initially, the first author (AM) thoroughly reviewed the transcripts to gain a sense of the interview material. Using the topic guide and literature, she deductively developed a category system based on the primary functions of CM [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Three interviews were coded repeatedly for piloting, and inductive subcategories were added when new themes emerged in the interview material. This category system proved suitable for the interview material. The second coder (FH) familiarized himself with the interview material and category system. Both coders (AM, FH) independently coded all interviews, engaging in discussions and adjusting codes iteratively. The finalized category system was discussed and consolidated in a research workshop and within the COCOS-MS trial group and finally we reached an intercoder agreement of 90% between the two coders AM and FH, computed by the MAXQDA Standard 2022® software.

We analyzed sociodemographic and interview characteristics using IBM SPSS Statistics 27® and Excel 2016®. Transcripts were managed and analyzed using MAXQDA Standard 2022®.

Participants were provided with oral and written information about the trial and gave written informed consent. Ethical approvals were obtained from the Ethics Committee of the University of Cologne (#20–1436). The trial is registered in the German Register for Clinical Studies (DRKS) (DRKS00022771) and is conducted under the Declaration of Helsinki.

Characteristics of participants and interviews

PwsMS participating in an interview were mainly German (84.6%), had a mean EDSS of 6.8 (range: 6–8) and MS for 13.5 years (median: 14; SD: 8.1). For detailed characteristics see Table 3 .

Most of the interviewed caregivers (9 caregivers) were the partners of the PwsMS with whom they lived in the same household. For further details see Table 3 .

HCSs involved in the study comprised various professions, including MS-nurse (3), neurologist (2), general physician with further training in palliative care (1), physician with further training in palliative care and pain therapist (1), housing counselling service (1), outpatient nursing service manager (1), participation counselling service (1).

Structuring qualitative content analysis

The experiences of PwsMS, caregivers and HCSs were a priori deductively assigned to four main categories: (1) gatekeeper function, (2) broker function, (3) advocacy function [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ] and (4) Outlook on CCM in standard care, whereas the subcategories were developed inductively (see Fig. 3 ).

Category system including main and subcategories of the qualitative thematic content analysis

The most extensive category, housing the highest number of codes and subcodes, was the “ Outlook on CCM in standard care ” (281 codes). Following this, the category “ Advocacy Function ” contained 261 codes. The “ Broker Function ” (150 codes) and the “ Gatekeeper Function ” (160 codes) constituted two smaller categories. The majority of codes was identified in the caregivers’ interviews, followed by those of PwsMS (see Table 4 ). Illustrative quotes for each category and subcategory can be found in Table 5 .

Persons with severe multiple sclerosis

In the gatekeeper function (59 codes), PwsMS particularly valued the CCM as a continuous contact person . They appreciated the CCM as a person of trust who was reliably accessible throughout the intervention period. This aspect, with 41 codes, held significant importance for PwsMS.

Within the broker function (44 codes), establishing contact was most important for PwsMS (22 codes). This involved the CCM as successfully connecting PwsMS and caregivers with physicians and therapists, as well as coordinating and arranging medical appointments, which were highly valued. Assistance in authority and health and social insurance matters (10 codes) was another subcategory, where the CCM encompassed support in communication with health insurance companies, such as improving the level of care, assisting with retirement pension applications, and facilitating rehabilitation program applications. Optimized care (12 codes) resulted in improved living conditions and the provision of assistive devices through the CCM intervention.

The advocacy function (103 codes) emerged as the most critical aspect for PwsMS, representing the core of the category system. PwsMS experienced multidimensional, comprehensive, cross-insurance system support from the CCM. This category, with 43 statements, was the largest within all subcategories. PwsMS described the CCM as addressing their concerns, providing help, and assisting with the challenges posed by the illness in everyday life. The second-largest subcategory, regaining, maintaining and supporting autonomy (25 codes), highlighted the CCM’s role in supporting self-sufficiency and independence. Reviving personal wellbeing (17 codes) involved PwsMSs’ needs of regaining positive feelings, improved quality of life, and a sense of support and acceptance, which could be improved by the CCM. Temporal relief (18 codes) was reported, with the CCM intervention taking over or reducing tasks.

Within the outlook on CCM in standard care (84 codes), eight subcategories were identified. Communications was described as friendly and open (9 codes), with the setting of communication (29 codes) including the frequency of contacts deemed appropriate by the interviewed PwsMS, who preferred face-to-face contact over virtual or telephone interactions. Improvement suggestions for CCM (10 codes) predominantly revolved around the desire for the continuation of the CCM beyond the trial, expressing intense satisfaction with the CCM contact person and program. PwsMS rarely wished for better cooperation with the CCM. With respect to limitations (7 codes), PwsMS distinguished between individual limitations (e.g. when not feeling ready for using a wheelchair) and overriding structural limitations (e.g. unsuccessful search for an accessible apartment despite CCM support). Some PwsMS mentioned needing the CCM earlier in the course of the disease and believed it would beneficial for anyone with a chronic illness (6 codes).

In the gatekeeper function (75 codes), caregivers highly valued the CCM as a continuous contact partner (33 codes). More frequently than among the PwsMS interviewed, caregivers valued the CCM as a source of consultation/ information on essential individual subjects (42 codes). The need for basic information about the illness, its potential course, treatment and therapy options, possible supportive equipment, and basic medical advice/ information could be met by the CCM.

Within the broker function (63 codes), caregivers primarily experienced the subcategory establish contacts (24 codes). They found the CCM as helpful in establishing and managing contact with physicians, therapists and especially with health insurance companies. In the subcategory assistance in authority and health and social insurance matters (22 codes), caregivers highlighted similar aspects as the PwsMS interviewed. However, there was a particular emphasis on assistance with patients' retirement matters. Caregivers also valued the optimization of patients’ care and living environment (17 codes) in various life areas during the CCM intervention, including improved access to assistive devices, home modification, and involvement of a household support and/ or nursing services.

The advocacy function, with 115 codes, was by far the broadest category . The subcategory multidimensional, comprehensive, cross-insurance system support represented the largest subcategory of caregivers, with 70 statements. In summary, caregivers felt supported by the CCM in all domains of life. Regaining, maintaining and supporting autonomy (11 codes) and reviving personal wellbeing (8 codes) in the form of an improved quality of life played a role not only for patients but also for caregivers, albeit to a lower extend. Caregivers experienced temporal relief (26 codes) as the CCM undertook a wide range of organizational tasks, freeing up more needed resources for their own interests.

