INTRODUCTION

MG133: Foundations of Management

KEY TOPICS COVERED Firms and management
Organisational strategy
Organisational structures
Change management
Globalisation and cross-cultural management
Organisational behaviour
Leadership
Ethics
Decision Making
LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of Explain the origins of
the course, you management theory and
should be able practice
to:

Evaluate the usefulness of key

theories for understanding and
shaping contemporary
workplace management

Apply management knowledge

and skills to organisational
contexts
THE COURSE TEAM Course
Dr Katie Best (course leader)
lecturers:

Dr Adeline Pelletier

Class
teacher: Dr Adeline Pelletier
DAILY STRUCTURE AM: 180 minute interactive
Face-to- lectures

face
PM: 90 minute classes
contact:
Discuss key themes via in-class
Class questions

activities:
Explore key themes through mini-
cases and in-class activities
WE WANT YOUR INPUT! The more you put in, the
This more you will get out

module
is what Every cohort is different and
we want to make it right for
you: regular pulse feedback
you
make Level of interaction with
each other, how much exam
it: practice, etc. will be down to
you
ASSESSMENT In Class You will be required to give a presentation in
a group of 3 5 (to be decided by Adeline)
Presentation
(25% of the final Between 8 10 minutes

grade)
Exploring one of the module topics in the
context of a selected organisation or
company

2 hour final examination

Final
Examination(75%
of the final Day 15 (Friday of week 3)

grade)
The exam will consist of unseen questions
focused on the practical application of
management theory
ABOUT ME Dr. Katie Business and Management lecturer
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/drkatiebest
Best

Research Workplace interaction

areas
that I Cultural and creative industries
love

Outside I live with my husband and 3-year-old daughter in N. London

of Im writing a novel
work
I love travel, culture, my family and friends
Lecture 1: An Introduction to
Managing Organisations
 Agenda
Why study management?
An introduction to management
The rise of the firm
Management as a solution
Management as a further problem
WHY STUDY

?
Why are YOU studying management?
Take a piece of paper and tell me why
you wanted to study management
And, while youre at it:
Your hopes for the module/LSE summer
school/your time in London
Your fears for the module/LSE summer
school/your time in London
And anything else about you that you
think I should know?
Why is studying management a
good idea?
Because were all affected by it in (at least)
three important ways:

As employees

As As members
consumers of society
The average millennial employee

Will probably work full time for 40 years

Will probably work into retirement
Will spend at 40 hours+ per week at work
Will hold 8 jobs before the age of 32
 As a Consumer
We consume goods whose
brands we like/hate, and
those brands are shaped
by managers
Prices are fixed, products
created/withdrawn,
customers served in
particular ways at the
requirements of managers
 As a Society Member
Organizations are not just places where people
have jobs. They are our neighbourhoods, our
communities. They are where we join with other
people to make a difference for ourselves and
others. If we think of them only as places where
we have jobs, we not only lose the opportunity
for meaning, but we endanger our planet.
Douglas Smith

AND MANAGERS PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN THIS

Why do academics study management?
1. Improvement/progress
2. Answering important questions, such as:
How do we maximise economic prosperity?
Is there just one best way to manage people to get
the most out of them?
Is leadership the same thing as management?
How can we deal with the challenges and
opportunities of diversity in the workplace?
Whats the best strategy for a/my/your company?
Is it important to be an ethical manager?
WHAT IS A MANAGER AND WHY DO
WE NEED THEM?
LETS THINK FIRST ABOUT WHY WE
NEED THEM
 The difference between a company
and an organisation?
Organisations are constructed mechanisms
for controlling and coordinating human
activities and symbolic and physical resources
in order to achieve certain objectives
The difference between a company
and an organisation?
A firm is a type of
organisation whose
primary objective is
maximisation of profit
At one end of the scale is
a big, city firm. At the
other is a two-person
business partnership.
What do you get if you
Google Image FIRM?
 The difference between a company
and an organisation?
Organisations, and
therefore firms, are
generally seen as being
composed of two or more
people.
Types of organisation
include companies (firms),
charities, government
departments, society
groups (e.g., Football
Supporters Clubs), etc.
 The rise of the firm
BEFORE: Self-sufficiency
People work for themselves
Individuals/families produce everything that they need
BEFORE: Barter economy
People work for themselves
Individuals/families/societies produce part of what the
economy needs
Swap excess goods or services for other goods and
services
THE RISE OF THE FIRM (and the organisation?)
People pool their resources to increase efficiency, reduce
their costs and maximise their profits
 Why didnt we stick with self-
sufficiency?
Isnt it better not to?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9FSnvtcEb
g
Name a good or service that you personally
could produce all by yourself
Why is it so difficult?
Do you wish you could? Why/why not?
 Firms are everywhere
Considering the vast range of firms, how many
do you think you have already supported this
morning? Which ones? And what about
indirectly?
Could you put an estimate on how many firms
you have supported?
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR
 The Division of Labour
The Division of Labour is the splitting of
activities into component parts which are then
performed separately.
Leads to specialisation which in turn can lead
to increased productivity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Meo0s54
s1sw
 Adam Smith and the pin factory
Adam Smith saw the main cause of prosperity as increasing
division of labour:
He said that ten workers could produce 48,000 pins per day if
each of eighteen specialized tasks was assigned to particular
workers.
Average productivity: 4,800 pins per worker per day.
Remove the division of labour and a worker would be lucky to
produce even one pin per day!
 Fordism and the production line
Ford Model T: the
earliest production
line (from 1908):
http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=IXkxl8dS
Xb4
Kia Sportage: a very
modern production
line:
http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=sjAZGUcj
rP8
 Back to pins
Smith says its best for 18 different people to divide
the tasks which are required to make one pin.
BUT:
How do we make sure that they work their hardest at
all times?
Who deals with problems created when they dont
work as hard as they could?
 Managers!!!!
(and now lets think about what managers do)
 Organisational structures without
managers
Owner

