Glossary of Terms Regarding Management (320 Terms Alphabetic Order)

A glossary of terms helps people to find out difficult terms that they need to understand. So here we provide a large list of glossary of terms regarding management below:

Glossary of terms (A)

Acceptance theory of authority: Involves hiring considerations and practices (different qualifying tests, lower starting salaries) that are badges on the candidate’s membership in a particular population subgroup and are not related in any way to present or future job performance.
Action research: The method through which organization-development change agents learn what improvements are needed and how the organization can best be aided in making those improvements.
Affirmative action (AA): The concentrated efforts to recruit, hire, and promote women and members of minority groups.
Amoral managers: Managers who are neither moral nor immoral, but ethically lazy.
Analysis of job requirements: Procedure managers use to determine the training needs of individuals by comparing the skills or knowledge specified in the appropriate job description with those of employees occupying the position; individuals without necessary skills or knowledge become candidates for training.
Apprenticeship: Method of on-the-job training in which the employee is trained under the guidance of a highly skilled co-worker.
Approach to management, contingency, or situations: A analysis of management that emphasizes the fact that what managers do in practice depends on a given set of circumstances or the “situation” and that there is no single “best way” to manage.
Approach to management, cooperative social system: An analysis of management concerned with both interpersonal and group behavioral aspects leading to a system of cooperation.
Approach to management, empirical or case: An analysis of management that studies experience through cases, identifying successes and failures.
Approach to management, group behavior: An analysis of management that studies the behavior of people in groups. The approach is based on sociology and social psychology. The focus is on group behavior patterns. The study of large groups I often called “organization behavior.”
Approach to management, managerial roles: A means of analyzing management by observing what managers actually do and from such observations coming to conclusions as to what managerial activities (or roles) are.
Approach to management, mathematical, or “Management Science”: An analysis of management primarily seen as mathematical processes, concepts, symbols, and models. This approach views management as a purely logical process, expressed in mathematical symbols and relationships
Approach to management, Mckinsey’s 7-S framework: An analysis of management that organizes managerial knowledge around the following categories; strategy, structure, systems, style, staff, shared values, and skills.
Area of acceptance: According to Simon, inclinations conditioning individuals to accept responsibility or activity; called the zone of indifference by Barnard.
Artificial intelligence (AI): Development of computational approaches to simulate intelligent human thought or behavior.
Authoritarian management: Management style characterized by a high concern for production and efficiency but low concern for employees; opposite of country club management; also called task management.

Glossary of terms (B)

Behaviorally experienced training: Methods using such activates as simulation exercises, business games, and problem-centered cases so that tyrannies can learn the behaviors appropriate for a job through role-playing.
Behavioral school: A group of management scholars trained in sociology, psychology, and related fields, who use their diverse knowledge to understand and more effectively manage people in the organization.
Budget variance: Difference between budgeted and actual figures.
Business cycle: The up and down movement of an economy’s ability to generate wealth.

Glossary of terms (C)

CAD (computer-aided design): Design and drafting performed interactively on a computer.
Centralization: The extent to which authority is concentrated at the top of the organization.
Certainty: Decision-making conditioning which manages has accurate, measurable, and reliable information about the outcome of various alternatives under consideration.
Charismatic leaders: Leaders who, through their personal vision and energy, inspire followers, and have a major impact on their organization; also called transformational leaders.
Charter: A group’s clear and achievable set of objectives.
Classroom instruction: The off-the-job training method in which specialists from inside or outside the organization teach trainees a particular subject; it is often supplemented with case studies, role-playing, and business games or simulations.
Fluster chain: Type of grapevine chain that occurs when a person conveys the information to a few selected individuals, some of whom then inform a few selected others.
Coaching: The training of an employee by his or her immediate supervisor, by far the most effective management development technique.
Coercive power: The negative side of reward power, based on the influence ability to punish the influences.
Collective strategy: This occurs when people in different organizations collaborate in deterring how organizations with common concerns will approach certain issues.
Committee: A formal organization team, usually relatively long-lived, created to carry out specific organizational tasks.
Comparable worth: The principle that jobs recurring comparable skills and knowledge merit equal compensation even if the nature of the work activity is different.
Competitive benchmarking: The process of finding the best available product features, processes, and services and using them as a standard for improving a company’s own products, processes, and services.
Competitive priorities: Four major criteria, including prancing, quality levels, quality reliability, and flexibility, on which products and services are evaluated.
Computer-based information systems (CBIS): Information system that goes beyond the mere standardization of dated to aid in the planning process.
Control: The process of ensuring that actually activates conform to planned activates.
Controlling: Ensuring that actually activates conform to the planned activity.
Corporate social responsiveness: A theory of social responsibility that focuses on how companies respond to issue, rather than trying to determine their ultimate social responsibility.
Country club management: Management style characterized by a high concern for employees but low concern for production; opposite of task or authoritarian management.
Computer: An automatic data processor capable of arithmetic and logic operations.
Computer system: A collection of components including data, hardware, programs, procedures, and skilled personnel.
Contingent workers: Part-times and other employees who do not have a long-term implicit contract with their ultimate employers.
Commitment principle: The idea that logical planning should cover a period of time in the future necessary to foresee, through a series of actions, the fulfillment of commitments involved in a current decision.
A contingency model of leadership effectiveness: A leadership model developed by Fielder that postulates that a leader’s effectiveness depends on three variables; i) how well a leader is accepted by subordinates, ii) The degree to which subordinates positions being vague and undefined, and iii) the formal authority in the position is occupied by a leader.
Control of overall performance: Control designed to measure the total performance of an enterprise, an integrated division of it, or a major program or project.