For the Outlook on CCM in standard care , caregivers provided various suggestions (81 codes). Similar to PwsMS, caregivers felt that setting (home based face-to-face, telephone, virtual) and frequency of contact were appropriate (10 codes, communication setting ) and communications (7 codes) were recognized as open and friendly. However, to avoid conflicts between caregiver and PwsMS, caregivers preferred meeting the CCM separately from the PwsMS in the future. Some caregivers wished the CCM to specify all services it might offer at the beginning, while others emphasized not wanting this. Like PwsMS, caregivers criticized the CCM intervention being (trial-related) limited to one year, regardless of whether further support was needed or processes being incomplete (13 codes, improvement suggestions ). After the CCM intervention time had expired, the continuous contact person and assistance were missed and new problems had arisen and had to be managed with their own resources again (9 codes, effects of CCM discontinuation ), which was perceived as an exhausting or unsolvable endeavor. Caregivers identified analogous limitations (8 codes), both individual and structural. However, the largest subcategory, was the experienced potential of CCM (27 codes), reflected in extremely high satisfaction with the CCM intervention. Like PwsMS, caregivers regarded severe chronically ill persons in general as target groups for a CCM (7 codes) and would implement it even earlier, starting from the time of diagnosis. They considered a CCM to be particularly helpful for patients without caregivers or for caregivers with limited (time) resources, as it was true for most caregivers.

Health care specialists

In the gatekeeper function (26 codes) HCSs particularly valued the CCM as a continuous contact partner (18 codes). They primarily described their valuable collaboration with the CCM, emphasizing professional exchange between the CCM and HCSs.

Within the broker function (43 codes), the CCM was seen as a connecting link between patients and HCSs, frequently establishing contacts (18 codes). This not only improved optimal care on an individual patient level (case management) but also at a higher, superordinate care level (care management). HCSs appreciated the optimized care and living environment (18 codes) for PwsMS, including improved medical and therapeutic access and the introduction of new assistive devices. The CCM was also recognized as providing assistance in authority and health and social matters (7 codes) for PwsMS and their caregivers.

In the advocacy function (43 codes), HCSs primarily reported temporal relief through CCM intervention (23 codes). They experienced this relief, especially as the CCM provided multidimensional, comprehensive, and cross-insurance system support (15 codes) for PwsMS and their caregivers. Through this support, HCSs felt relieved from time intensive responsibilities that may not fall within their area of expertise, freeing up more time resources for their actual professional tasks.

The largest category within the HCSs interviews was the outlook on CCM in standard care (116 codes). In the largest subcategory, HCSs made suggestions for further patient groups who could benefit (38 codes) from a CCM. Chronic neurological diseases like neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), typical and atypical Parkinson syndromes were mentioned. HCSs considered the enrollment of the CCM directly after the diagnosis of these complex chronic diseases. Additionally, chronic progressive diseases in general or oncological diseases, which may also run chronically, were regarded worthwhile for this approach. HCSs also provided suggestions regarding improvement (21 codes). They wished e.g. for information or contact when patients were enrolled to the CCM, regular updates, exchange and collaborative effort. On the other hand, HCSs reported, that their suggestions for improvement would hardly be feasible due to their limited time resources. Similar to patients and caregivers, HCSs experienced structural limits (13 codes), which a CCM could not exceed due to overriding structural limitations (e.g. insufficient supply of (household) aids, lack of outreach services like psychotherapists, and long processing times on health and pension insurers' side). HCSs were also asked about their opinions on financial resources (14 codes) of a CCM in standard care. All interviewed HCSs agreed that CCM would initially cause more costs for health and social insurers, but they were convinced of cost savings in the long run. HCSs particularly perceived the potential of the CCM (20 codes) through the feedback of PwsMS, highlighting the trustful relationship enabling individualized help for PwsMS and their caregivers.

Persons with severe multiple sclerosis and their caregivers

The long-term cross-sectoral CCM intervention implemented in the COCOS-MS trial addressed significant unmet needs of PwsMS and their caregivers which previous research revealed as burdensome and hardly or even not possible to improve without assistance [ 5 , 6 , 9 , 10 , 33 , 35 , 46 ]. Notably, the CCM service met the need for a reliable, continuous contact partner, guiding patients through the complexities of regulations, authorities and the insurance system. Both, PwsMS and their caregivers highly valued the professional, objective perspective provided by the CCM, recognizing it as a source of relief, support and improved care in line with previous studies [ 37 , 47 ]. Caregivers emphasized the CCM’s competence in offering concrete assistance and information on caregiving and the fundamentals of MS, including bureaucratic, authority and insurances matters. On the other hand, PwsMS particularly appreciated the CCMs external reflective and advisory function, along with empathic social support tailored to their individual concerns. Above all, the continuous partnership of trust, available irrespective of the care sector, was a key aspect that both PwsMS and their caregivers highlighted. This consistent support was identified as one of the main components in the care of PwsMS in previous studies [ 5 , 33 , 35 ].

As the health literacy is inadequate or problematic for 54% of the German population and disintegration in the health and social care system is high [ 30 , 31 , 32 ], the CCM approach serves to enhance health literacy and reduce disintegration of PwsMS and their caregivers by providing cross-insurance navigational guidance in the German health and social insurance sector on a superordinate level. Simultaneously PwsMS and caregivers experienced relief and gained more (time) resources for all areas of life outside of the disease and its management, including own interests and establishing biographical continuity. This empowerment enables patients to find a sense of purpose beyond their illness, regain autonomy, and enhance social participation, reducing the feeling of being a burden to those closest to them. Such feelings are often experienced as burdensome and shameful by PwsMS [ 6 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. Finding a sense of purpose beyond the illness also contributes to caregivers perceiving their loved ones not primarily as patient but as individuals outside of the disease, reinforcing valuable relationships such as partners, siblings, or children, strengthening emotional bonds. These factors are also highly relevant and well-documented in a suicide-preventive context, as the suicide rate is higher in persons diagnosed with neurological disorders [ 19 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 ] and the feeling of being a burden to others, loss of autonomy, and perceived loss of dignity are significant factors in patients with severe chronic neurological diseases for suicide [ 50 , 57 ].

