MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS AND BEHAVIOUR

1.0 INTRODUCTION

There is no human endeavour that does not require proper management to make room for proper functioning. All types of organisations (whether profit making or non-profit making), government establishments, business enterprises, hospitals, cooperatives, churches, require good management to function effectively. Management is one of the most important human activities that permeate all organisations. Whenever people work together for the
attainment of a predetermined objective, there is a need for management that is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the aims and objectives of the organisation are realised. It is the manager's responsibility to ensure that every member of the group contributes his/her best. To get people to put in their best, the manager has to understand people, their emotional, physical and intellectual needs. He has to appreciate that each member of the group has his own personal needs and aspirations and that these are influenced by such factors as ethnic, social, political, economic and the technological environment which he is part of.

Not all people can manage effectively or aspire to management position. Whenever people work together, there is generally a need for the co-ordination of efforts in order to attain expected results in reasonable time, and with minimum amount of money, discomfort or energy. All people who oversee the function of other people who must work in subordinate position are managers. Managers are people who are primarily responsible for the achievement of organisational goals. Any organisation that fails to realise its objective often blames it on management. In those enterprises that the stock-holders feel that they do not attain their objectives, there is a tendency to blame it on those responsible for piloting the affairs of the organisation management. Thus, management is often accused of lack of initiative; ineptitude, misconduct or are said to be unqualified and are called upon to resign. The manager is the individual to provide the dynamic force or direction. He is the person in charge or expected to attain results.

The manager does not spend all his time managing. He is like a football coach. He does not play the game but directs the players on how to play. Like a vice chancellor of a university, he does not have to teach in the classroom but must plan admission, develop committees, represent the university, have budgets and reports prepared and ensure that students are properly housed. A manager that fails to achieve the objectives as expected, is either dismissed or asked to resign. In large organisations, such as the civil service or government corporation, there are often many instances of dismissals, transfers, demotions and promotions. A manager is expected to possess special talents or abilities, quite different from non-managers. In all countries, management has emerged as a leading group in our economic society. They are a class by themselves, distinct from ownership and labour. According to Peter Drucker, "rarely, if ever, has a new basic institution; or new lending group, a new central function, emerged as fast as has management since the turn of the century.”

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2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

define Management as a concept
differentiate between Management as an art and as science
state the concepts, principles and theories of management
describe the universality of management and management as a system
discuss organisational goals and objectives.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

What are the major functions of management? Illustrate your answer with examples.

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Meaning of Management

Different meanings have been attributed to the word "management". Some people see it as referring to a group of people. They think of a management team or a group of individuals in an organisation. Management is also seen as a process demanding the performance of a specific function. Here management is a profession. To a student, management is an academic discipline. In this instance, people study the art of managing or management science. According to the American Institute of Management:

It is used to designate either a group of functions or the personnel who carry them out; to describe either an organisation's official hierarchy or the activities of men who compose it: to provide antonym to either labour or ownership.
Management is defined as "getting things done through others". It can be more scientifically defined as the co-ordination of all the resources of an organisation through the process of planning, organising, directing, and controlling in order to attain organisational objectives. Management is the guidance or direction of people towards organisational goals or objectives. It can also be seen as the supervising, controlling and co-coordinating of activity to attain optimum results with organisational resources

3.1.1 Management as Art

According to C.C. Nwachukwu (1992:4): Art is the imposition of a pattern, a vision of a whole, on many disparate parts so as to create a representation of that vision; art is an imposition of order on chaos. The artist has to have not only the vision that he or she wants to communicate, but also skills or craft with which to present the vision. This process entails choosing the correct art form, the correct techniques. In good art, the result is a blending of vision and craft that involves the
viewer, reader, or listener without requiring that he separates the parts, in order to appreciate the whole.

Art requires technical skill, and conceptual ability. An artist must possess the know-how in order to create a desired object. To be a successful or creative artist, one has to understand the fundamental principles governing it. In the same manner, to be a successful manager, or top flight executive, one has to master the art of managing. When one sees management as an art, one thinks of creative ability and special aptitude to design or effect a desired result.

