Introduction

Principles of management are the guidelines for the actions and the decisions the managers make in their day to day operations. Management principles originated from observation and analysis of occurrences faced in practical operations. They are the essential fundamental factors that generate the basics of successful management.  The management principles are normally applied by managers to initiate and help the processes of decision making, skill management, change and generally view of the administration function. With the increasing focus on the management to deliver, innovation is becoming increasingly important for the mangers in dealing with day to day operations.

Social responsibility and ethics in management

Management has a role of ensuring the business work well with all its stakeholders. The stakeholders include the shareholders, suppliers, customers and also the employees. All the stakeholders play a role in the business and thus a need for the managers to be social responsible and have ethics for proper administration.  Presently, in the corporate arena companies aims at sustained growth and long-term relation with the stakeholders. The future supply of customers should be assured. It is important that the organization invests at present to ensure it meets the demand of the customers in the future. This can be achieved by establishing proper and ethical dealings with the suppliers for them to keep supplying to the organization (Bartol et al. 2010). The company should also invest in the society as the future customers will come from this society. Researchers have also established that customers nowadays engage in thorough audit of the producers on ethical and cultural issues. They are particularly interested to know how the business treats its employees and whether the business is responsive to societal needs. This is to say a supplier or a producer with good reputation in adhering to morals and ethics has higher chances of scoring over her competitors.  Managers therefore, have a task of creating confidence of these potential customers.

Managing groups and teams

The way in which the organization manages the work groups and teams will determine the success or failure of its objectives. Work groups are gaining importance to organization’s competitiveness. Groups can be formal or informal. Formal groups mainly include functional, command and task groups.  Informal groups include friendship and interest groups. Managers need to create positive synergy in groups. Positive synergy happens when the achievements of the group exceed those that could be achieved individually. Negative synergy should be avoided whereby the individual achievement outweighs the group’s achievements. The groups should be formed in such a way they satisfy the need of all the members to improve effectiveness and performance. The compatibility of the group members to work together should be prioritized (Rendtorff 2009).  The group’s innovativeness and creativity should be ensured by including ad hoc committees and task forces. Task force is formed temporally with members from diverse areas coming together to generate new ideas and solutions, solve problems and provide expertise. New forms of teams are arising due to high demand for innovation. Entrepreneurial teams are composed of members sharing diverse backgrounds. They come together to implement or develop new ideas. It is upon the management to ensure teams achieve the objectives that they were developed for.

Employees’ Motivation

Management need to motivate their employees if they are to be instrumental in achieving set targets. Motivation can be defined as the reasons causing behavior. The major function of managers is to get things done via employees. Employees aids in achieving the organization’s set objectives as they work towards their personal targets and goals. For this to happen, the organization needs to have a motivated workforce. If an organization does not motivate its employees, it lags behind and cannot compete favorably with the rest. In the contemporary corporate world, the rapid changes occurring have increased the importance for managers to enhance their staff motivation programs to optimize their performance.  Research and observation have proved creativity and productivity of motivated employees is greater than that of unmotivated staff. Motivation occurs within employees’ hearts and minds. Mangers maybe able to influence the motivational process but cannot control it (Bartol et al. 2010). Management should therefore facilitate the process of motivation by laying conditions necessary to support motivation. People are willing to put effort on their work depending on the degree they feel their motivational needs are fulfilled. Employees get de-motivated when something in their organization either real or perceived prevent them from achieving favorable outcomes.

Importance of innovation

Innovation is a vital concept that a manger should understand. Innovation can give a competitive edge to the organization if it is applied in the right way. Innovations can lead to ideas that bring forth new processes and products. Innovation makes improvements by introducing new products. With the current business trends and the increasing competition, innovation can serve as the best tool for the managers to outdo their competitors. There are many areas in the business where innovations can be carried out. It can be in the products and services, processes as well as equipment. With the increase in technology, organizations that don’t invest in innovative equipments and products may be forced out of the market. It is increasingly becoming evident that company’s success comes from its systems and intellectual capabilities and not from its acres of lands, gardens or ambience (Kakabadse, Bank & Vinnicombe 2004). Traditional systems that dealt with tangible outputs and inputs are no longer enough to endure in the modern market. Managers should therefore be ready to ensure sharing of information and innovation within the organization or risk losing competitive advantage. Information and innovation are the biggest assets of an organization and the need to learn to take care of them can only be underscored.

