In other words, the management is the process of coordinating the resources of an organization to achieve the primary organizational goals.

MAIN RESOURCES

Managers are concerned with the following main resources:

Material Human Financial Informational Organizational

resources resources resources resources goals

1 2 3 4

1. Material resources are physical materials and equipment used by an organization to make a product. For example, cars are made on assembly lines. These assembly lines and the buildings that house them are material resources.

2. The most important resources of any organization are its human resources – people. Some firms believe that their employees are their most important assets. To keep employees content, a variety of incentives are used, including higher-that-average pay, flexible working hours, recreational facilities, lengthy paid vacations, cafeterias offering inexpensive meals, etc.

3. Financial resources are the funds the organization uses to meet its obligations to various creditors. A grocery store obtains money from customers and uses a portion of that money to pay the wholesalers from which it buys food. A large bank borrows and lends money. A college obtains money in the form of tuition, income from its endowments, and federal grants. It uses the money to pay utility bills, insurance premiums, and professors’ salaries. Each of these transactions involves financial resources.

4. Finally, many organizations increasingly find they cannot ignore information. External environment – including economy, consumer markets, technology, politics, and cultural forces – are all changing so rapidly that an organization that does not adapt will probably not survive. And, to adapt to change, the organization must know what is changing and how it is changing. Companies are finding it is increasingly important to gather information about their competitors in today’s business environment.

It is important to realize that these are only general categories or resources. Within each category are hundreds or thousands of more specific resources, from which management must choose those that can best accomplish its goals. Managers must coordinate this complex group of specific resources to produce goods and services.

Answer the questions.

1. What can you say about management in general?

2. Why does a large organization employ many managers?

3. What is important to an organization?

4. Does the ability to achieve organizational goals require a great skill?

5. What can you say about management as a process?

6. What main resources are managers concerned with?

7. What incentives are used to keep employees content? Why?

8. How does an organization obtain financial resources? Give some examples.

9. Is external environment including the economy, consumer markets etc. changing rapidly?

10. What must an organization do to survive?

MANAGEMENT SKILLS

VOCABULARY

Effectiveness of a manager’s activity depends on certain important skills. These skills can be divided into seven different categories: conceptual, decision making, analytic, administrative, communicational, interpersonal and technical.

1. A conceptual skill is the ability of a manager to see the “general picture” of an organization. Managers must understand how their duties and the duties of other managers fit together to plan their activity in a proper way and get the required results. This skill is very important for top managers because it helps them to plan “super goals” and to develop proper strategies for the whole organization.

2. A decision-making skill is the ability of a manager to choose the best course of actions of two or more alternatives. A manager must decide the following:

What objectives and goals must be reached?

What strategy must be implemented?

What resources must be used and how they must be distributed?

What kind of control is needed?

In short, managers are responsible for the most important decisions which are required to carry out for any organizational activity.

3. An analytical skill is the ability to determine the most important problem of many other problems and identify the causes of each problem before implementing a proper action plan. This ability is especially important for top managers because they have to solve complex problems.

4. An administrative skill is the ability of a manager to keep to the organizational rules specified for the production process, within a limited budget, and coordinate the flow of information and paper work in his group and in other groups.

5. A communicational skill is the ability of manager to share his ideas and options with other people both orally and in writing. This skill is a decisive factor of a manager’s success. Some investigations show that top managers and middle managers spend approximately 80 % (percent) of their work time in communicating with each other.

Thus, a communication skill enables managers to hold meetings, write clear letters and explanatory notes, make reports, etc.

6. An interpersonal skill (psychological skill) is the ability to deal effectively with other people both inside and outside the organization. It is the ability to understand the needs and motives of other people. This skill is very important for a good psychological atmosphere for successful activity in the common work in future. If the interpersonal relations are good, a manager will be successful in getting support in the development and implementation of organizational plans.

7. A technical skill is a specific competence to accomplish a task. The lower is a manager’s level in the organization, the closer is his/her connection with the production process. Thus first-line managers have the closest connection with the production process. They need high technical skills to provide technical guidance for the subordinates. Top managers don’t need these skills as much as first-line managers but the knowledge of the technical sphere is useful for all the managers.

Тексты для самостоятельной работы

специальность Бухучет, ГМУ, Мен, ЭУС

II семестр

TYPES OF BUSINESS IN THE UK

Active vocabulary

Most businesses in the United Kingdom operate in one of the following ways:

• sole trader

• partnership

• corporation

The sole trader is the oldest form of business. There are many one-man owners, for example: a farmer, doctor, solicitor, estate agent, garage man, jobber, builder, hairdresser etc.

A sole trader is a person who owns his or her business. He runs the business alone, although he may employ many people to work for him in the business.

The profits of the business belong to the sole trader, but then so also do all the debts. If the business fails, the creditors have a claim against the sole trader’s personal possessions (house, car, etc.).

The ability to raise capital is limited. Often a sole trader will need a loan from the bank to start up the business. If the loan is substantial, the bank will often require the loan to be secured – the sole trader has to mortgage his or her property, to ensure that the loan is repaid in the event of the business failing. Other creditors may not be so lucky!

A partnership, otherwise known as a firm, is formed when two or more people get together with a view to making a profit. Although no formalities are required for a partnership deed is often drawn up to cover the rights and responsibilities of partners during the term of the partnership also on its dissolution. If there is no deed, the Partnership Act 1890 governs the legal relations between the partners, e.g. how the profits are to be shared. It also says that the partnership is dissolved when one partner leaves.

As in the case of the sole trader, the profits belong to the partners but so do the debts – the partners are said to be “jointly and severally liable”, which means that each partner is responsible for the whole of the firm’s debts. Again, their own personal property can be seized by creditors to pay for the debts if the business fails.

The scope to raise capital is greater than in the case of a sole trader, simply because there is more than one person contributing to the business capital. Lending institutions will still require loans to be secured if they are of a certain amount. However, there is more likely to be property owned by the firm which can be used for this purpose rather than partners mortgaging their own houses.

If the firm owns property, for example factory premises, the deeds to the property will be in the names of the partners, because the firm is not regarded in law as a separate legal entity (contrast this with corporations).

A corporation is a legal person, regarded by the law as a separate entity, “some association of members, the shares of which are transferable”. The most important characteristic of it is a corporation’s separate legal identity.