WHAT IS MANAGEMENT

Management means different things to different people. Management is used to point to an academic field of study, a profession, a group of people in an organization as well as a process. Our focus in this article limits management to two basic ways as a collective noun and as a process. In the collective noun definition of management, it is seen as a group of people that determines the policies of organization and/or assigns tasks to subordinates.
It points to those charged with the responsibility of taking actions that will make it easy for individual to make their best contributions to group objectives. Thus, in the midst of industrial crisis, union representatives are usually referring to discussions with management “those in authority” or we see such warnings as “strictly out of bounds, signed management” in factories.

The Management Have Describe a Group of Persons
The process definition, on the other hand, views management from the point of its functions. It sees management as the process of planning, organizing, directing and controlling organizational resources so Krieter (1992:8) defines management as the process of working with and through others to achieve organizational objectives in a changing environment.

There are basically five facts discernible from these definitions:
1. The fact that management works with and through others.
2. The fact that there are identified objectives to be achieved.
3. The fact that effectiveness and efficiency are to be balanced.
4. The fact that there are resources available to a manager.
5. The fact that the manager works in a dynamic environment.

Working With and Through Others
Management as a process does not work in isolation. Management works with machines, equipment, materials, money and the others. It uses these resources via the human resources-workers.

The workers use the machines, materials, money, equipment and some other to meet the set goals of the organization. In a nutshell, magament cannot ascertain its objectives alone. It must work with the non-human resources.

Management sets objectives to be carried out by the workers and provides the non-human resources needed for the achievement of the set objectives. The human resources, therefore, use these non-human resources to gain the organizations set objectives.

Management therefore works with and through others – the employees.

Identified objectives
At its inception, an organization must explicitly define its objectives. This is the goal it must by all means achieve. For a manufacturing organization, its objective is the product it has set out to manufacture. Such products could be cars, tables, televisions and the like, depending upon the type of business, it is engaged in.