Defining Term Manager

Key words: manager, leader, supervisor, managerial roles, management Introduction Managers are the community that visibly stands apart In present-day business organization, although heterogeneous and difficult to unequivocal defining. The reasons for this phenomenon are concerned with the process of ownership and management’s separation, therefore with so called “managerial revolution”. The subject of the presented study Is an attempt of defining term “manager” with Its typology and presentation of managerial roles In the nowadays business organization.
Notion of manager The notion of manager Is fairly Indefinite. This Issue Is very expanded In economic and organization and management sciences. Tremendous heterogeneity of administration personnel is the reason that there is no, universal and commonly accepted definition in the literature on this subject. In the business encyclopedia, manager Is on described as a person. Who fulfills the primordial managerial functions (planning, organizing, motivating and controlling) and is the superior of given human team (Encyclopedia business Rock. AR Bozo.
CLIMAX, Keen. 6: 3-12 Watchword Academia Rollicked Im. Augusta Cookhouse’s w Poignant, Option 2007 PL SINS 1731-0261 K. Classifies 1995). Whereas R. W. Griffin defines manager as a person who first of all is person, that makes plans and decisions, organizes, supervises and controls human, finance and information resources (Griffin 2000). A. Pizzicatos also holds the view that manager is the profession which essence is the management – the art of reaching goals by proper using the finance, material and human resources (Pizzicatos 1997).

J. Pence equally conceives the manager, I. E. As a person employed for managing, fulfilling all his functions and making use of all or some part of organization’s sources in order to achieve goals of the whole organization or its given part (Pence 2000). Author points also out that manager is the person employed in the administration position, who has comprehensive knowledge necessary to leading people and managing the organization, in order to achieve optimal realization of their tasks in the confined conditions. Manager – by J.
Pence – is also the specialist, who is able to find the solution in complicated conjuncture, who is not afraid to take a risk, who can draw the visions of the future, formulate the strategy of welcome hangers and knows how to use the resources for optimal realization of his visions (Pence 2003). Hereby presented ways of defining “manager” term encourage to relate it to the term “supervisor”. Supervisor – by P. F. Trucker – is each white-collar, who in view of his position or knowledge is responsible for work contribution, which physically influence organization achievement’s capability.
Most of managers are also supervisors, but not all of them, because there are many managers, who – in spite of being superiors to other employees do not – have in any way impact on organizations achievements capability (e. G. Verviers in factories) (Trucker 1994). Another definition for supervisor presents T. Alsatian. He holds the view that supervisor is the person, who is placed in formal organization and has subordinates. So, it is the person who the head of the given department and causes – using employees – realization of commissioned to this division tasks (Alsatian 1993).
Author does not mention in his definition that supervisor has to have impact on organization achievements capability and therefore he does not distinguish between supervisor and manager terms. In the next part of this article the terms “manager” and “supervisor” will be also used exchangeable. Managing personnel could be divided in to many groups, it depends on the undertaken criterion. The most often referred criterion is the position of manager in the organization’s structure (hierarchy) (Pence 2000).
From this point of view one can distinguish: a) top-management – including managers occupying the highest posts in company’s central administration or in branch establishments; they are responsible for planning and strategic decisions; b) middle-management – that means managers of departments and services in company’s central and its branch establishments; they come to operating decisions, ass them on first-line management and control implementation of this decisions; c) first-line management, supervisory management or Junior management – including mainly supervisors of production’s divisions (that is foremen and brigadiers) responsible for implementation of made decisions and direct control of tasks realization’s process. In another way administration personnel could be divided, when one makes consideration this criterion, then it could be marked out: – functional managers – responsible for one kind of activity in given business organization (e. G. Production, marketing, selling or finance), The basic roles of manager in business organization 5 – overall managers – supervising complicated economic unit, like enterprise, branch establishment or separate department and responsible for whole economic activity of this unit (I. E. Production, marketing, selling and finance) (Stoner and Yankee 1997). Next and also essential partition – pointed out by T.
