Challenges of Management

5 Key excerpts on "Challenges of Management"

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  Strategic Foresight

  A New Look at Scenarios

  • A. Marcus(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 3 The Challenges Businesses Face T he stories that people in organizations relate are useful for ana- lyzing and understanding the sources, patterns, and causes of change and stability in an organization and its environment. To create stories of an organization’s past and future and use them in enact- ing winning business strategies, people in businesses must identify the challenges they face. This chapter is about these challenges and how to identify them. The questions to ask should encompass more than just the challenges. The challenges should engage and stimulate people in organizations to take up the following: ● How attractive are the options for dealing with the challenges? ● Does the organization have the capabilities to carry out these options? ● Does it have plausible stories about how the options will evolve? ● Can it identify and prepare for surprises, should they occur? Clearly, the challenges an organization faces must be identified, but cop- ing strategies to deal with the challenges also are needed. Knowing the challenges is not enough. Passivity in the face of them is a route to failure. Options for dealing with the challenges must be gen- erated, and the adequacy of the options evaluated. This chapter not only shows how foresight can be shown with respect to the challenges an orga- nization faces, but also with regard to the coping strategies that people in the organization can devise to deal with the challenges. 48 ● Strategic Foresight What Are the Challenges? The challenges businesses face are moving targets that change constantly in response to forces outside the organization’s control and the strategies organizations use. Stories help businesses sort out the challenges. The sto- ries give them an answer to where they have been and where they might go.

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  Securing the Future of Management Education

  Competitive Destruction or Constructive Innovation?

  • Howard Thomas, Michelle Lee, Lynne Thomas, Alexander Wilson(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Group Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 3 On-Going Challenges Confronting Management Education Introduction It is clear from Volume I ( Thomas et al., 2013 ) that there are a significant number of issues facing management education. What we seek to address in this chapter is the identification of those issues that constitute on-going challenges for management education. Many of the well-known and continuing debates that surround the role, purpose and direction of management education undoubtedly relate to the multifaceted challenges the industry faces. A diverse and expert set of respondents (as represented by our interviewees) allows us to deepen our understanding of these challenges. By adding depth, there is an opportunity to identify important and enduring challenges affecting management education. Table 3.1 shows the challenges most frequently mentioned by interviewees. By grouping these challenges, we can build a more focused view of what the key challenges are and how they fit together in the context of manage-ment education. These group categories are • challenges associated with the perceived value/success of management education, • challenges external to the business school environment, • challenges internal to the business school and its operations, • challenges for business school models and approaches that arise from perceptual, external and internal factors. Volume I drew attention to the complex relationships between stakeholders and the often conflicting interests they have in management education. Indeed, key stakeholders consistently point out that the purpose and perceived value of management education needs continued reflection and debate ( Thomas et al., 2013, p. 17 ). Some stakeholders also favour greater breadth, and a more holistic orientation in the busi-ness school curriculum allied to an enhanced treatment of socie-tal as well as economic and uni-versity responsibilities.

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  Engineering Management

  Meeting the Global Challenges, Second Edition

  • C. M. Chang, Lucy Lunevich, Lucy Lunevich(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  1

  Introduction to Management Challenges for Engineers

  1.1  Introduction

  In our modern-day economy, customers’ needs are changing rapidly, the marketplace is becoming global, and technology is advancing at an ever-increasing speed. To maintain competitiveness in such a challenging environment, companies need effective leaders who understand both technology and business. Engineers with proper management training have great opportunities to make valuable and lasting contributions (Chang 2005; Merino and Farr 2010).

  In industry, managers are select employees entrusted with the responsibilities of putting communications means to use, making critical decisions, taking decisive actions, applying resources, and guiding the behavior of internal teams and external business partners to achieve company objectives (Shah 2012; Gomez 2014).

  The communications means applied by managers may be verbal or written, with or without body language. The decisions made take into account technical feasibility, resources conservation, and economic viability. The actions taken include planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. The resources utilized involve people, time, capital, equipment, facilities, technology, know-how, and business relationships. The teams guided by managers are individual employees (teams of one), projects, task forces, quality circles, and others. The external business partners may include customers, suppliers, networked partners, and joint ventures or otherwise aligned companies. For individual science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professionals to succeed in such an environment, they need to heed the advice of Henry Ford, who said, “The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.”

  This chapter starts with a brief review of the major sectors of a national economy. Then, it discusses the work of engineering managers and practicing engineers, and delineates the differences between these two types of work. Finally, the chapter addresses the challenges faced by engineering managers in the global environment.

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  Information Technology and Organizational Transformation

  • Benoit Aubert, Suzanne Rivard, Michel Patry, Guy Pare, Heather Smith(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  PART IV

  The management challenges

  Organizing a business is similar to putting together a puzzle; it all comes down to execution. The frame may be right, the picture clear, and the pieces carefully selected, but if the puzzle cannot be pieced together or the pieces do not fit properly, then you have nothing but an assortment of pieces. Unlike jigsaw puzzles, how-ever, the management puzzle does not have carefully machined pieces with edges that are designed to interlock closely. Instead, it must be put together with the skills, techniques, and practices that enable each part of the business to connect seamlessly and present a coherent picture to the outside world. It is the execution capabilities of the organization's managers that enable the strategy, structure, information Technology, and leadership pieces to work together smoothly and effectively in a given environment. These capabilities are created in four ways – people management, IT management, knowledge management, and change management (Figure IV.I ).

  Like everything else in the management puzzle, the manager's job in today's organization has become much more complex and challenging. Only a few years ago, the staff of most organizations consisted of full-time, dedicated employees and a few contract staff. While people and work are still essential to execution, today it is a radically-changed world for both workers and their managers. Staffing options such as outsourcing, telecommuting, partnerships, alliances, and a global workforce (to name just a few), are all being used by companies as they grapple with the economic challenges and technology choices confronting them. New organizational structures and interorganizational projects mean that staff may be reporting to not one, but several, different managers. Through information and telecommunications, staff can now work anywhere, anyplace, and anytime. Thus, the very nature of work is changing. The managers of the next decade will be pioneers in creating an environment to obtain maximum value and productivity from all staff, wherever they are located and whatever their employment status.

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  University Leadership

  Approaches, Formation and Challenges in Europe

  • M. O'Mullane(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  92 6 Challenges Facing University Leadership Introduction This chapter reports and discusses challenges facing university organisa- tional leadership and management in the immediate and longer-term future that were identified by interviewees in response to three sets of questions. Like the other interview questions, a number of character- istics of each interviewee were expected to influence their focus, and consequently, the breadth and detail of answers about challenges as both strategic and operational influences on leadership. The interviewees included experienced senior university leaders, public/civil servants from government agencies with responsibilities for university administration, professors without formal leadership or management positions, middle and junior university management and leadership holders, members of university boards, management consultants, and university administrative staff. This diversity of position and experience in the interview pool gave rise to responses that covered a wide range of challenges, both general to universities and peculiar to a single university and universities within one legislative jurisdiction. The findings are discussed using the broad head- ings in the core research questions. (3a) What are the main challenges for university management and leadership for the immediate future? A total of 678 challenges were described by the interviewees. These descriptors were sorted into groups of similar concerns through an ini- tial data reduction to 104 areas, which were further sorted into 10 Concept Challenges Facing University Leadership 93 Sets based on the broad similarity of focus. These Concept Sets and their numbers and percentages of the total are given in Table 6.1. There are two caveats in the interpretation of this information.

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