There are special areas of management that are not subject to the rigours of science. The manager, as a result, has to depend on past experience and judgement instead of depending on any testable technical knowledge as is the case in engineering, physics or survey. In special areas as human behaviour, instances abound where the manager will rely on experience collected over the years through practical experience. The application of this knowledge to individual situation is seen as an art - for the acquisition is not subject to the rigours of science.

3.1.2 Management as Science

Frederick W. Taylor is known as the father of scientific management. This title he earned by his pioneering efforts in taking exception to the traditional approach to management that tends to depend on intuition; past experiences or hunches. Scientific management uses the methods of science in making decisions and evaluating its consequences. Science attempts through systematic procedure to establish the relationships between variables and the underlying principles. Management is science, when it employs systematic procedure or scientific methods to obtain complete information about a problem under consideration; and the solution is subjected to rigorous control procedures to ensure the correctness and establish validity.
It must be observed that the two are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. A good manager must know the concepts and principles of management (management science) and also how to apply them in unique situations. A successful manager blends experience with science in order to achieve a desired result. One decision could involve both science and art in order to attain total result desired. The ability to use both judiciously makes for a successful manager.

3.2 Principles of Management

Principles are best seen as fundamental or general truth on which other truths depend. This implies a dependent and independent relationship. It could be descriptive, prescriptive or normative. Thus, a principle describes a relationship or what should be done if something else happens.

It is often difficult to formulate principles in management because of the difficulty in conducting controlled experiments. One of the most important variables – people, is not easy to control. Most of the principles of management in use today were developed by observation and deduction. This is because management principles are subject to change and interpretation than are the laws in the physical sciences. One of the principles of management - unity of command, states that each subordinate should be accountable to one, and only one superior. Sometimes this principle is violated, especially, when an organisation has established, well-defined superior – subordinate relationships. There is a need for principles of management. It helps to increase efficiency since the manager uses established guidelines to help solve his everyday problems.
Principles of management help in subordinate development. Without these principles, development will depend on trial and error. A course in management development stresses the time tested principles formulated over the years by experience and experimentation. Fayol, after more than 40 years of practical business experience, drew up his principles of management. The same is true of Taylor, Chester Barnard and Alvin Brown. Without principles, the understanding and development of management will be an arduous task.

One of the most important impacts of principles is that it has helped to promote research in management. Management is not 'an exact science; it deals with people whose behaviour is unpredictable and complex. Research is often difficult without some established principles. Most researches in management deal with tested facts to establish validity and reliability.

3.3 Concept and Theory of Management

Concepts are abstractions formed from generalisations .Concepts are the cornerstone for the development of principles and theory. In reality, a concept is a commonly agreed upon definition of an object, event or process. The importance of concept can be illustrated by the fact that unless a concept is very clear to those who must use them, knowledge cannot be effectively transferred to another person. The same word must mean the same thing to all people. The words "management" and "organisation" are typical examples. They do not appear to imply the same phenomena among various persons.
A scholarly grouping of concepts and principles creates a theory. A theory presents a framework of principles and concepts for the clarification of a theory. A theory presents in a formal manner interrelated principles. Thus, the theory of management is the synthesis of the concepts and principles of management. We have, as a result of this systematic synthesis, many theories – organisation theory, theories of leadership, theories X and Y, Graicunas theory and the like. Management theory attempts to present in a concerted manner loose facts about human behaviour in organisation.

3.4 Management as a System

The system approach to management encourages management to perceive the internal and external environmental factors as an integrated whole. As a result of this system’s concept, the manager views the physical, human, environmental and psychological facets of the job as linking to form an integrated whole. An example of a system is the motor car. The parts are assembled in a manner to produce a unified whole. Every system is made up of subsystems. For the system to function effectively, the subsystems must function effectively. In a general sense, the human being is a complex system made up of sub-systems such as the circulatory system, the auditory system and so on. These sub-systems are inter-dependent. When any of them fails to function effectively, the entire system experiences a severe setback.