Alsatian – makes allowance for management as a decisions process and divides all people from managerial sphere population into: – assistant personnel – their Job includes recording, gathering and storage of information, – specialists – responsible for transformation and preparation f organization or its division’s activity variants, – decisions-makers – people who choose aims and ways of reaching them (Alsatian 1993). Beyond above mentioned indexing (that takes into account first of all essence, extension and method of doing one’s duties) managers could be also divided giving consideration to another criterion, like for example: characteristic features, ways of behavior, demographic features or preferred managerial style. It is worth also emphasizing the meaning of another indexing that takes into account managers’ approach to committed and administrated resources.
Here one can mention: a) entrepreneurs – that is contractors, who establish a business, take risk and lead it on theirs own account; they usually undertake risky business venture hoping to make a success; this undertakings consist in transferring different resources from areas where are little profits and low effectiveness to the areas of high performance and great earnings; b) entrepreneurs – in other words managers, who have proper knowledge to administrate the company and reveal initiative and inventiveness in their activity, which they make use of to develop somebody else’s enterprise; the ethos of acting (and also knowledge) are often much the same as principles of entrepreneurs’ activities but the potential risk and emotional loading is here considerably lower, because entrepreneur does not lead the enterprise at his own risk and account (Nagasaki and kneading 1998).
Typologies of managerial roles Managers’ roles were being changed in the time distance, because the contexts of enterprises’ activity were also being changed. One hundred years ago the supervisor was only the liaison between the owner and all the staff of the company. He listened to what the employees had to say and used their ideas, but he was concentrated ether on resolving the problems than on discipline. However, along with the growth of an average enterprise size, supervisors got more powerful and theirs managerial style became more autocratic. The contexts of managers’ activity were changed and right to employ and dismiss people, specify the quantity and quality of their work, specify the required quality of products, etc.
Afterwards the status of managers in the enterprise began to change because of changes in the external and internal conditions of company’s functioning. Internal changes, because technological development required employing experts. This people with specialist knowledge be in want of more freedom of action, which autocratic style of management did not provide. However external context was changed because of improvement of subordinates’ situation, as a result of more and 6 K. Chalkiest more expanding labor rights. One started to pay attention to employees needs and their motivation, which was expressed in behavior theory. Nowadays management conceptions are concentrated rather on showing the inferior the direction than on tight control.
Although the level of knowledge, necessary for effective Job processing, as lately enormously increased and methods of its accomplishing are often different, the main purpose of manager became the same – managing in a such way, that hitherto prevailing quantity and quality of production could be sustained by keeping up good interurban relationships in the enterprise (Moslem et al. 1985). Manager – which has already been found out – performs many various roles in business organization. Very often they arise as a result of existence of certain behavior patterns which function in external and internal environment of the company and are related with position of a given person in the organization’s Truckee.
One can therefore distinguish many different typologies of managerial roles in the enterprise, if one take into consideration particular criteria (Nagasaki and kneading 1998). These typologies are presented in Figure 1 . Criterion Skywriter task priority priorities sad conservative roles role conservations creative roles role eukaryote strategic roles role strategic organizing roles role organizations role informational decisions roles role decadency market behavior cachou ironworks fulfilling the supervising roles pelican funkier chronically interpersonal roles ole interpersonal Fig. 1 . Typologies of managerial roles Source: author’s own elaboration on the basis of Nagasaki and kneading (1998). Racy. 1.
Typologies r¶l intermediaries В±r¶ODL: appreciation wise an videotapes Noisemaking I androgenic (1998). According to task priority criterion (enterprise survival oriented and not development oriented) one can present: – conservative roles – arising from day-to-day problems and as a rule leading to fixation of conservative attitudes; managers such orientation would – in the name of “survival at any price” – avoid any conflicts in the company, strain it’s development aspiration and theirs own self-realization, – creative roles – directed on company’s expansion, its adaptation to changing environment and managers self-realization, which makes possible to provide the policy of the long term dynamic development. When one makes allowance for criterion of market behavior, one can distinguish: – strategic roles – identified most often with the program of general defining and realization of organizations aims and fulfillment of it’s mission, – organizing roles – making possible for manager to accurate organization of the enterprise and it’s injunction according to expectations. More precisely managers are divided by a Canadian specialist of management Imitating (1975). According to his works managers of all levels of hierarchy behave in the same way, carry into effect similar activities and therefore fulfill similar roles. Author groups these activities and defines them as “organized set of behaviors” (Stoner and Yankee 1997).