Glossary of terms (D)

Decision rule: Tells when and how programmed decisions should be made.
Decision support system (DSS): Computer system accessible to no specialists to assist in planning and decision making.
Decoding: The interpretation and translation of a message into meaningful information. A delegation of authority the vesting of a decision-making discretion in a subordinate.
Democratic management: Management style characterized by a high concern for both production and employee morale and satisfaction, also called team management.
Defensive social responsibility strategy: Resisting additional responsibilities with legal and public relations tactics.
360-degree review: Pooled, anonymous performance evaluation by one’s peers, and subordinates.
Deming management: Application of W. Edward Deming’s ideas for a more responsive, more democratic, and less wasteful organization.
Departmentalization: Grouping related jobs or processes into major organizational subunits.
Department: Distinct areas, division, or branch of an enterprise over which a manager has authority for the performance of specified activities and results.
Departmentation by function: The grouping of activates in departments in accordance with the characteristic functions an enterprise undertakes; for example, in a manufacturing company marketing, production, engineering, and finance.
Departmentation by territory or geography: The grouping of activities by territorial segments; geographic departmentation.
Dialectical inquiry method: A method of analysis in which a decision-maker determines and negates his or her assumptions, and then creates “counter solutions” based on the negative assumptions; also called the devil’s advocate method.
Discipline: Actions are taken when an employee violates company policy or falls short of work expectations, and managers must act to remedy the situation; it usually progresses through a series of steps-warning, reprimand, probation, suspension, disciplinary transfer, demotion, and discharge until the problem is solved or eliminated.
Dissatisfied: According to the two-factor theory, the factors (which Herzberg called “hygiene” factors) that can inhibit work, such as salary, working conditions, and company policy-all of which are related to the context in which work is conducted.
Distributed computing: System in which some portion of the computer logic function is performed outside a central location.
Division of labor: The breakdown of a complex task into components so that individuals are responsible for a limited set of activities instead of the task as a whole. Often referred to as the division of work.

Glossary of terms (E)

Economies of scope: Achieved when the same machines are used to produce small batches of different products.
Effect uncertainty: Impacts of environmental changes are unpredictable.
Effectiveness: A central element in the process of management that entails achieving a stated organizational objective.
Electronic data processing (EDP): Computerized data-processing and information management, information management, including report standardization for operating managers.
Empowerment: The act of delegation power and authority to a subordinate so that the foals of the manager can be accomplished.
Encoding: The translation of information into a series of symbols for communication.
Engineered cost budget: Type of expense budget that describes the material and labor costs of each item produced, including estimated overhead cost.
Entrepreneur: Either the originator of a new business venture or a manager who tries to improve an organizational unit by initing product changes.
Enterprise self-audit: The making by an enterprise an audit, or appraisal, of its position, where it is heading under present programs, what its objectives should be, and whether revised plans are needed to meet these objectives.
Environment, economic: That environment of mangers which has to do with such elements as labor availability, quality, and price; capital, materials, price levels, productivity, availability of high-quality entrepreneurs and managers, government fiscal and tax policy, customers, and demands for goods and services.
Environment, technological: That environment of mangers which has to do with such elements as knowledge of ways of doing things; inventions; and techniques in the areas of processes, machines, and tools.
Equal employment opportunity (EEO) requirements: The requirement of nondiscriminatory treatment in the workplace to prohibit employers in the workplace to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, age, religion, color, or national origin.
Equal pay: The Equal Pay Act prohibits discrimination in which employers pay men more than women for performing jobs requiring substantially equal skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions; it requires kike pay for like jobs.
Espoused values: The reasons given by an organization for the way things are done; according to Schein, the way things are done; according to Schein, the second level of organizational culture.
Escalation of commitments: People get looked into losing courses of action to avoid the embarrassment of quitting or admitting error.
Ethnocentric attitude: View that assumes that the home country’s personnel and ways of doing things are the best.
European Community 1992 (EC 1992) Program objective: The objective of Europe 1992 is to create a single market through the removal of trade barriers, and a free movement of goods, people, services, and capital.
Event outcome forecasts: Predication of the outcome of highly probable future events.
Event timing forecasts: Predication when a given event will occur.
Expert power: Power based on the belief or understanding that the influence has specific knowledge or relevant expertise that the influence does not.
Expert system: A computer-based system using artificial intelligence techniques to diagnose problems, recommend approaches to solve or avoiding them, and provide a rationale for these recommendations.
Extrinsic rewards: Reward that is provided by an outside agent, such as a supervisor or workgroup

