Exam summary Management

Management
1. Part 1 – Foundations of Management
1.1. Chapter 1: Managing and Performing
I. Managing in a competitive world
Four ongoing challenges that characterize the business landscape:
o Globalization
 Interaction and integration of people, firms, and governments
 Many well-known enterprises are global, with offices and production facilities all
over the world
 A company's talent can come from anywhere -> change of workforce -> role of
expats
 Effect on both small and large companies
o Technological change
 Evolution
▫ WEB 1.0 (mid-1990s-early 2000s)
♦ Online data consultation, 'reading' dot.com companies and crisis
▫ WEB 2.0 (2005-2015)
♦ Interactive
♦ More user friendly
♦ Consulting and sharing
♦ Social media start-ups
▫ WEB 3.0 (2015-…) -> WEB 4.0 (today, highly intelligent interactions)
♦ "read-write-execute" ->Internet of Things
♦ Real Time
♦ Mobile applications
♦ Big Data analytics
♦ Cloud computing
♦ Artificial intelligence
 The internet
▫ Provides a:
♦ Marketplace
♦ Distribution channel
♦ Information and networking point
▫ Benefits:
♦ Driving down costs and speeds up globalization
♦ More efficient decision making
♦ Online information flows and learning processes
o Knowledge management
Importance of a strong idea and translation into innovation
 Knowledge workers:
Use and create knowledge and information to develop ideas, and to signal and solve
problems
 Knowledge management:
Finding, unlocking, sharing, and capitalizing on the post precious resources of an
organization, to convert ideas into innovation
▫ People's expertise and skills
▫ Vision/creativity/wisdom
▫ Relationships through networking and collaboration

, o Collaboration across boundaries
 Effective collaboration requires good communication between departments,
divisions, and other units of the organization
▫ Example: T-shaped manager
Shares knowledge (horizontal) and remains committed as a specialist to
business unit (vertical) -> broad and deep perspective -> knowledge across and
within domains
 Companies may capitalize on the ideas of people outside the organization
(consultants, freelancers, advertising agencies, suppliers, and client)
II. Managing for competitive advantage
o Staying ahead of the competition by doing better than your competitors at doing
valuable things
= delivering long-term performance
o Success drivers of performance
 Performance indicators: energy usage, employee turnover
 The best managers and companies deliver on multiple performance dimensions
▫ Innovation
♦ The introduction of new technologies, processes, goods or services
♦ A firm must:
◊ Adapt to changes in consumer demands and to new competitors
◊ Be ready with new ways to communicate with customers and deliver
the products to them
◊ Innovate or die, products don't sell forever
▫ Quality
Is a function of characteristics of goods or services that aims for excellence
♦ From
◊ Emphasis on attractiveness
◊ Minimal defects
◊ Long-term reliability
♦ To
◊ Preventing defects before they occur = long-term quality
◊ Goal: zero defects in manufacturing
◊ Emphasis on quality already in design-phase = Total Quality
Management
◊ Continuous improvement
▫ Service
♦ Giving customers what they want or need, when they want it
♦ Continually meeting the needs of customers to establish mutually
beneficial long-term relationships
♦ Making it easy and enjoyable for customers to experience or to buy and
use products
▫ Speed
♦ Fast and timely execution, response, and delivery of results
▫ Cost competitiveness
♦ Keeping costs low
♦ Relevance?
To achieve profit maximization and offer attractive prices to consumers
♦ But not without sustainability
▫ Sustainability

, ♦ Minimize the use of polluting, non-renewable and nonrecyclable
resources
♦ Improve social conditions
♦ Focus on the long term
III. The four functions of management
o Management entails:
Working with people and other resources to achieve organizational goals efficiently and
effectively
 Effectiveness
Realizing the goals
 Efficiency
Realizing goals with minimal use or waste of resources = make the best use of
money, time, materials, and people
o The four functions:
 Planning: delivering strategic value
▫ Formulating goals
▫ Developing strategies to achieve the goals
▫ Delivering strategic value
▫ The better you meet your goals, the higher the value will be
 Organizing: building a dynamic organization
▫ Assembling and coordinating human, financial, physical, informational, and
other resources, needed to achieve the goals
▫ Hiring of people, job descriptions, specifying responsibilities, allocation
resources
 Leading: mobilizing people
▫ Stimulating/motivating people te be good/high performers
▫ Communicating and connecting with people
▫ In and across teams, departments, divisions
▫ Solving problems
 Controlling: learning and changing
▫ Monitoring performance
▫ Everything according to plan?
▫ Making necessary changes
▫ Feedback: continually learning and changing, so goals can be achieved
o Performing all four management functions
 A typical day for a manager is not neatly divided into the four functions
 Days are fractionated and spent dealing with interruptions, meetings, and
troubleshooting
 Good managers devote adequate attention and resources to all four management
functions
IV. Management levels and skills
o Management levels
 Top-level Managers (strategic)
▫ Senior level, Top Management team (TMT)
▫ General management (CEO, CF0, C00, CIO)
 Middle-level Managers (tactical)
▫ Translating corporate goals into business unit targets
▫ Daily operations entrepreneurial and innovative ideas
 Frontline Managers (operational)
▫ Supervising production

, ▫ Liaising managers and non-management employees
o Managerial roles
 Decision roles
▫ Entrepreneur
▫ Disturbance handler
▫ Resource allocator
▫ Negotiator
 Informational roles
▫ Monitor
▫ Disseminator
▫ Spokesperson
 Interpersonal roles
▫ Leader
▫ Liaison
▫ Figurehead
o Must-have management skills
 Technical
▫ Ability to perform a specialized task involving a particular method or process
 Interpersonal and communication
▫ People skills
▫ Ability to lead, motivate, and communicate
▫ Building social capital
▫ Emotional intelligence
 Conceptual and decision
▫ Ability to identify and resolve problems
o Top 10 skills of 2025
 Analytical thinking and innovation
 Active learning and learning strategies
 Complex problem-solving
 Critical thinking and analysis
 Creativity, originality, and initiative
 Leadership and social influence
 Technology use, monitoring, and control
 Technology design and programming
 Resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility
 Reasoning, problem-solving, and ideation
V. You and your career: two relationships
o You as a passive employee
Employer

You
o You as an active contributor in a productive relationship
You Your organization
 Actively managing your relationship with your organization
 Understanding and managing yourself
 Empathizing with others
1.2. Chapter 2: The external and internal environment
I. Open systems
o Organizations affect the business environment
o Organizations get affected by the business environment