The ten roles are divided into three groups: interpersonal (creating and maintaining of interpersonal relationships), informational (concerned with the information aspects of managerial decisions). 1. Interpersonal roles include: figurehead role – manager represents the business organization in all matters of formality, legally and socially to those inside and outside of the organization (it depends on his position in the enterprise’s structure) and he is like a company symbol for external environment, – leader role – he reaches the organization’s aims by using specified type of motivation oriented on employees needs satisfaction, – liaison role – manger interacts with peers and people outside the organization, he enters into agreements, contracts, gain the orders and therefore perform activity essential for the company. 2.
Information roles include: monitor role – manager searches for the information concerned with the company’s activity (problems with selling, taxes, production, etc), which are necessary for making decisions; he read professional magazines connected with specificity and selling market of his enterprise, – disseminated role – manager transmits and propagate special information into the organization; he works up and sends reports, letters, etc, – spokesperson – disseminates the organization’s information into its environment (central government, local government, different offices, media, etc. ) and into the organization (e. G. Organized labor). 3.
Decision roles include: – entrepreneur role – manager analyzes possibilities of company’s development and implements systematic changes, initiates different programs and scientific research, encourages employees to make contribution and present individual ideas for developing the organization, – disturbance handler role – manager improves the organization’s structures, responds to conflicts, all types of criticism and complaints that appear in the company, solves them and counteracts new ones, eliminates disturbances and negative events in the enterprise, – resource locator role – he chooses where the organization will expand its efforts, stubbier limited resources (finance, technical, human, etc) in the organization, regulate their usage in work, prioritize tasks and procedures, – negotiator role – manager negotiates on behalf of the organization in any individual or group, external or internal agreements. 8 Conditions of managers’ role The way of fulfilling the social role by the person depends both on subjective factors, his personality traits, the personality as well as on objective, outside factors in the relation to him.
It is possible to point out here two approaches to determinants of the lifting of the roles by the given manager (Casaba 2000): – individualistic approach – where the person’s individual features are influencing the specification of him according to his position in the team and the content of his roles, and so the manager has influence on shaping the situation in which he is managerial duties chiefly, – situation theory – according to which it is the objective situation that influences the management style, the quality, effects of directing, for fulfilling the managerial roles, because the situation requires the determined decision and individual features are paving for the other plan here. Both theories are not staying in the contradiction in reality since working of the manager refers to various contexts.
Because he has bigger influence on the situation in which he is operating he has a bigger power, he has the more important role or the high office position in the organizational structure of the given company. It refers to influence on his direct, nearest environment, I. E. For the company and the internal context of his functioning. However the more far-away environment, the global situation, the social and economical system more is influencing the manager, the behavior of whom is the reaction to the existing outside context. Figure 2 presents this dependence. More far-away environment – economy Dallas decolonize – spadework near environment – company blintzes decolonize – pressedв?Barstow manager mender internal context contents wintering external context contents century Fig. 2.
The manager and his nearer and more distant environment Source: own study on the basis of Casaba (2000). Racy. 2. Mender a Ego blintzes I Dallas decolonize appreciation wise an videotapes Casaba (2000). 9 The economic growth and dynamics of the environment influence the evolution of manager’s roles. Presented in the previous subparagraph taxonomy of Mitigating roles is classic already with grounds, on which the new manager’s roles are formed. This new formed roles are the answer on the changing of internal and external context of the companies functioning. It is possible to separate among objective, outside conditioning of managers’ roles the five basic factors which exert bigger and bigger influence on the manager’s activity.
