Management in business and human organization activity is
simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals.
Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization
(a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose
of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and
manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources.
Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management

Etymology


The verb manage comes from the Italian maneggiare (to handle — especially a horse), which in turn derives from the Latin manus (hand). The French word mesnagement (later ménagement) influenced the development in meaning of the English word management in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[1]

[edit] Overview

Theoretical scope


Mary Parker Follett
(1868–1933), who wrote on the topic in the early twentieth century,
defined management as "the art of getting things done through people".^[2]
One can also think of management functionally, as the action of
measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan; or as the actions taken to reach one's intended goal. This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Frenchman Henri Fayol^[3] considers management to consist of seven functions:

1. planning
   

Theoretical scope


Mary Parker Follett
(1868–1933), who wrote on the topic in the early twentieth century,
defined management as "the art of getting things done through people".^[2]
One can also think of management functionally, as the action of
measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan; or as the actions taken to reach one's intended goal. This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Frenchman Henri Fayol^[3] considers management to consist of seven functions:

1. planning
   
2. organizing
   
3. leading
   
4. co-ordinating
   
5. controlling
   
6. staffing
   
7. motivating
   

In for-profit work, management has as its primary function the
satisfaction of a range of stakeholders. This typically involves making
a profit (for the shareholders), creating valued products at a
reasonable cost (for customers), and providing rewarding employment
opportunities (for employees). In nonprofit management, add the
importance of keeping the faith of donors. In most models of management/governance, shareholders vote for the board of directors,
and the board then hires senior management. Some organizations have
experimented with other methods (such as employee-voting models) of
selecting or reviewing managers; but this occurs only very rarely.
In the public sector of countries constituted as representative democracies,
voters elect politicians to public office. Such politicians hire many
managers and administrators, and in some countries like the United States political appointees lose their jobs on the election of a new president/governor/mayor.
Public, private, and voluntary sectors place different demands on
managers, but all must retain the faith of those who select them (if
they wish to retain their jobs), retain the faith of those people that
fund the organization, and retain the faith of those who work for the
organization. If they fail to convince employees of the advantages of
staying rather than leaving, they may tip the organization into a
downward spiral of hiring, training, firing, and recruiting. Management
also has the task of innovating and of improving the functioning of organizations.

[edit] Historical development

Difficulties arise in tracing the history of management. Some see it (by definition) as a late modern (in the sense of late modernity) conceptualization. On those terms it cannot have a pre-modern history, only harbingers (such as stewards). Others, however, detect management-like-thought back to Sumerian traders and to the builders of the pyramids of ancient Egypt.
Slave-owners through the centuries faced the problems of
exploiting/motivating a dependent but sometimes unenthusiastic or
recalcitrant workforce, but many pre-industrial enterprises,
given their small scale, did not feel compelled to face the issues of
management systematically. However, innovations such as the spread of Arabic numerals (5th to 15th centuries) and the codification of double-entry book-keeping (1494) provided tools for management assessment, planning and control.
Given the scale of most commercial operations and the lack of mechanized record-keeping and recording before the industrial revolution, it made sense for most owners
of enterprises in those times to carry out management functions by and
for themselves. But with growing size and complexity of organizations,
the split between owners (individuals, industrial dynasties or groups
of shareholders) and day-to-day managers (independent specialists in planning and control) gradually became more common.

[edit] Early writing


While management has been present for millennia, several writers
have created a background of works that assisted in modern management
theories.^[4]

[edit] Sun Tzu's The Art of War


Written by Chinese general Sun Tzu in the 6th century BC, The Art of War
is a military strategy book that, for managerial purposes, recommends
being aware of and acting on strengths and weaknesses of both a
manager's organization and a foe's.^[4]

[edit] Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince


Believing that people were motivated by self-interest, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513 as advice for the leadership of Florence, Italy.^[5] Machiavelli recommended that leaders use fear—but not hatred—to maintain control.

[edit] Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations


Written in 1776 by Adam Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher, The Wealth of Nations aims for efficient organization of work through Specialization of labor.^[5] Smith described how changes in processes could boost productivity in the manufacture of pins.
While individuals could produce 200 pins per day, Smith analyzed the
steps involved in manufacture and, with 10 specialists, enabled
production of 48,000 pins per day.^[5]

[edit] 19th century


Classical economists such as Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) and John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) provided a theoretical background to resource-allocation, production, and pricing issues. About the same time, innovators like Eli Whitney (1765 - 1825), James Watt (1736 - 1819), and Matthew Boulton (1728 - 1809) developed elements of technical production such as standardization, quality-control procedures, cost-accounting, interchangeability of parts, and work-planning. Many of these aspects of management existed in the pre-1861 slave-based sector of the US economy. That environment saw 4 million people, as the contemporary usages had it, "managed" in profitable quasi-mass production.
By the late 19th century, marginal economists Alfred Marshall (1842 - 1924), Léon Walras (1834 - 1910), and others introduced a new layer of complexity to the theoretical underpinnings of management. Joseph Wharton offered the first tertiary-level course in management in 1881.

[edit] 20th century


By about 1900 one finds managers trying to place their theories on what they regarded as a thoroughly scientific basis (see scientism for perceived limitations of this belief). Examples include Henry R. Towne's Science of management in the 1890s, Frederick Winslow Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), Frank and Lillian Gilbreth's Applied motion study (1917), and Henry L. Gantt's charts (1910s). J. Duncan wrote the first college management textbook in 1911. In 1912 Yoichi Ueno introduced Taylorism to Japan and became first management consultant of the "Japanese-management style". His son Ichiro Ueno pioneered Japanese quality-assurance.
The first comprehensive theories of management appeared around 1920. The Harvard Business School invented the Master of Business Administration degree (MBA) in 1921. People like Henri Fayol (1841 - 1925) and Alexander Church
described the various branches of management and their
inter-relationships. In the early 20th century, people like Ordway Tead
(1891 - 1973), Walter Scott and J. Mooney applied the principles of psychology to management, while other writers, such as Elton Mayo (1880 - 1949), Mary Parker Follett (1868 - 1933), Chester Barnard (1886 - 1961), Max Weber (1864 - 1920), Rensis Likert (1903 - 1981), and Chris Argyris (1923 - ) approached the phenomenon of management from a sociological perspective.
Peter Drucker (1909 – 2005) wrote one of the earliest books on applied management: Concept of the Corporation (published in 1946). It resulted from Alfred Sloan (chairman of General Motors until 1956) commissioning a study of the organisation. Drucker went on to write 39 books, many in the same vein.
H. Dodge, Ronald Fisher (1890 - 1962), and Thornton C. Fry introduced statistical techniques into management-studies. In the 1940s, Patrick Blackett combined these statistical theories with microeconomic theory and gave birth to the science of operations research. Operations research, sometimes known as "management science" (but distinct from Taylor's scientific management), attempts to take a scientific approach to solving management problems, particularly in the areas of logistics and operations.
Some of the more recent^[update] developments include the Theory of Constraints, management by objectives, reengineering, Six Sigma and various information-technology-driven theories such as agile software development, as well as group management theories such as Cog's Ladder.
As the general recognition of managers as a class solidified during
the 20th century and gave perceived practitioners of the art/science of
management a certain amount of prestige, so the way opened for popularised systems of management ideas to peddle their wares. In this context many management fads may have had more to do with pop psychology than with scientific theories of management.
Towards the end of the 20th century, business management came to consist of six separate branches, namely:

• Human resource management
  
• Operations management or production management
  
• Strategic management
  
• Marketing management
  
• Financial management
  
• Information technology management responsible for management information systems
  

[edit] 21st century