Glossary of terms (F)

Feedback control: Checking a completed activity and learning from mistakes.
Financial ratios: Numerical measures of an organization’s financial health.
Fishbone diagram: A cause-and-effect diagram.
Fixed costs: Contractual costs that must be paid regardless of output or sales.
Flexibility (in planning) principle: The more that flexibility (the ability to change direction without undue cost, embarrassment, or friction) can be built into plans, the less the danger of losses incurred by unexpected events. The cost of flexibility should be weighed against its advantages.
Forecasts: Predication, projections, or estimates of future situations.
Formal authority: Power that exists when a subordinate or influence acknowledges that the influencer has a “right” or is lawfully entitled to exert influence, within certain bounds; power rooted in the general understanding that specific individuals or groups have the right to exert influence within certain limits by virtue of their position within the organization, also called legitimate power.
Formal systematic appraisal: A formalized appraisal process for rating work performance, identifying those deserving raises or promotions, and identifying those in need of father tainting.
Forming: According to Tuchman, the initial stage that groups go through, during which the members learn what behavior is acceptable to the group.
Functional manager: A manager responsible for just one organizational activity, responsible for just one organizational activity, such as a fence or human resources management.
Functions: A classification referring to a group of similar activities in an organization, such as marketing or finance.

Glossary of terms (G)

General financial condition: The long-term balance between debt and equity.
General gaps: Difference in sets of values held by different age groups.
Globalization: The recognition by organizations that business must have of global, not local focus.
Groupthink: Janis’s term for blind conformity incohesive in the group.

Glossary of terms (H)

Hierarchy of needs: Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s theory that basic human needs exist in ascending order of importance (physiological, security or safety, affiliation or acceptance, esteem, and self-actualization) and that once and lower-level need is satisfied, actions appealing to it cease to motivate.
High-context cultures: Cultures in which nonverbal and situational messages convey primary meaning.
Histogram: Bar chart indicating deviations from the standard bell-shaped curve.
Human relations: How managers interact with other employees or recruits, particularly subordinates.
Human resource management (HRM): The management function that deals with recruitment, placement, training, and development, placement, training, and development of organization members.
Human relations movement: An effort to make managers more sensitive to their employee’s needs.

Glossary of terms (I)

Indirect-action elements: Elements or the external environment that affect the climate in which an organization’s financial performance over a given interval of time.
Influence: Any actions or examples of behavior that cause a change in attitude or behavior that cause a change in attitude or behavior of another person or group.
Informal organization: Generally, patterns of human behavior and relationships consisting of, or lying outside, the formal organization structure. According to Professor Keith Davis, it is “a network of personal and social relations into established or required by the formal organization but arising spontaneously as people associate with one another.”
Informal organizational structure: The undocumented and officially unrecognized relations ions between members of an organization that inevitably energy out of the personal and group needs of employees.
Integration: The term Lawrence and Lorsch use in place of coordination, to designate the degree to which members of various departments work to gather in a unified manner.
Intelligent enterprises: Organizations whose most important product is knowledge, packaged as valuable services.
Investment center: The organizational unit that not only measures the monetary value of inputs and outputs but also compares the output with assets used in producing them.
Informal leadership: The process of influencing others to pursue unofficial objectives.
Information technology: Tall devices and knowledge required to manage any type of data.
Innovation lag: Time it takes for a new idea to be translated into satisfied demand.
Innovation process: The systematic development and practical application of a new idea.
Intermediate planning: Determining sub unit’s contributions with allocated resources.
The iron law of responsibility: Those who do not use power in a socially responsible way will eventually lose it.
Issues management: Ongoing process of identifying, evaluating, and responding to important social and political issues.