The system’s concept is often used in business to highlight the interrelationship between the functional areas of management. These functional areas such as production, marketing, finance, procurement and personnel could be seen as the subsystems. These functions must be properly coordinated for the enterprise to attain its desired objectives. The function of the manager has to do with managing the system. He is to create and define the objective of each sub-system and integrate the subsystems. The success of a manager goes beyond the "effective" management of any of the functional areas – (finance, marketing, or production). He must not only strive to achieve the objectives of each of the functional areas, but also attain integrated balanced company objectives. Failure to recognise this fact can make each system pull in the opposite direction and a common objective may not be attained.

The interrelationship in a system can be demonstrated by a simple illustration. For the sales department to meet delivery dates promised to customers, it has to rely on the production target, the purchases department must order enough raw materials. For the purchases department to order enough raw materials, the accounts department must make enough money available - in time for the order to be placed and received on schedule.

The success of any system depends on the relationship between the system and its sub-systems. In a business organisation, factors such as goal clarity authority relationships and the structuring of the sub-systems could affect the performance of the entire system. The systems approach to management recognises that management system is a complex formal system organised to functional effectively and efficiently to achieve a desired goal. Where the system does not function as expected as a result of poor communication, personality clashes, poor or lack of goal congruency, the entire organisation suffers.

3.5 Universality of Management

Management function is identical in all formal organisations - whether it is a profit-making organisation or a non-profit-making organisation. All people who occupy management positions perform the same type of functions. They plan, organise, staff, direct and control. They get things done through and with subordinates. Their principal responsibility is to achieve organisational objectives through group efforts.

The concept of the universality of management implies that all managers, irrespective of their position in the organisational hierarchy, perform (at one time or the other) identical functions. The concept also connotes that management know-how is transferable from one organisation to another. Managers seldom perform the actual activities themselves. Their functions are managerial, not technical.

What managers do in organisations are the same:

Managers make decisions
Managers focus on objectives
Managers plan and set policies
They organise
They communicate with subordinates, colleagues and superiors
They direct and supervise by securing actual performance from subordinates

7. They control organisational activities.

It is as a result of all these multiple functions that management has grown into a big profession. The professional manager, who occupies an important position in the organisation, thinks about the corporation and its health and growth. The chief executive is, for example, a professional manager who owes no allegiance to a function or specialty, for his function is to guide and direct the company as an integrated unit - not in managing its separate parts.

3.6 Organisational Goals/Objectives

All organisations are purposive. They are established to accomplish an objective. Individuals in an organisation work in order to help accomplish these objectives. These individuals wish to accomplish their own goals through the organisation. When the goals of the individual and the goals of the organisations are the same, we have goal congruency. An organisation’s goal can be implicit and require explicit formulation before they can be realised. Goals can be differentiated between official and operative goals. Official goals are mainly for “public consumption”, while operative goals are those that are, in fact, pursued by the organisation and this influences its operation. It could be the official goal of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to protect the environment while the company dumps pollutants into rivers, streams and lakes. Here the official goal reflects societal expectations from it. In some instances, the official goal and operative goals could be the same and only differ by the degree of specificity.

3.6.1 Characteristics of Good Goals

Certain basic characteristics distinguish good goals from "wishes". Good goals must possess the following qualities.

They must be specific and clearly stated.
Their achievement must be measurable or verifiable.
They must be realistic.
They must specify period of achievement.
They must include intermediate targets or goals that will facilitate the attainment of the major objectives.
Objective must be modern and up to date.
They must be ranked according to relative importance.

Thus, a good objective is measurable, specific, verifiable and attainable.

3.6.2 Advantages of Organisational Objectives

The importance of organisational objective in a developing country can hardly be overemphasised. As pointed out earlier, management personnel in developing countries are young, inexperienced and often have a shallow concept of organisational principle. It is not unusual for the owner not to have clearly stated objectives except "to maximise profit". In public corporations, for example, their objectives are general - at best. Often one hears such phrases as "make profit", "be self supporting" etc., and these objectives move from profit making to social welfare redistribution. In civil service, the situation is worst. There are no targets, no deadlines or definite expectations from management. It is important to highlight the need for goals.

