Happy New Year 2014

 

As we say goodbye to 2013 and welcome 2014...let us not forget to take the time to reflect upon ourselves and make the necessary changes to face the challenges of 2014. Think positive, stay positive!

MANAGEMENT AND MEASURING MANAGERIAL PERFORMANCE

What is Management and how do we measure Managerial Performance? This is one of the favorite question in tests and final exams.

There are many definitions discussed by scholars and experts in the field of management. The most famous is the definition coined by Mary Parker Follet, a lecturer and management theory writer from UK. She defined management as the "art of getting things done through other people".  From her definition, we can conclude to say that management is convincing people to towards achieving goals and objectives set by the organization. Another broader definition of management is mentioned by Stoner, Freeman and Gilbert (1995) stating that management is “the process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the efforts of organization members using all other organizational resources to achieve stated organizational goals”. Organizational resources refer to land, labor, capital, technology, raw materials and process. Goodman and Fandt (2004) described management as “the process of administering and coordination resources effectively, efficiently, and in an effort to achieve organizational goals”. Based in the above definitions, the key words most commonly use here is influencing people, utilizing resources and achieving organizational goals.

 

A manager’s performance can be measured by looking at two criteria i.e., effectiveness and efficiency.  Effectiveness is achieved when the organization pursues the appropriate goals while efficiency is achieved by using the fewest inputs to generate a given output in other words minimizing cost of resources needed to achieve goals. Effectiveness can be seen as “Doing the right things” while efficiency can be said as “Doing things right”.