Glossary of terms (J)

Job analysis: Determining fundamental elements of jobs through systematic observation.
Job enrichment: The combining of various operations at a similar level into one job to provide more variety for workers and thus increase their motivation and satisfaction; represents an increase in job scope.

Glossary of terms (K)

Kazen: A Japanese term which points at the importance of continuous improvements. The idea is that continuously taking small steps in improvements will be the key to long-term success.
Kanban: Inventory system in which production quantities are ideally equal to delivery quantities, with materials purchased and finished goods delivered just in time to use; also known as just-in-time (JIT) inventory system.
Kansel engineering: The Japanese practice of paying attention to the rational and emotional aspects of customers and emotional aspects of customer s and developing model “personalities” for different types of customers.

Glossary of terms (L)

Leader-member relations: The quality of the interaction between a leader and his or her subordinates; according to Fielder, the most important influence on the manager’s power.
Leadership functions: The group-maintenance and blast-related activities that must be performed by the leader, or someone else, for a group to perform effectively.
The least preferred co-worker (LPC): Fielder’s measuring instrument for locating a manager on the leadership-style continuum.
Legitimate power: Power that exists when a subordinate or influence acknowledges that the influencer has a “right” or is lawfully entitled to exert influence, within certain bounds; also called formal authority.
Limiting factor, a principle of: In choosing from among alternatives, the more individuals can recognize and solve for those factors which are limiting or critical to the attainment of the desired goal, the more clearly, accurately, and easily they can select the most favorable alternative.
Local-area networks: Computers wired together in a single location or restricted geographical area.
Low-context cultures: Cultures in which words convey primary meaning.

Glossary of terms about management (M)

Management: The process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the work of organization members and of using all available organizational resources to reach stated organizational goals.
Management by objectives: Comprehensive management system based on measurable and anticipatively set objectives.
Management by walking around (MBWA): The managerial technique of taking time to “walk-around” through various departments and production facilities in order to observe the operation and speak informally with employees.
Management information system (MIS): The computer-based information system for more effective planning, decision making, and control.
Managerial ability: The demonstrated capacity to achieve organizational objectives both effectively and efficiently.
Managerial functions: General administrative duties that need to be carried out in virtually all productive organizations to achieve desired outcomes.
Mainframe computer: A full-scale computer that is capable of handling huge amounts of data. Some of these “supercomputers” are used for engineering, simulation, and the manipulation of large databases.
Management as a science: Organized knowledge concepts, theory, principles, and techniques underlying the practice of managing’ science systematically explain phenomena in managing, as it does in any other field.
Management theory jungle: The term applied by Harold Koontz in 1961 to identify the existence of a variety of schools of, or approaches to, management theory and knowledge. He found just six such schools or approaches in 1961 but in 1979 identified elements. He found that the schools or approaches tended to vary in their semantics and their view of management from different specialist’s points of view.
Managerial appraisal: Evaluating the performance of managers in their positions, ideally evaluation performance in setting and achieving verifiable objectives and performance as a manager.
Managerial environment: See Environment, economic; Environment, ethical; Environment, political; Environment, social; Environment, technological.
Managers: Those who undertake the task and functions of managing, at any level in any kind of enterprise.
Managers, a goal of: To so establish and maintain an environment for performance that individuals will contribute to group objectives with least cost in money, time, effort, materials, discomfort, or dissatisfaction to create surplus value, or “profit”.
Manufacturing automation protocol (MAP): A network of machines and various office devices hooked together. General Motors, for example, has been known for linking robots with numerically controlled machine tools.
Marketing argument: The argument that organizations gain insight into markets consisting of minority group members and women by managing multicultural issues.
Materials-resource planning (MRP): Operational planning system that extends MRP by comparing needs to known resources and calculates unit costs; can also be used with other computer programs to handle order entry, invoicing, and other operational tasks.
Matrix organization: A structure with both vertical and horizontal lines of authority.
Mechanistic organizations: Rigid bureaucracies.
Mentor: Someone who develops another through tutoring, coaching, and guidance.
Microcomputer: Smaller than the minicomputer; maybe a desk computer, home computer, personal computer, portable computer, or computer for a small business system.
Mission or purpose: The basic function or takes of an enterprise or agency or any department of it.
Monochromic time: A perception of time as straight-line broken into standard units.
Motivation: Psychological purpose giving behavior purpose and direction.
Multiculturalism: As applied to the workplace, the view that there are many different cultural backgrounds and factors that are important in organizations, and that is important in organizations, and that people from different backgrounds can coexist and flourish within an organization.
A multinational company (MNC): Business that has strategic control over production/marketing in two or more counters.