Organisational goals help the organisation to orient itself to its environment. A typical environment presents management with risks and opportunities. A good goal makes the organisation while helping to exploit the opportunities to minimise the impact of risks.
Good organisational goals help in policy formulation and administration. All policy issues such as marketing policy, production and purchasing policy, personnel policy and financial policy are influenced by company objectives. If a pharmaceutical company wishes to be a leader in rheumatic, muscular and neuralgic pain tablets and research, the personnel policies and practices must provide for the recruitment of quality scientists for its research work. As well, production policies must be highly imaginative and flexible to adapt to the attainment of the objectives; and the financial policy must allow for adequate funds for creative research and liberal remuneration to attract seasoned researchers and salesmen.

3.6.3 Common Organisational Goals

There was a time that economists believed that 'the sole purpose of any business is to maximise profit". This concept is still shared by many people in developing countries. These organisations stress short-run objectives. In their recruitment policy, they will hire poorly qualified employees who use their companies as a training ground to gain experience; they insist on high mark-up, and low-rent stores. In the long-run, they lose business to bigger organisations that insist on well trained, experienced employees with its attendant low cost as a result of reduction in the number of rejects and returns, customer loyalty, and the advantages that accrue from high turnover of products.

3.6.4 Personal and Organisational Objectives

As pointed out, all individuals have personal objectives which they plan to achieve through the organisation. People act in a manner that will help them to attain desired objectives. A. typical employee’s goals can be divided into two main groups. There are certain objectives that he/she aims at achieving in the short-run and those that he looks forward to achieving sometimes in the future. Some of these objectives can include money, excitement, security, happy life, leadership position, recognition in the society and many other broad objectives. Sometimes no clear-cut distinction is made as to the best way to attain them and no real priority is placed on them. Somehow, in his head, even if not properly articulated, there is some form of hierarchy of objectives. As a rational being, he will behave in a way that will lead to the attainment of valued goals

An employee is consistently evaluating whether the organisation is the instrument through which he can attain his own goals, and trying to determine whether his objectives are consistent with the goals of the organisation and others in the organisation. Where these differ remarkably, there is a conflict. The degree of this disparity in objectives determines the intensity of the conflict. If the individual discovers that the objectives are diametrically opposed, he may elect to withdraw his services if he has an alternative opportunity. If he has none, he may decide to reorient his objectives to arrive at a reasonable compromise between his objectives and organisational goals. Every person has zones of indifference. This zone is said to be narrow if a person is relatively intolerant of disagreements between his goals and those of the organisation, if the person remains loyal - irrespective of disagreements.

Individual objectives should be incorporated in organisational objectives, and sincere efforts should be made in order to realise both. An individual who finds his objectives in serious conflict with organisational objectives should withdraw his services from the organisation. Organisations and individuals function better when there is goal congruency. Each then works toward the realisation of the common objective for his survival depends on it.

3.7 Nigerian Civil Service

One of the major problems-as identified earlier, confronting the Nigerian civil service is lack of clear objectives. The objectives of the civil service are intangible so are their results. The aim of the civil service is "to serve the people". This sounds ambiguous and cannot easily be subjected to any quantitative or qualitative evaluation. To determine when a civil service has become result oriented entails having specific, limited, clearly defined targets to be accomplished within a given time. As Drucker puts it, "only if targets are defined can resources be allocated to their attainment and deadlines set, and somebody can be held accountable for results".
The Nigerian civil service does not have definite expectation from employees because goals are, at best, hazy even to the level of key management personnel who end up becoming "administrators” instead of managers. Lack of clear-cut objectives and goals is, in part, responsible for the constant personality clashes, excessive red-tapism and bureaucracy. Many key executives, "push files" and lack initiative and ingenuity.