The temporal relief experienced by the CCM was particularly significant for HCSs and did not only improve the satisfaction of HCSs but also removed unfulfilled expectations and concerns about being blamed by patients when expectations could not be met, which previous studied elaborated [ 35 , 36 ]. Moreover, the CCM alleviated the burden on HCSs by addressing patients’ concerns, allowing them to focus on their own medical responsibilities. This aspect probably reduced the dissatisfaction that arises when HCSs are expected to address issues beyond their medical expertise, such as assistive devices, health and social insurance, and the organization and coordination of supplementary therapies, appointments, and contacts [ 35 , 36 , 61 ]. Consequently, the CCM reduced difficulties of HCSs treating persons with neurological or chronical illnesses, which previous research identified as problematic.

HCSs perceive their work as increasingly condensed with numerous time and economic constraints, especially when treating complex and severely ill individuals like PwsMS [ 36 ]. This constraint was mentioned by HCSs in the interviews and was one of the main reasons why they were hesitant to participate in interviews and may also be an explanation for a shorter interview duration than initially planned in the interview guides. The CCM’s overarching navigational competence in the health and social insurance system was particularly valued by HCSs. The complex and often small-scale specialties in the health and social care system are not easily manageable or well-known even for HCSs, and dealing with them can exceed their skills and time capacities [ 61 ]. The CCM played a crucial role in keeping (temporal) resources available for what HCSs are professionally trained and qualified to work on. However, there remains a challenge in finding solutions to the dilemma faced by HCSs regarding their wish to be informed about CCM procedures and linked with each other, while also managing the strain of additional requests and contact with the CCM due to limited (time) resources [ 62 ]. Hudon et al. (2023) suggest that optimizing time resources and improving exchange could involve meetings, information sharing via fax, e-mail, secure online platforms, or, prospectively, within the electronic patient record (EPR). The implementation of an EPR has shown promise in improving the quality of health care and time resources, when properly implemented [ 63 , 64 ]. The challenge lies ineffective information exchange between HCSs and CCM for optimal patient care. The prospect of time saving in the long run and at best for a financial incentive, e.g., when anchoring in the Social Security Code, will help best to win over the HCSs.If this crucial factor can be resolved, there is a chance that HCSs will thoroughly accept the CCM as an important pillar, benefiting not only PwsMS but also other complex patient groups, especially those with long-term neurological or complex oncological conditions that might run chronically.

Care and case management and implications for the health care system

The results of our study suggest that the cross-sectoral long-term advocacy CCM in the COCOS-MS trial, with continuous personal contacts at short intervals and constant reevaluation of needs, problems, resources and goals, is highly valued by PwsMS, caregivers, and HCSs. The trial addresses several key aspects that may have been overlooked in previous studies which have shown great potential for the integration of case management [ 17 , 47 , 62 , 65 , 66 ]. However, they often excluded the overriding care management, missed those patient groups with special severity and complexity who might struggle to reach social and health care structures independently or the interventions were not intended for long-term [ 22 , 37 ]. Our results indicate that the CCM intervention had a positive impact on PwsMS and caregivers as HCSs experienced them with benefits such as increased invigoration, reduced demands, and enhanced self-confidence. However, there was a notable loss experienced by PwsMS and caregivers after the completion of the CCM intervention, even if they had stabilized during the intervention period. The experiences of optimized social and health care for the addressed population, both at an individual and superordinate care level, support the integration of this service into standard care. Beyond the quantitatively measurable outcomes and economic considerations reported elsewhere [ 16 , 20 , 21 ], our results emphasize the importance of regaining control, self-efficacy, self-worth, dignity, autonomy, and social participation. These aspects are highlighted as preventive measures in suicidal contexts, which is particularly relevant for individuals with severe and complex illnesses [ 19 , 50 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 ]. Our findings further emphasize the societal responsibilities to offer individuals with severe and complex illnesses the opportunity to regain control and meaningful aspects of life, irrespective of purely economic considerations. This underscores the need for a comprehensive evaluation that not only takes into account quantitative measures but also the qualitative aspects of well-being and quality of life when making recommendations of a CCM in standard care.

The study by J. Y. Joo and Huber (2019) highlighted that CM interventions aligned with the standards of the Case Management Society of America varied in duration, ranging from 1 month to 15.9 years, and implemented in community- or hospital-based settings. However, they noted a limitation in understanding how CM processes unfold [ 67 ]. In contrast, our trial addressed this criticism by providing transparent explanations of the CCM process, which also extends to a superordinate care management [ 40 , 41 ]. Our CCM manual [ 40 ] outlines a standardized and structured procedure for measuring and reevaluating individual resources, problems, and unmet needs on predefined dimensions. It also identifies goals and actions at reducing unmet needs and improving the individual resources of PwsMS and caregivers. Importantly, the CCM manual demonstrates that the CCM process can be structured and standardized, while accounting for the unique aspects of each individual’s serious illness, disease courses, complex needs, available resources, and environmental conditions. Furthermore, the adaptability of the CCM manual to other complex chronically ill patient groups suggests the potential for a standardized approach in various health care settings. This standardized procedure allows for consistency in assessing and addressing the individual needs of patients, ensuring that the CCM process remains flexible while maintaining a structured and goal-oriented framework.

The discussion about the disintegration in the social and health care system and the increasing specialization dates back to 2009 [ 31 , 32 ]. Three strategies were identified to address this issue: (a) “driver-minimizing” [Treiberminimierende], (b) “effect-modifying” [Effektmodifizierende] and (c) “disintegration-impact-minimizing” [Desintegrationsfolgenminimierende] strategies. “Driver-minimizing strategies” involve comprehensive and radical changes within the existing health and social care system, requiring political and social pursuit. “Disintegration-impact-minimizing strategies” are strategies like quality management or tele-monitoring, which are limited in scope and effectiveness. “Effect-modifying strategies”, to which CCM belongs, acknowledges the segmentation within the system but aims to overcome it through cooperative, communicative, and integrative measures. CCM, being an “effect-modifying strategy”, operates the “integrated segmentation model” [Integrierte Segmentierung] rather than the “general contractor model” [Generalunternehmer-Modell] or “total service provider model” [Gesamtdienstleister-Modell] [ 31 , 32 ]. In this model, the advantage lies in providing an overarching and coordinating service to link different HCSs and services cross-sectorally. The superordinate care management aspect of the CCM plays a crucial role in identifying gaps in care, which is essential for future development strategies within the health and social care system. It aims to find or develop (regional) alternatives to ensure optimal care [ 17 , 23 , 24 , 68 , 69 ], using regional services of existing health and social care structures. Therefore, superordinate care management within the CCM process is decisive for reducing disintegration in the system.