Glossary of terms regarding management (N)

Negotiation: Decision-making process among interdependent parties with a different preference.
Network organization: The only function is the coordination of subcontracted production/marketing operations.
New social contract: Assumption that the employer-employee relationship will be a shorter-term one based on convenience, rather than for life.
Nonproductive facilities: Facilities where work does not take place, such as storage areas and maintenance facilities.
Norming: According to Tuckman, the third stage that groups go through, during which the members address and hopefully resolve conflicts that occurred during the storming stage, establishing common goals, norms, and ground rules and allowing group unity to emerge.
Noise: Any interference with the normal flow of communication.
Nonprofit organizations: Organizations with benevolent rather than financial goals.

Glossary of terms (O)

Objective: Commitment to achieving a measurable result within a specified period.
Okyajusama: In Japanese, a word meaning honored guest and customer; illustrated how Japanese companies treat customers.
On-the-job training: An approach to training employees at a work through such methods as job rotation, internship, and apprenticeship.
Open system: A system that interacts with its environment.
Operational auditing: The process of conducting internal audits to assist managers in evaluating the organizations’ operational efficiency and the performance of its control systems.
Opportunity: Station that occurs when circumstances offer an organization the chance to exceed stated goals and objectives.
Optimize: Systematically identifying the solution with the best combination of benefits.
Organization: Two or more people who work together in a structured way to achieve a specific goal or set of goals.
Organizational culture: The set of important understanding, such as norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs, shared by organizational members.
Organizing: The process of engaging two or more people in working together in a structured way to achieve a specific goal or set of goals.
Organizational behavior: A modern approach seeking to discover the causes of work behavior and develop better management techniques.
Organizational productivity: The ratio and an organization’s total output to total input, adjusted for inflation, for a specified period of time.
Organizational socialization: Process of transforming outsiders into accepted insiders.
Organizational values: Shared beliefs about what the organization stands for.
Organizational authority: The degree of discretion in organizational positions conferring on a person’s occupying these positions the right to use their judgment in decision making.
Organizational role: An organizational positing designed for individuals to fill; to be meaningful to people, it should incorporate i) verifiable objectives, ii) a clear concept of the major duties or activities involved, iii) an understood area of discretion, or authority, iv) the availability of information and resources necessary to accomplish a task.
Ostracism: Rejection from a group.
Outplacement: The ethical practices of helping displaced employees find new jobs.

Glossary of terms regarding management (P)

The paradox of authority: According to Smith and Berg, the paradox that the group derives its power from the power of its individual members, but in joining the group, members diminish their individual power by putting it at the group’s disposal.

The paradox of regression: According to Smith and Berg, the paradox that although individuals usually join groups hoping to become more than they were before they joined, in order for the group to become more, individuals must become less.

Path-goal mode: A leadership theory emphasizing the leader’s role in clarifying for subordinates how they can achieve high performance and its associated rewards.

Peer-goal approach to leadership effectiveness: An approach that sees as the main function of the leader clarifying and setting goals with subordinates, helping them to find the best path for achieving the goals, and removing obstacles.

Personal Computer: A desktop or smaller computer operated by an individual.

Pert times: Weighted time estimates for completion of part activates.

Peter Principle: Principle enunciated by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hall that managers tend to be promoted until they reach the level of their incompetence.

Political action committee (PACs): Groups organized to lobby and make campaign contributions to influence legislation.

Plural executive: A committee, or group that has the authority to execute, as a group, managerial functions.

Pluralistic society: A society in which many organized groups present various interests. Each group has an impact on other groups, but no one group has an inordinate amount of power.

Position power: The power, according to Fielder, that is inherent in it the formal position the leader holds. This power may be great or small, depending on the specific position.

Polychronic time: A perception of time as flexible, elastic, and multidimensional.

Principles: Fundamental truths, or what are believed to be truths at a given time, or what are believed to be truths at a given time, explaining relationships between two or more sets of variables, usually an independent variable and a dependent variable; may be descriptive, explaining what will happen, or prescriptive (or normative), indicating what a person should do; in the latter case, principles reflect some scale to values, such as efficiency, and therefore imply value judgments.

Product flexibility: The situation in which product designs can be changed quickly and the manager’s emphasis on customized products to please individual customers.

Productive facilities: Facilities where work takes palace, such as workstation and materials handling equipment.

Productivity: Measure of how well an operation’s system functions and an indicator of the efficiency and competitiveness of a single firm or department.

Priorities: Ranking goals, objectives, or activates in order of importance.

Process layout: Production arrangement in which tools and machines are grouped by function.

