Chapter Seventeen
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accomplish the objectives by the use of people and resources”. Note that
the author regards MANAGEMENT as a PROCESS, for instance a series
of actions that are taken in order to achieve a result.
Yet, other factors that should be emphasised here are four
MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES, such as: PLANNING, ORGANISING,
ACTUATING, and CONTROLLING. To be more specific, PLANNING
refers to the act of deciding how to do something in advance.
ORGANISING can be considered as arrangement of the human and
material resources of an organisation. As far as ACTUATING is
concerned, one may explain it as the motivation and direction of
subordinates. However, CONTROLLING, pertains to some attempts at
avoiding deviation from the norm, plan or behaviour. Obviously, one
cannot omit the fact that a manager uses people and other resources to
accomplish the organisation's objectives. At this point it is worth quoting
PierĞcieniak (2008: 15-16), who makes an attempt to define and elucidate
the concept of MANAGEMENT by referring to its functions in Polish and
English (Table 1).
Table 1. Comparison of the functions of management.^4
As can be seen in Table 1, the element that is most frequently presented
in literature on the subject is ORGANIZING. The English literature on
management includes concepts related to directing – communication,
motivation and also leadership. However, the last function is the same in
all three sources, although, there can be some semantic differences among
them.
(^4) Quoted after PierĞcieniak (2008: 15) who elaborated the table by referring to the
following authors: Bittel (1998), Stoner and Wankel (1992), KoĨmiĔski and
Piotrowski (2002).
FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT
According to Henri
Fayol
Polish literature of the
problem
English literature of the
problem
Forecasting
Organizing
Ordering
Coordinating
Control
Planning
Organizing
Motivation
Control
Planning
Organizing
Staffing
Directing
(communications,
motivation, leadership)
Controlling