Strengths and limitations

The qualitative study results of the explorative COCOS-MS clinical trial, which employed an integrated mixed-method design, provide valuable insights into the individual experiences of three leading stakeholders: PwsMS, caregivers and HCSs with a long-term cross-sectoral CCM. In addition to in-depth interviews, patient and caregiver reported outcome measurements were utilized and will be reported elsewhere. The qualitative study’s strengths include the inclusion of patients who, due to the severity of their condition (e.g. EDSS mean: 6.8, range: 6–8, highly active MS), age (mean: 53.9 years, range: 36–73 years) family constellations, are often underrepresented in research studies and often get lost in existing social and health care structures. The study population is specific to the wider district region of Cologne, but the broad inclusion criteria make it representative of severe MS in Germany. The methodological approach of a deductive and inductive structuring content analysis made it possible to include new findings into an existing theoretical framework.

However, the study acknowledges some limitations. While efforts were made to include more HCSs, time constraints on their side limited the number of interviews conducted and might have biased the results. Some professions are underrepresented in the interviews. Complex symptoms (e.g. fatigue, ability to concentrate), medical or therapeutic appointments and organization of the everyday live may have been reasons for the patients’ and caregivers’ interviews lasting shorter than initially planned.

The provision of functions of a CCM, might have pre-structured the answers of the participants.

At current, there is no support system for PwsMS, their caregivers and HCSs that addresses their complex and unmet needs comprehensively and continuously. There are rare qualitative insights of the three important stakeholders: PwsMS, caregivers and HCSs in one analysis about a supporting service like a CCM. In response to this gap, we developed and implemented a long-term cross-sectoral advocacy CCM and analyzed it qualitatively. PwsMS, their caregivers and HCSs expressed positive experiences, perceiving the CCM as a source of relief and support that improved care across various aspects of life. For patients, the CCM intervention resulted in enhanced autonomy, reviving of personal wellbeing and new established contacts with HCSs. Caregivers reported a reduced organizational burden and felt better informed, and HCSs experienced primarily temporal relief, allowing them to concentrate on their core professional responsibilities. At a higher level of care, the study suggests that the CCM contributed to a reduction in disintegration within the social and health care system.

The feedback from participants is seen as valuable for adapting the CCM intervention and the CCM manual for follow-up studies, involving further complex patient groups such as neurological long-term diseases apart from MS and tailoring the duration of the intervention depending on the complexity of evolving demands.

Availability of data and materials

Generated and/or analyzed datasets of participants are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request to protect participants. Preliminary partial results have been presented as a poster during the EAPC World Congress in June 2023 and the abstract has been published in the corresponding abstract booklet [ 70 ].

Abbreviations

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Care and case management

Case management

Central nervous system

Communication, Coordination and security for people with multiple sclerosis

Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research

German register for clinical studies

Extended disability status scale

Electronic patient record

Quality of life

Multiple sclerosis

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the patients, caregivers and health care specialists who volunteered their time to participate in an interview and the trial, Carola Janßen for transcribing the interviews, Fiona Brown for translating the illustrative quotes and Beatrix Münzberg, Kerstin Weiß and Monika Höveler for data collection in the quantitative study part.

COCOS-MS Trial Group

Anne Müller 1 , Fabian Hebben 1 , Kim Dillen 1 , Veronika Dunkl 1 , Yasemin Goereci 2 , Raymond Voltz 1,3,4 , Peter Löcherbach 5 , Clemens Warnke 2 , Heidrun Golla 1 , Dirk Müller 6 , Dorthe Hobus 1 , Eckhard Bonmann 7 , Franziska Schwartzkopff 8 , Gereon Nelles 9 , Gundula Palmbach 8 , Herbert Temmes 10 , Isabel Franke 1 , Judith Haas 10 , Julia Strupp 1 , Kathrin Gerbershagen 7 , Laura Becker-Peters 8 , Lothar Burghaus 11 , Martin Hellmich 12 , Martin Paus 8 , Solveig Ungeheuer 1 , Sophia Kochs 1 , Stephanie Stock 6 , Thomas Joist 13 , Volker Limmroth 14

1 Department of Palliative Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

2 Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

3 Center for Integrated Oncology Aachen Bonn Cologne Düsseldorf (CIO ABCD), University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

4 Center for Health Services Research (ZVFK), University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

5 German Society of Care and Case Management e.V. (DGCC), Münster, Germany

6 Institute for Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology (IGKE), Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

7 Department of Neurology, Klinikum Köln, Cologne, Germany

8 Clinical Trials Centre Cologne (CTCC), Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

9 NeuroMed Campus, MedCampus Hohenlind, Cologne, Germany

10 German Multiple Sclerosis Society Federal Association (DMSG), Hannover, Germany

11 Department of Neurology, Heilig Geist-Krankenhaus Köln, Cologne, Germany

12 Institute of Medical Statistics and Computational Biology (IMSB), Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

13 Academic Teaching Practice, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

14 Department of Neurology, Klinikum Köln-Merheim, Cologne, Germany

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This work was supported by the Innovation Funds of the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), grant number: 01VSF19029.