Production design: Process of creating a set of product specifications.

Production planning: Formulating a resource transformation system to meet forecasted demand.

Production management: Those activities necessary to manufacture products or create services. It includes activities such as purchasing, warehousing, transportation, and other operations to procure raw materials until product or service is bought by the customers.

Productivity: The output-input ratio within a time period with due consideration for quality.

Profit: The surplus of sales dollars over expense dollars.

Profit and loss control: A control technique designed to measure a division or some other part of a business enterprise by calculating the total profit (or loss) performance of that entity.

Program: A complex of goals, policies, produced res, rules, task assignments, steps to be employed, and other elements necessary to carry out a given course of action and normally supported by capital and operating budgets.

Program budgeting: A budgeting approach, used primarily by government agencies, emphasizing goals, the programs to achieve them, and budgetary allocations designed to support such programs.

Promotion: A changes within the organization to a higher position that has greater responsibilities and usually requires more advanced skills and knowledge that the previous position. Promotion normally brings greater status and an increase in pay.

Promoting based on the open competition: The policy of filling a position or making promotions from the most qualified people available whether from inside or outside a given enterprise.

Promotion from within: The practice of making all promotions in an enterprise form people within it if it is possible to do so.

Purpose: See mission or purpose.

Purchasing: The procurement of needed raw material, components, equipment, and services.

Glossary of terms (Q)

Quality: Conformance to requirements.

Quality of working life (QWL): Programs representing a system approach a job design and job enrichment that will make jobs more interesting and challenging. QWL programs are closely associated with the sociotechnical systems approach.

Glossary of terms (R)

The rational model of decision making: A four-step process that helps managers weigh alternatives and chooses the alternative with the best chance of success.

Rationality: Analysis requiring a clear goal, a clear understanding of alternatives by which a goal can be reached, analysis, and evaluation of alternatives in terms of the goal sought, needed information, and a desire to optimize.

Reactive changes: Changes made in response to unexpected situations.

Realistic job preview (RJP): Information on a job provided by the organization to applicants and new employees that gives give both the positive and negative aspects of the job.

Decentralization of authority: The recall of some or sometimes all authority previously delegated.

Response: An individual’s behavior provoked by a situation or event called a stimulus.

Revolving door syndrome: Short tenure at work occurring, for example, when minorities can get into an organization but do not stay because they feel uncomfortable in the organization’s environment.

Response uncertainty: Consequences of decisions are unpredictable.

Risk: Decision-making condition in which managers know the probability that a given alternative will lead to a desired goal or outcome.

Risk analysis: An approach to problem analysis that weighs risk in a situation by introducing probabilities to give a more accurate assessment of risks involved.

Role-playing: Method of training in which people are assigned different organizational roles to play in order to improve their skills and understanding of various work situations.

Roving leaders: According to Max De Pree, the people we look to as models, people who anticipate needs and respond, outside any formal position and hierarchy.

Rules: Required action or no action, allowing no discretion; e.g., “positively no smoking.”

Glossary of terms regarding management (S)

Sales forecast: A prediction of expected sales, by product or service, and price, for a period of time in the future.

Satisfies: Setting for a solution that is good enough.

Satisfying: A term used by Herbert A. Simon to demote the tendencies of managers, morally in instances of bounded rationality, in making decisions to pick a course of action that is deemed “good enough” under the circumstances. See Bounded rationality.

Scalar relationships: Authority relationships are said to be scalar when subordinates report to their immediate superiors and when their superiors report directly, as subordinates, to their superiors(i.r., in “scales”), In other words, the chain of command that runs from the top of an organization to its lowest ranks.

Science: Organized knowledge of pertinence to an area, usually an area of practice.

Scientific management: Developing performance standards on the basis of systematic observation and experimentation.

Sensitivity training: A form of training based on the behavior of persons in groups and, through undirected group interchanging, designed to make these persons more aware of their feelings and the feelings of others toward them.

Semi-variable costs: Those expenses, such as shorter labor costs, that varies with the amount of work performed but not in a proportional way.

Sense of potency: Collective belief of a group that it can be effective.

Seven-5 model: According to Waterman and others, a framework for change identifying seven key factors that can adversely affect successful change in an organization.

Sexual harassment: As applied in the workplace, any unwanted sexual behavior that can involve, for change identifying seven key factors that can adversely affect successful change in an organization.

Semantics: Study of the meaning of words.

Short-run-capacity changes: Changes in production capacity that result from temporary changes, such as scheduling overtime work, shifting existing personnel, subcontracting, and using inventories or backorders.