They are the following: – broad institutional perspective – growing meaning of the business activity as the are dictating necessity of the more precise co-operation of the company and the social environment. New social requirements in the face of companies and the limitation are forcing the management of these companies to include variables of social benefits in every significant decision in practice. Systems of purposes and values of the company are also changing; – widening geographical limits and political perspectives – company operating apart from the country is dealing with various national manners, cultures and levels of the economic development.
That is why in the process the following economic, social, political and cultural variables must be taken into consideration; – information halogen – it is conditioned on the technology, variability of companies and with the global scale of their activity but the result with growing complexity of managerial decisions. The challenge includes both capacity and the topic content of the information necessary in the process of management; – growing complexity of the company as the system of action – growing participation of scientific and technical examinations are dictating the need to lead the level of management competence to the level of the technology applied.
The complexity and the variety of the production’s assortment are leading to decentralization of the cession process and in the effect to the rise of the complex information system; – the variety and variability of requests in the relation to the company – from one sight increasing competition, increasing the pace of the contact and the transport in the global scale requires quicker reactions to changes of demand, working of competitors, problems tied with production and the technology, from other sight tasks referring to development of new products, new technologies and marketing will bring to changes which will be tied with the past in the smaller and smaller mark. Managerial roles in the internal and external context Each manager’s role usually influences the bigger mark for the internal or external context of functioning of the company. Its appears that the proposal of Imitating is the most interesting here. His ten manager’s basic roles could be split into those which to a bigger or smaller extent influence the internal and external environment of the companies.
So, influence for internal context have: the leader role, monitor role, disseminated role, entrepreneur role, disturbance handler role and resource locator role. However, remaining manager’s roles influence the external context, I. E. : sorehead role, liaison role, spokesperson role and negotiator role. Two last parts having influence external context, but they also influence the internal context however, they were enumerated in 10 the outside context, because can afford fulfilling of these parts relatively bigger weight in the face of the external than internal environment. One of the most important manager’s roles is the leader’s role, which influences a lot lead is variously defined in literature of the subject. According to the definition of R. M.
Godzilla, the lead is both the process and the property. The process of the lead insists in unconstrained guiding and co-ordination of work members of the organized group to reach group purposes (Stodgily 1975). However, the lead as the property is the set of personality features possessed by the ones who are perceived as persons successfully applying such an interaction (Cookie’s 1996). S. P. Robbins define the lead as the ability to influence the group so that the group can gain determined goals (Robbins 1998). This definition appears to defy whole essence of the lead. Leader will be evaluated before everything for one’s effectiveness in reaching intended purposes.
This understanding of lead is based on four pillars which are providing of the leader’s efficiency (Clicking 1997): – creating the vision of what an organization should become in future and this vision should take into consideration the business of all parties concerned, – creating the strategy which takes into consideration significant chances and threats in the environment and strong and weak sights of the organization, – creating the supporting coalition, whom participants are followers and people committed to the realization of the vision and the strategy of the company, – communicating, convincing and inspiring participants o the realization of the mission and the strategy of the organization. Four above- mentioned pillars are distinguishing manager-leader from ordinary manager- administrator. Manager-administrator is before everything taking such action up how: planning, budgeting (determining of the budget), organizing and controlling. Plans do not have to and they most often contain no visions in themselves. They are most often extrapolation of the situation from the previous years. Similarly little common to oneself the organizational structure and the supporting coalition have.
The organizational structure is determining principles of the inferiority and the precedence in the organization and the supporting coalition includes people supporting the vision and the strategy proposed by leader (Clicking 1997). Other differences between the leader and the manager are presented in Table 2. It is necessary to point out also here, that with the leader’s name is often called a person that has the ability to exert influence on other people and win people and it does not matter if it is being determined by right of the position occupied in the research of the organizational structure, knowledge, interpersonal contacts whether and charisma (Dude-Knows 1998).