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Anne Müller, Fabian Hebben, Kim Dillen, Veronika Dunkl, Raymond Voltz & Heidrun Golla

Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

Yasemin Goereci & Clemens Warnke

Center for Integrated Oncology Aachen Bonn Cologne Düsseldorf (CIO ABCD), University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

Raymond Voltz

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Anne Müller
, Fabian Hebben
, Kim Dillen
, Veronika Dunkl
, Yasemin Goereci
, Raymond Voltz
, Peter Löcherbach
, Clemens Warnke
, Heidrun Golla
, Dirk Müller
, Dorthe Hobus
, Eckhard Bonmann
, Franziska Schwartzkopff
, Gereon Nelles
, Gundula Palmbach
, Herbert Temmes
, Isabel Franke
, Judith Haas
, Julia Strupp
, Kathrin Gerbershagen
, Laura Becker-Peters
, Lothar Burghaus
, Martin Hellmich
, Martin Paus
, Solveig Ungeheuer
, Sophia Kochs
, Stephanie Stock
, Thomas Joist
& Volker Limmroth

Contributions

HG, KD, CW designed the trial. HG, KD obtained ethical approvals. HG, KD developed the interview guidelines with help of the CCM (SU). AM was responsible for collecting qualitative data, developing the code system, coding, analysis of the data and writing the first draft of the manuscript, thoroughly revised and partly rewritten by HG. FH supported in collecting qualitative data, coding and analysis of the interviews. KD supported in collecting qualitative data. AM, FH, KD, VD, YG, RV, PL, CW, HG discussed and con-solidated the finalized category system. AM, FH, KD, VD, YG, RV, PL, CW, HG read and commented on the manuscript and agreed to the final version.

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Correspondence to Anne Müller .

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Ethics approval and consent to participate.

Participants were provided with oral and written information about the trial and provided written informed consent. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the University of Cologne (#20–1436). The trial is registered in the German Register for Clinical Studies (DRKS) (DRKS00022771) and is conducted under the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Competing interests.

Clemens Warnke has received institutional support from Novartis, Alexion, Sanofi Genzyme, Janssen, Biogen, Merck and Roche. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Müller, A., Hebben, F., Dillen, K. et al. “So at least now I know how to deal with things myself, what I can do if it gets really bad again”—experiences with a long-term cross-sectoral advocacy care and case management for severe multiple sclerosis: a qualitative study. BMC Health Serv Res 24 , 453 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-10851-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-10851-1

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[BCM] Case Study: Executing BIA to Determine Critical Business Functions for a University

[For Internal Use Only] If you read this blog, it is meant to be a case study discussion on executing the business impact analysis for a university such as SMU. This "mock-up" is for a theoretical internal debate and does not represent the university.

Prioritising critical business functions is essential when conducting a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) for a university such as the Singapore Management University (SMU).

These functions ensure core activities like teaching, research, admissions, and examinations can continue with minimal disruption, even during a crisis.

The BIA should assess the impact on in-person activities and online delivery methods, crucial in Singapore's emphasis on educational continuity. Beyond core functions, the BIA must consider critical support functions like financial management, human resources, and IT infrastructure.

Analysing these critical areas and potential vulnerabilities can inform SMU's BIA and a robust business continuity management plan.

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Case study: critical business functions for singapore management university (smu) in a business impact analysis, conducting your business impact analysis.

If you are reading this blog, it is meant to be a case study discussion on executing the business impact analysis for SMU. This is a "mock-up" for a theoretical discussion and does not represent the university.

Case Study: Executing BIA to Determine Critical Business Functions for SMU

When conducting a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) for Singapore Management University (SMU), here are some critical business functions to consider:

Core (or Critical Business) Functions

Teaching & learning (including online delivery).

This encompasses all activities related to delivering education to students, including lectures, tutorials, seminars, and examinations. SMU's emphasis on online learning platforms makes this function even more critical during disruptions.

Research & Scholarship

Research is a core function of SMU. The BIA should assess the impact of disruptions on ongoing research projects, data access, and collaboration among researchers.

Examinations & Assessments

Maintaining the integrity of the assessment process is crucial. The BIA should evaluate how disruptions might impact exam delivery, grading, and record-keeping.

Student Admissions & Registration

Ensuring a smooth admissions process and student registration is vital for SMU's operations. The BIA should assess the impact of disruptions on application processing, enrollment, and orientation activities.

Essential Support Functions

Financial management (payroll, accounts payable/receivable).

Disruptions should not hinder essential financial operations like payroll, bill payments, and tuition collection.

Human Resources Management

Managing HR functions like payroll, benefits administration, and employee communication during disruptions is critical.

IT Infrastructure & Services (including data security)

A functional IT infrastructure is essential for online learning, research activities, and administrative processes. Data security measures need to be robust to withstand cyberattacks.

Essential Services (security, utilities)

The uninterrupted functioning of security services, utilities like electricity and water, and building maintenance are crucial for a safe and operational campus environment.

Additional Functions Specific to SMU

Library services (access to critical research materials).

Access to library resources, both physical and digital, is essential for research and learning. The BIA should assess how disruptions might impact access to these resources.

International Student Support Services

SMU has a sizeable international student population. The BIA should consider the unique needs of these students during disruptions, such as visa issues or travel restrictions.

Research Ethics & Compliance

Maintaining research ethics and regulatory compliance are crucial for SMU. The BIA should evaluate how disruptions might impact research protocols and data security.

Technology Transfer & Commercialization

SMU might be involved in technology transfer and commercialization activities. The BIA should assess the impact of disruptions on these processes.

Alumni Relations & Career Services

Maintaining solid alumni relations and career services is vital for SMU's reputation and student success. The BIA should consider how disruptions might impact these areas.

Summing Up ...

By thoroughly analysing these critical business functions and their potential vulnerabilities, SMU can develop a robust BIA that informs its business continuity management (BCM) plan.

This plan ensures that SMU can effectively respond to disruptive events, minimise downtime, and continue its core educational and research missions.

Find out more about BCM-300 [B-3] and BCM-5000 [B-5]

More information about bcm courses.

They are the BCM-300 Business Continuity Management Implementer [B-3] and the BCM-5000 Business Continuity Management Expert Implementer [B-5] .

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The case for compliance as a competitive advantage for banks

Consider this short tale of two banks: Acme Bank’s top-notch compliance function kept the bank within its risk appetite, but the bank did not perform well. Its strategy team blamed compliance for slow growth, weak market share, and failed digital initiatives. At Apex Bank, the strategy team bypassed compliance to release new products quickly, expand into new customer segments, and ramp up acquisitions, all while keeping costs low. Soon, though, its main regulator brought a significant enforcement action. The stock price fell, key employees quit, the bank had to exit several important businesses, and compliance costs skyrocketed.