Shrinking: A version of organizational restructuring which results in decreasing the size of the organization and often results in a flatter organizational structure; often referred to as downsizing.

Single-strand chain: Least accurate type of grapevine chain that involves a person. A who tells something to person B, who tells it to person, C, and so on down the line?

Single-use plan: A detailed course of action used once or only occasionally to solve a problem that does not occur repeatedly.

Situational approach: The view that the management technique that best contributes to the attainment of organizational goals might vary in different types of situations or circumstances also called the contingency approach.

Situational forces: Forces that influence a manager’s choice of leadership style because they may affect organization members’ attitudes toward authority include the organization’s preferred style, the size and cohesiveness of a specific workgroup, the nature of the group’s tasks, the pressures of time, and even environmental factors.

Situational leadership theory: An approach to leadership developed by Hersey and Blanchard describes how leaders should adjust their leadership style in response to their subordinates’ evolving desire for achievement, experience, ability, and willingness to accept responsibility.

Small-batch production: Products made in small quantities in separate stages, such as machine parts that are later assembled.

Socialization: A program designed to help employees fit smoothly into an organization also called orientation.

Social system: The set of beliefs and the resulting behaviors that are shared throughout the organization; also called the cultural system.

Social responsiveness: The ability of an enterprise to relate policies and operations to the environment that are beneficial to both the organization and the society.

The span of control: The number of subordinates reporting directly to a given manager. Also called span of management or span of management control.

The span of management: The number of subordinates reporting directly to a given manager. Also called span of control or span of management control.

Special group: A new group that either has been formed to solve a specific problem or has been created through a merger or other structural change in the organization.

Special-interest groups (SIGs): Groups of people who organize to use the political process to advance their position on particular issues such as abortion and gun control.

Splintered authority: The situation where the total authority to accomplish a given result resets to more than one position.

Staff authority: The authority of those groups of individuals who provide line managers with advisory services.

Staffing: Filling, and keeping filled, the positions in the organization structure with competent people. This is done through (1) identifying work-force requirements, (2) inventorying the people available, (3) recruiting, (4) selecting candidates for positions, (5) placing candidates, and (6) promising (7) appraising, (8) planning the career of, (9) compensating, and (10) training or otherwise developing people.

Stakeholders: Those groups or individuals who are directly or indirectly affected by organizational activities; major types are policies, procedures, and rules.

Standing plan: An established set of decisions used by managers to deal with recurring organizational activities; major types are policies, procedures, and rules.

Star: According to the portfolio framework, a business with a high relative market share in the rapidly growing market.

Stimulus: A situation or event that provokes an individual’s own voluntary behavior, called a response.

Storming: According to Tuckman, the second stage that groups go through, during which the members begin to assert their individual personalities and often become hostile as they fight ground rules.

Strategic partnering: When an organization builds long-term relationships with other organizations, such as suppliers, to enhance its products or service.

Strategy: The board programs for defining and achieving the organization’s objectives the organization’s response to its environment over time.

Stakeholder audit: Identifying all parties possible impacted by the organization.

Subunits: The smaller units into which an organization is broken down, such as division, departments, and so on.

Super teams or high-performance teams: Groups of 3 to 30 workers drawn from different areas of a corporation who get together to solve the problems that workers deal with daily.

Support facilities: Facilities that support the work taking place, such as offices, restrooms, waiting rooms, cafeterias, and parking lots.

Survey feedback: Can be used to improve the operations of the total organization, involves conduction attitude and other surveys, and systematically reporting the results to organization members; members then determine what actions need to be taken to solve the problems and exploit the opportunities uncovered in the surveys.

Sustainable development: A more modern approach to thinking about environmental issues that say that organizations should engage inactivates that can be sustained for a long period of time or which renew themselves automatically.

Supervisors: Same as managers, but ordinarily used to apply to managers at the lowest level, or first-line, of managing.

Symbolic communication: Communication such as gestures, sounds, letters, numbers, and words that can only represent or approximate the ideas that they are meant to communicate.

System boundary: The boundary that separates each system formats environment. It is rigid in a closed system, flexible in an open system.

System flexibility: The argument that the ability to manage diversity increases the adaptability and flexibility of an organization.

Glossary of terms regarding management (T)

Tall hierarchy: Organizational structures characterized by narrow spans of management control and many hierarchical levels.

Task management: Management style characterized by a high concern for production and efficiency but low concern for employees; opposite country club management, also called authoritarian management.

Task-oriented style: Style descriptive of managers who closely supervise employees to be sure that task is performed satisfactorily.

Task structure: A work situation variable that, according to Fielder, helps determine a manager’s power in structured tasks, managers automatically have high power, in unstructured tasks, their power is diminished.