Worker Worker Worker Worker

Owner

Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker etc..
Organisational structures with
managers

Owner

Manager Manager Manager

Worker Worker Manager Manager

Worker Worker Worker Worker

Worker Worker Worker

Worker Worker
 Managers can help a company to
achieve:
Control
Controlling what people do and how they do it
Coordination
Coordinating what different people do, when and how
Communication
Direct, simple communication up and down the layers of the
firm.
 But problems that managers can
create
Control
Owner can feel out of control as
layers grow and it can be harder to
ensure the right type of control
from top to bottom
Coordination
It can be harder to coordinate
different parts of the business as
the number of managers increases
because they all have their own
way of doing things
Communication
Communication can become slower
and more cumbersome and thus
less efficient as there are more
layers of management to negotiate
 What does a manager do?
Drucker believed that there were 5 functions of
management:
Planning: Deciding what needs to happen in the future
(today, next week, next month, next year, over the next 5
years, etc.) and generating plans for action.
Organizing: (Implementation) making optimum use of the
resources required to enable the successful carrying out of
plans.
Staffing: Job Analyzing, recruitment, and hiring individuals
for appropriate jobs.
Leading/Directing: Determining what needs to be done in a
situation and getting people to do it.
Controlling/Monitoring: Checking progress against plans.
 Levels of management
Very aware of external factors (competitors, customers, markets)
Top-level Decisions typically relate to the long-term (strategic decisions)
management They are executive (have the power to execute plans, rules and
actions)

Specialized understanding of certain managerial tasks

Middle
management Responsible for carrying out the decisions made by top-level
managers

Responsible for carrying out decisions made by middle and top

Lower
management
managers
Decisions are generally short-term
 Types of manager
Human Resource Management
Operations Management
Strategic Management
Marketing Management
Financial Management
Information Management
Systems Management
Facilities Management
etc.
 Will all management positions have the
same emphases?
Question: looking at Druckers five functions of
management, can you think of a stereotypical
management role where each of the five functions
would dominate?
 BUT: Is Drucker right? Is that really
what a manager does?
Mintzberg wanted to challenge the ideas of
Drucker (and others) that managers do what
everyone thinks that they do, such as
planning, organising, coordinating and
controlling
 Debunking myth # 1
The manager is a systematic,
reflective planner

BUT: Study after study has

shown that managers work at
an unrelenting pace, that their
activities are characterized by
brevity, variety, and
discontinuity, and that they
are strongly oriented to action
and dislike reflective activities
 Debunking myth #2
The effective manager has no
regular duties to perform
BUT: Managerial work
involves performing a
number of regular duties,
including ritual and
ceremony, negotiations, and
processing of soft
information that links the
organization with its
environment
 Debunking myth #3
The senior manager
needs aggregated
information, which a
formal management
information system best
provides
BUT: Managers strongly
favour verbal media,
telephone calls and
meetings, over
documents
 Debunking myth #4
Management is, or at least is
quickly becoming, a science
and a profession
BUT: The managers
programsto schedule time,
process information, make
decisions, and so onremain
locked deep inside their
brains.
Mintzbergs New Typology of
Management
What is the value of Mintzbergs work?
Mintzberg is right to take on the idea that
management is just a list of tasks.
He encourages us to see managers in a positive,
integrating, committed way rather than as
calculative disengaged planners.
However, he just creates another list (albeit a
more sophisticated one)
Other people havent challenged his list with
further research so we dont really know if its
right or not.
 Readings
Douma and Schrouder a good overall
introduction to the idea of why we have
organisations
Mintzberg a more detailed discussion of
what weve just talked about
 Summary
The firm came about as a rational solution to
the problem of maximising profit
Management arose as a way of controlling
workers in a firm
We study management to try to improve our
understanding and improve practice