While these descriptions are caricatures, they’re not far from reality. Strategy and compliance often operate as antagonists or as ships passing in the night. This is a missed opportunity. Done well, communication and collaboration between the two parties can create competitive advantage. The stakes are particularly high now: technology offers promise, but new risks are rising on uncertain economic and geopolitical landscapes.

This article explains the benefits available when compliance and strategy leaders work together, the quick wins that are possible, and the structural solutions that can sustain and scale the change. In this article, we use the word “strategy” as a metonym for the broader set of decision makers (not just the strategy organization) who influence and shape banks’ strategic direction; these include business unit leaders, leaders in marketing and sales organizations, and product managers.

Finding competitive advantage

Banks’ compliance functions have typically focused on defense: preventing violations of policy, rules, regulation, and laws. The more complicated the regulatory, business, and technological environment, the more complex the defense.

But in complex environments, collaboration with the business can deliver greater strategic value . In our experience, five objectives that define strategic posture are ripe for collaboration: differentiating client experience, investing in fast-evolving areas, securing resilience against geopolitical disruptions, improving productivity, and acquiring programmatically. In each, when compliance and business stakeholders responsible for strategic decisions work side by side, institutions benefit by protecting against the downside, capturing more of the upside, or both (exhibit) .

In working with banks around the world, we have seen examples of compliance and strategy collaborating on these five objectives, with varying degrees of success. Here we describe how the successful collaborations were achieved for each objective.

Differentiated client experience

In the increasingly digital world, customer experience is king , and products and services are scrutinized in the court of public opinion—online ratings and social media. Already in 2018, of the 50 largest global banks, three out of four were publicly pledging to initiate some form of customer-experience transformation . We have seen banks’ customer-experience transformations boost the lifetime profitability of satisfied customers—those willing to recommend the bank to friends—to levels five to eight times those of customers with a negative perception.

Banks need processes that deliver a good customer experience in the moment, treat customers fairly, protect against fraud, and comply with laws and other regulations. Poorly designed compliance processes can compromise the experience, but insufficient checks can open the door to fraud or other abuses. Deep collaboration by compliance and business teams can capture opportunities as well as protect the downside.

Poorly designed compliance processes can compromise the experience, but insufficient checks can open the door to fraud or other abuses. Deep collaboration by compliance and business teams can capture opportunities as well as protect the downside.

For example, in retail banking and payments, some consumers have negative experiences with identity verification; it can be confusing and take a long time. Frustrated consumers may even walk away from their bank. Strategy teams with expertise in identifying customer needs, meeting those needs, and differentiating value propositions by bringing together viewpoints from across the organization can work with compliance teams to identify the most critical needs and embed compliance requirements seamlessly into customer journeys.

In institutional banking, some customers experience similar frustrations from the intense and sometimes overlapping queries for information aimed at meeting the complex know-your-customer (KYC) requirements straddling jurisdictions. Certain KYC queries may add operational cost and could even deter large multinational clients from starting new banking relationships. Closer collaboration between compliance and strategy teams helps banks simplify the process in a client-centric and risk-informed way. Our research has found 10 to 30 percent improvement in customer satisfaction scores and 20 to 40 percent reductions of administrative touchpoints.

Compliance and strategy teams can also work together on continual improvement. Customer complaints can indicate compliance issues—for example, problematic sales practices—but also opportunities to improve customer experience. Thus, input on customer experience can serve as an early warning about possible compliance issues.

How to start

Compliance and business operations can together initiate a review of priority client-facing processes. The effort may identify opportunities for improving user experience through simplification or rationalization of controls—for example, by removing redundant or overlapping controls.

Banks that aspire to offer a standout client experience typically form cross-functional teams focused on rapid, agile execution. Practically, this would involve including compliance experts in the core of the agile approach and team configuration from the start. For processes related to customer onboarding, teams can include experts in compliance, technology, operations, strategy, and other functions. This equips the team to incorporate guidance on compliance requirements in the most client-friendly way.

One North American institution created a task force of senior banking executives, including the chief compliance officer, to design a smooth customer onboarding process across its capital markets businesses. The team first established clarity around regulatory requirements and then reengineered customer journeys and built a consistent experience across regions. The resulting process minimized requests for client information and decreased the risk of inconsistencies and conflicts in client data.

Investment in fast-evolving areas

Growth into adjacent or secondary industries offers financial services institutions strong opportunity, yet some of the most alluring domains are fraught with uncertainty related to compliance. 1 Our recent research finds that in financial services, 35 percent of growth comes from secondary industries or expansion into new ones. Companies that grow into adjacent industries generated, on average, an extra 1.5 percentage points per year of shareholder returns above their industry peers. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/managing-a-customer-experience-transformation-in-banking This is especially true of areas in which some combination of technology, products and services, business dynamics, and customer expectations are evolving quicky. Strategists weigh the opportunity from potential investments against costs of competition or regulation. Compliance can shape ideas for coping with the regulatory uncertainty and suggest implications for various investment options.

New business opportunities linked to data and analytics exemplify an area that shows promise but presents new and sometimes uncertain compliance expectations. Some institutions are considering investing in or partnering with data and analytics players that provide credit decisioning tools. When decisions about credit extension are informed by or fully based on AI algorithms, banks will need to demonstrate the fairness of such decisions and their compliance with customer protection rules. Compliance teams can inform assessments of these requirements, such as required investments in controls and the AI talent required to interpret algorithms’ output.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) offerings are another area of potential opportunity for collaboration. Institutions that aspire to bring attractive ESG offerings to market need well-designed processes for product creation and maintenance. Basic criteria include factors (and underlying data) used to construct ESG investment products that are transparent and reflective of the investment objectives described in the prospectuses. Strategy teams play a key role in defining ESG product initiatives based on market dynamics and client needs. Compliance teams working with strategy teams can provide insights on alignment of ESG factors with the declared investment objectives and regulatory guidance, as well as the processes for monitoring product performance and informing customers.

Compliance and strategy could collaborate to articulate the largest regulatory risks associated with products or segments that are new to the industry, growing in importance, or being considered as a new focus. Examples could include analytics or digital payments.