Team management: Management style characterized by a high concern for both production and employee morale and satisfaction; also called democratic management.

Technical system: The factors, such as the technology and the physical infrastructures, and the capital investments necessary for an organization to achieve its goals.

Technological variables: New developments in products or process, as well as advances in science, that may affect an organization activates.

Te-commuting: A situation where a person can work at home at a computer terminal instead of commuting to work by car, public transportation, or some other means.

Theory X: According to McGregor, the assumption that people are inherently motivated to work and do a good job.

Theory Z: Theories using the letter “Z” proposed by several authors. In general, Theory Z refers to selected Japanese managerial practices adapted to the environment of the United States as suggested by William Ouchi, For example, one of the characteristics of Type Z organizations is the emphasis on interpersonal skills needed for group decision making.

Top managers: Managers responsible for the overall management of the organization, they establish operating policies and guide the organization’s interactions with its environment.

Total productivity: A measurement that relates the value of all output to the value of all input, using the ratio total output/total input.

Training Positions: Selected jobs set aside for training managers, such as staff posts reporting directly to selected managers; such assignment, often with the title of “assistant to”, give trainees a chance to work with and model themselves after outstanding managers who might otherwise have little contact with them.

Training program: a process designed to maintain or improve current job performance. Transactional leaders: Leaders who determine what subordinates need to do to achieve objectives, classify those requirements, and help subordinates become confident they can reach their objectives.

Transformational leaders: Leaders who, through their personal vision and energy, inspire followers, and have a major impact on their organizations; also called charismatic leaders.

Treatment discrimination: Involves practices unrelated to job performance that treat subgroup members differently from others once they are in the workforce (less favorable work assignments, slower promotion rates).

Trait appraisals: Evaluation of people, whether managers or no managers, on the basis of personality traits and work-oriented characteristics.

Glossary of terms (U)

Unit production: The production of individual items tailored to a customer’s specifications, such as custom-made clothes.

University-sponsored management development programs: University programs ranging in length from a week to three months or up to one year, that provide full-time study opportunities for middle-level managers; these programs often provide a place for managers selected for promotion to go so that they can broaden their perspectives and prepare for movement into general (as opposed to functional) management; they often combine classroom instruction with case studies, role-playing, and simulation.

Universal process approach: Assumes all organizations require the same retinal management process.

Glossary of terms (V)

Value engineering: Analyzing the operation of a product or service, estimating the value of each operation, and attempting to improve the operation by trying to keep costs low at each step or part.

Variable budget: Cost schedules that show how each cost should vary as the level of activity or output varies; also known as the flexible budget, sliding-scale budget, and step budget.

Variable operation costs: Any communication that moves up or down the chain of command.

Variable costs: Costs that vary directly with production and sales.

Verifiable objective: See Objectives, verifiable.

Vertical integration: Broadening the scope of an organization’s operations by buying the establishments of a supplier or distributor that will contribute to the efficient production of primary product or service offerings.

Vestibule training: Type of off-the-job training in which employees are trained on the actual equipment and in a real job setting but in a location different from the one in which they will be working.

Video conferencing: Live television exchange between people in different locations.

Virtual Corporation: A temporary network of independent companies, including suppliers and customers that are linked by information technology that enables them to share skills, costs, and access to such as a central office, organization, hierarchy, or vertical integration.

Volume flexibility: The ability to make quick changes in the rate of production as the demand for a firm’s product changes.

Glossary of terms (W)

Win-lose situation: Negotiation process in which each of the parties tends to seek maximum gains and wants to impose maximum losses on the other, also known as a distributive process and zero-sum.

Win-win situation: Negotiation process in which the prospects for both parties’ gains are encouraging; also known as an integrative process.

Workforce 2000: A report published by the Hudson Institute in 1987 that identified key trends expected to become more important in the twenty-first century, particularly with regard to demographics, such as the aging of the population and the increased presence of women, minorities, and handicapped people in the workforce.

Workflow layout: The physical arrangement of a production system.

Glossary of terms (Y)

Yellow Dog contract: A statement by an employee promising not to form or join a union.

Glossary of terms (Z)

Zero-sum: Negotiation process, so-called because one party’s gain and the other parity’s loss counterbalance, and sum to zero occurs when each of the parties tends to seek maximum gains and wants to impose maximum losses on the other; also known as a distributive process and a sin-situation.

Zone of indifference (area of acceptance): According to Barnard and Simon, inclinations conditioning individuals to accept orders that fall within a familiar of responsibility or activity.

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Glossary of Terms Regarding Management: 320 glossaries of terms in alphabetic order