3.8.1 Multiple Objectives

From the foregoing analysis, it can be inferred that each organisation has multiple objectives. There should be no conflict in the various objectives. These objectives should form a logical network for the optimal attainment of organisational goals. One objective should be instrumental to the realisation of another objective; the higher the company’s share of the market - other things being equal, the higher the overall profit. The more qualified and aggressive the sales force, the higher the volume of sales per salesman.

3.8.2 Business and Ethics

The discussion on business and ethics is more important in Nigeria than in many other countries because of many instances of unethical business practices in the country. It is widely discussed in the media that there is corruption in all aspects of Nigerian life. You have to bribe a cashier to get paid; you have to offer money to a clerk to make sure that your file does not disappear; you have to bribe a doctor in a public hospital to receive treatment and you cannot renew your driving license unless you offer a gift to the officer in charge.

In government circles, the demand for l0% kickback of the contract sum is the accepted norm. Businessmen are not left out in the corrupt practices. Executives are known to have made some decisions in order to benefit themselves rather than to optimise public service. An executive in any decision to purchase equipment is expected to take such factors such as availability of parts, cost, quality, delivery time and operating cost into serious consideration before a decision to purchase is reached. Some executives ignore these important facts in order to receive “kickbacks” of 10 – 20% of the cost of the equipment.

3.8.3 Conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest arises when an executive deals with a company in which it has vested interest. An executive who is a majority shareholder in a company that is their major supplier of raw material is "likely to' have a conflict of interest. The same fact is true when a manager is the owner of a company that has contracts to construct roads, buildings, or offers any other contract for the organisation. The manager will find it difficult to enforce quality or engage in worthwhile bargaining. He will, most likely, divulge classified information to his company on the lowest and highest bids already received. In order to avoid a conflict of interest, some companies have rules that state that:

No member of management of the company is allowed to accept any gift or gratuities from third persons which might conceivably tend to induce him to violate his duties to the company or to have any appreciable interest in any business enterprise which is a supplier or has business relationships with the company.
The punishment for the violation of such rules is dismissal.

3.9 Unethical Business Practices in Nigeria

The most common unethical business practices in Nigeria are presented below.

Outright bribery
Unfair practices in pricing
Price discrimination
Dishonest advertising
Price collusion by competitors
Unfair and prejudice in recruitment
Cheating of customers
Unfair credit practices
Overselling
Collusion by competitors
Dishonesty in making and keeping to contracts.

3.9.1 Factors that Determine Ethical Conduct – Socially

Accepted Ethics

An organisation is an integral part of the society and is influenced by social, political, economic and technological factors prevailing in a society. The ethical conduct of an organisation is in part determined by the moral ethics prevailing in the society as a whole. If the society condones general laxity that will influence the organisation, the society sets the ethical climate.

3.9.2 Ethical Climate in the Industry

The ethical climate in an industry influences the behaviour of a company. As 10-20% commission appears to be the accepted sum - as kickback, for the award of contract in Nigeria, every

competing for a contract has to build in such a commission in its quotation if it wants to win the contract. The general feeling shared by many company executives is "if you can't beat them, join them". Thus, garri sellers, and rice sellers have the "magic cup" to sell their commodities to a customer unless the customer is vigilant. The general attitude seems to be caveat emptor (let the buyer beware.)

3.9.3 A Man’s Personal Code of Behaviour

There are many honest and sincere people in organisations who will eschew riches if the only way to be rich is through unethical practices. They are guided by their personal conviction and conscience. If they are company executives, they set the tone and get others to follow. In general, the ethical standard of an organisation is dependent upon the ethical standard of each member of the group.

3.9.4 The Behaviour of Management

The ethical standards of a company are determined by the ethical standards of the executive. They set the ethical behavioural patterns to be emulated by the subordinates. If they resent and firmly condemn unethical practices in the company, the subordinates will toe the line. The subordinates' ethical behaviour is reinforced and influenced by the behaviour of management. The two factors, individual personal code of conduct and the organisation's ethical values determine the organisation's code of conduct - for each reinforces the other. In a company where management is made up of men of integrity, ethical standards are likely to prevail. If management gets out good company policies governing the relationship with their customers, competitors and the general public, ethical behaviour will prevail.