Compliance officers could regularly share with colleagues the latest regulatory developments in this space, including potential implications for a bank’s planned investment actions, if relevant. In addition, banks should consider explicitly designating compliance team members who will be on point to provide strategically informed compliance insights on fast-evolving areas that the institution has prioritized for potential investment. These people would have the dual mandate of being compliance officers while advising strategists in areas where the bank is exploring the potential for growth or an inorganic investment thesis. Banks can even consider forming a small compliance advisory team to provide such input as needed in areas of strategic significance. This team might sit either within the strategy or compliance functions, with a dotted-line relationship to the other group.

Resilience against geopolitical disruption

For global institutions, geopolitical forces up the ante, particularly when laws or regulations shift quickly in response to countries’ foreign-policy stances. Institutions with an international footprint have complicated links between countries. Rarely can such organizations disconnect rapidly from any given country, not least because of compliance requirements. The strategy function may lack routines for systematically analyzing and understanding geopolitical scenarios.

For example, companies doing business in Russia or with Russian entities when it invaded Ukraine in early 2022 had to quickly translate the implications of the sanctions that many other countries imposed on Russia. Predefined playbooks for handling similar geopolitical shocks would accelerate response and reduce the probability of any outsize operational losses or regulatory fines that might create opportunities in the defensive quadrant of the values matrix.

Given recent geopolitical shifts, strategy teams may be well advised to start building a planning capacity, with compliance teams included. Those engaged with strategy at the senior level, with participation from the senior level of the compliance function, can systematically develop and analyze a set of geopolitical scenarios. For example, scenarios might include imposition of sanctions or quickly exiting a country.

Improved productivity

Collaboration to improve process productivity delivers impact primarily on the value capture axis of the matrix. For example, the compliance team can suggest the productivity initiatives (e.g., streamlining compliance controls, suggesting process simplification ideas based on compliance risk assessments) that could lead to significant impact on margin or revenue growth, given that prioritization of productivity initiatives is key for value capture.

When strategy teams design operational productivity programs, they balance effectiveness and efficiency levers across thousands of individual processes. Compliance organizations are uniquely positioned to support these efforts based on their observation of issues and challenges across the organization. In addition, the compliance team can help structure companywide communication flows on process and control streamlining opportunities. For example, they may have data and insights from security breaches, fraud, suspicious activity, and anti-money-laundering (AML) flags, as well as insights from control testing. These insights can inform where to eliminate, establish, or maintain manual checks; eliminate overlaps in the scope of reviews; or reengineer processes more holistically.

At the start of any productivity improvement effort, banks have an opportunity to include compliance as part of the core team. Similarly, when deploying the agile approach to identify opportunities, compliance officers can be core to the team structure from the start. This collaboration enables the team to review prioritized processes for opportunities to streamline compliance risk assessments and identified overlapping controls.

As the productivity program establishes baselines—for example, collecting data to prioritize the highest-impact products, businesses, and processes to start with—compliance experts can help with specifying data types and inputs needed, especially in areas such as control performance, key risk indicators, or customer complaint themes. For prioritizing productivity initiatives, compliance experts can contribute insights related to control testing or compliance risk assessment.

Stronger programmatic M&A

The compliance team can also help the strategy and M&A teams generate differentiated insights on mergers and acquisitions. In particular, collaboration can help strengthen programmatic M&A strategies , which generate excess returns relative to peers because serial acquirers tend to grow faster and more profitably. 2 Among companies with revenue CAGR over 5 percent, our research has shown, those with programmatic M&A strategies generate shareholder returns 3.5 percentage points higher than for those growing organically.

Collaboration on acquisition-related themes enables both offensive and optimizing strategies. Organizations can generate differentiated insights for upside capture, such as compliance criteria integrated in M&A sourcing filters. They also can pursue the dual benefits of upside capture and downside protection, such as collaboration on postmerger decisioning and planning.

Successful execution requires strong M&A capabilities, and the compliance function has a key role to play in each capability, including M&A sourcing, due diligence, and integration planning and execution. To enable programmatic M&A, compliance can help design filtering criteria so target identification excludes companies with suspicious clients or that operate in jurisdictions with weak regulatory infrastructure. Strategy and compliance teams should also collaborate to ensure the filters stay calibrated to existing market conditions.

Collaboration on due diligence can include pressure-testing strategic and financial assumptions linked to compliance. Key questions to consider for accurate valuation and assessment of targets’ business models are whether the market sizing assumes no new restrictive regulation of the target’s core product and what it will cost to bring a target’s financial-crime controls in line with those of the acquiring bank.

During postmerger integration and planning, the compliance team can be a partner in deciding the nature and level of integration. In our experience, companies do make compliance part of premerger planning but frequently as a stand-alone workstream. However, the maturity of a target’s control infrastructure often has direct bearing on the right approach to business, process, and system integration. For example, limited control infrastructure and a history of regulatory relationship challenges may prompt the organization to pursue greater integration across functions in order to migrate the target’s businesses to the acquirer’s more controlled and mature environment.

Consider integrating the compliance team into the entire M&A deal workflow. Bringing compliance into the M&A deal workflow can be a simple change. For example, compliance officers can become permanent members of the deal team across the full deal life cycle, including deal identification (refining investment filters with compliance factors), due diligence (leading compliance-specific deep dives), and integration (using control performance to generate insights on the integration strategy).

Structural solutions to sustain and amplify collaboration impact

Walk a day in my shoes.

Strategists and compliance officers have not been natural bedfellows. Strategists may not fully grasp compliance-related risks, while compliance officers may not understand in detail competitor moves or friction that spurs clients to reduce their business. But in the world that lies ahead, mutual understanding will likely be foundational for gaining a competitive edge.

Life as a compliance officer

The compliance role has grown as regulatory frameworks and compliance requirements proliferate. Since 2010, more rules have been issued by the four regulatory agencies (Federal Reserve, OCC, FDIC and CFPB) than in the entire period since the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to 2010. Compliance officers must translate every new requirement into digestible obligations, alter policies and procedures accordingly (often individually for each product, business, and geography), and help the business side understand these obligations in the context of their processes. Failure to do so can result in large fines to the company, restrictions on business, and even liability of individuals including senior executives and board members.

Compliance officers view their core mission as protectors, so the business’s goals of serving clients better, growing, or improving productivity can easily be perceived as resistance to the compliance function’s mission.

Life as a strategist

Unaddressed market forces continually deplete profits , so strategists try to create and capture economic and social value sustainably in the face of uncertainty. As the pace of innovation and disruption accelerates, strategists’ role becomes ever more intense. They rely on insights into key driving factors to formulate powerful strategy, deep interpersonal engagement and debate from senior executives, and a mutual understanding that the business is prepared and willing to act on a strategy once adopted.

While strategists could benefit greatly from the insights supplied by the compliance function, they often struggle to see past the technical language of rules and regulations. They will likely be better able to appreciate the larger meaning behind compliance if they have information synthesized into terms they can apply to their process of strategy formulation.

Three main obstacles tend to hinder systematic collaboration between compliance and business. First, the compliance function is sometimes seen as lacking full understanding of the business, so the idea of collaboratively finding creative solutions never arises (see sidebar, “Walk a day in my shoes”). Second, the operating model, organizational structure, and talent often are not set up to support meaningful engagement that would allow working together. Third, processes and technology generally have not been designed to unlock and sustain such collaboration. Acting systematically in these three areas, banks can sustain and magnify the impact of the initial actions previously described.

Culture of collaboration

Culture is a key determinant of shifts in the collaboration model, but it is arguably the hardest structural dimension to change in a sustainable way. Banks can prepare the ground for larger change by introducing microhabits that start with understanding each other’s vantage point. As with many other aspects of cultural change, building such understanding is a top-down process. Two microhabits are essentials for cultivating mutual understanding:

The right tone from the top . Senior executives, including heads of the business and functional leadership, should be fully aligned on the principle behind the operating model and reinforce its importance in their communications, decisions, and actions.
Collaboration at the C-level . An alliance between the chief compliance officer and the chief strategy officer enable their teams to meet the goals of collaboration. Without the chemistry and meeting of minds at the top, simple process interventions won’t deliver meaningful results.

Talent and operating model

Meeting the need for compliance talent skilled in collaboration and strategy requires the right approach to recruiting and upskilling (such as learning pathways and job rotations). From the recruiting perspective, compliance functions may need to reassess their usual criteria for senior compliance hires, such as a legal background, in favor of more diversification and cross-pollination on the team. Recruitment of compliance leaders should leverage the full diversity of the risk and compliance professionals in the industry. Our recent research indicates that 90 percent of the risk and compliance professionals in our data set did not start in risk roles.

In addition, given that value creation primarily happens within business units, compliance and strategy activities should reflect the needs of business units. Strategy and compliance teams can explicitly align on how to jointly serve relevant business units where needed. Such upfront alignment can then be translated into tactics for collaboration.

Underlying technology

More modular and integrated tech and data infrastructure can enable connectivity between the strategy and compliance systems. More specifically, investments in workflow capabilities would allow both compliance and strategy counterparts to collaborate in real time, assign tasks to each other, and leverage common data sources. Ideally, such systems are capable of ingesting compliance-related input such as data regarding future regulatory scenarios, the potential impact of geopolitical events, and the impact of control failures on M&A integration. The systems then can incorporate this knowledge into major scenario-planning or business valuation tools.

For example, a bank may design a platform for risk assessments where strategy and compliance have access to the same modules and analyses. Such a platform would source the data from business unit systems and allow the compliance officers to see the compliance assessments carried out in real time. This would have an additional benefit: minimizing the time spent on low-value tasks (reconciling data or replicating the analyses, for example). Instead, the teams could focus on jointly prioritizing key risks and on collaborating to select and implement mitigating actions.

Banks have a strong opportunity to realize impact through collaboration between their compliance and business strategists. Quick wins are possible, but banks wanting to unlock the full potential of such collaboration must consider how to build systems, processes, and foundational capabilities that will enable them to scale up their collaboration.

Irakli Gabruashvili is an associate partner in McKinsey’s New York office, where Ishaan Seth is a senior partner; Olivia White is a senior partner in the Bay Area office; and Alexis Yumeng Yang is a consultant in the Seattle office.

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Case Study: How Aggressively Should a Bank Pursue AI?

Thomas H. Davenport
George Westerman

A Malaysia-based CEO weighs the risks and potential benefits of turning a traditional bank into an AI-first institution.

Siti Rahman, the CEO of Malaysia-based NVF Bank, faces a pivotal decision. Her head of AI innovation, a recent recruit from Google, has a bold plan. It requires a substantial investment but aims to transform the traditional bank into an AI-first institution, substantially reducing head count and the number of branches. The bank’s CFO worries they are chasing the next hype cycle and cautions against valuing efficiency above all else. Siti must weigh the bank’s mixed history with AI, the resistance to losing the human touch in banking services, and the risks of falling behind in technology against the need for a prudent, incremental approach to innovation.

Two experts offer advice: Noemie Ellezam-Danielo, the chief digital and AI strategy at Société Générale, and Sastry Durvasula, the chief information and client services officer at TIAA.

Siti Rahman, the CEO of Malaysia-headquartered NVF Bank, hurried through the corridors of the university’s computer engineering department. She had directed her driver to the wrong building—thinking of her usual talent-recruitment appearances in the finance department—and now she was running late. As she approached the room, she could hear her head of AI innovation, Michael Lim, who had joined NVF from Google 18 months earlier, breaking the ice with the students. “You know, NVF used to stand for Never Very Fast,” he said to a few giggles. “But the bank is crawling into the 21st century.”

Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a visiting scholar at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s AI practice. He is a coauthor of All-in on AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023).
George Westerman is a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and a coauthor of Leading Digital (HBR Press, 2014).

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Controlling is the management function in which performance is measured and corrective action is taken to ensure the accomplishment of organizational goals. It is the policing operation in management, although the manager seeks to create a positive climate so that the process of control is accepted as part of routine activity.
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Functions of Management
The four functions of management are derived from the five functions described by Henri Fayol in the early 20th century (planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling).
Functions of Management: Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing
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“So at least now I know how to deal with things myself, what I can do if it gets really bad again”—experiences with a long-term cross-sectoral advocacy care and case management for severe multiple sclerosis: a qualitative study

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