Que. B

1. Managerial challenges in the 21^st century

Management is a chief position in an organization that requires adequate skills and knowledge in order to make it successful. Most managers in the contemporary society encounter numerous challenges that in one way or the other disrupt them and the organization from producing the best.  Some of the managerial challenges that are commonly experienced by managers in the current century include managing conflicts in an organization. Most conflicts are classified as organizational based or interpersonal based factors (Bartol et al. 2010). Interpersonal based factors include conflicts that arise from the employees, employees with their supervisors or department. These conflicts are contributed by factors such as faulty communications, attributional errors, personal traits or behaviors among others. Organizational based conflicts include those between an organization and the external forces such as the neighboring communities among others.

Consecutively, these conflicts are contributed by factors such as competition over scarce resources, power differentials, uncertainty over jurisdiction, the rewarding systems, inter-dependence, and others. Organizational conflicts mostly occurs when one party is perceived as hinder or an interference with the actions, goals or the needs of another party.  Organizational conflicts are directly and indirectly linked to adverse features and situations that contribute to the rise of ineffectiveness, inefficiency and dysfunctional results that in the long run leads to the reduction of organizational level of production (Kakabadse, Bank & Vinnicombe 2004). Solving these conflicts now and then is challenging to most managers.

Another challenge that managers face is maintaining the social responsibility between the organization and the consumers, staffs, environment and the community, during the process of striving to create profit and undertaking legal liability to shareholders.  Maintaining social responsibility is complex that calls for extensive skills as it is the avenue that creates and promote the better image of an organization. It ranges from striving to observe environmental protection, business ethics, partnership and maintaining staffs` interests and rights. For example, the environmental agencies are keen on observing any level of environmental pollution, paying employees’ wages below the agreed labor contract among others. Managers have the role of supporting and providing guidance, besides the other managerial roles such as leading and organizing, for the realization of social responsibility (Rendtorff 2009).

In addition, managers in the contemporary century are faced with the challenge of administering innovative mechanisms that in the long run help in strengthening and improving the quality of the produced products. It is evident that, the survival of an organization in the market situation obeys the rule of the survival of the fittest due to stiff competition. Each and every organization is spending much in financing the researches that would facilitate the realization of new and innovative products or means of producing them that would in a way facilitate the minimization of the production cost and maximize returns. Incorporating technology into the organizations` production, manufacturing or dispatching systems is costly so is maintaining and improving the quality of produced products.

Moreover, managers have the challenge of motivating and training employees in such a way that they produce maximally even with no or minimum supervision. It is evident the employees tend to work less when are under no or within minimum supervision and tend to produce more when in maximum supervision. Managers on the other hand have to ensure that the organization meets the targeted set of goals and objectives within a specific period of time. It therefore requires managers to have the necessary strategies that would ensure employees strive to meet the organizational goals and objectives without them considering it as exploitation (Rendtorff 2009). In most cases, the managers have a difficult task of dealing with those employees who fail to produce as the organization expect of them.

Additionally, managers are faced with the challenge of decision making in an organization. Most managers make decisions that eventually result in making an organization to incur numerous losses, poor quality of finished products, resigning of employees, employees’ strikes or even collaption of an organization. Decision making is not an individual responsibility and most of the adverse effects that arise when poor decisions have been made occur to managers who consider decision making as an individual responsibility.

1. Vital Resources that a manager should consider in dealing with managerial challenges

The most important resource is the identification and implementation of conflict resolution approaches. Relevant procedures of raising concerns or complains between employees, customers, suppliers,  the organization, departments and supervisors should be encouraged and implemented as soon as possible. Some of these procedures include installation of suggestion boxes, gathering feedback from customers after the use of the organization`s product, maintain records of good supplied, establishing a good upward communication strategy and others. Moreover, managers should establish a formal grievance procedure for all employees without considering political or individual consideration. Managers should assure all employees that their complaints would be heard immediately they (employees) notify them and employ the necessary measures as soon as possible (Steers et al. 2010). It is evident that most of conflicts arise when the administration fails or is reluctant to respond when employees complains lands on them.

Consecutively, managers should implement necessary measures that would enhance innovation mechanisms in order to compete maximally with other competitors in the market situation. Some of these innovation mechanisms include conducting market research, considering customer comments and complains, identifying market gaps among others. As a result, there is a possibility of improving the quality of the produced product and innovating new products that are unavailable in the market and in the long run maximizing profits (Steers et al. 2010).

Managers should also identify ways of motivating employees in order to produce maximally which would meet the organizational goals and objectives. Some of employee motivation ways include rewarding them and giving some days off. Furthermore, managers should adopt measures of training employees who are not producing as expected. Managers should also consider the views of employees before implementing organizational decisions (Kakabadse, Bank & Vinnicombe 2004).

Conclusion

It is therefore evident that, Managers need to observe several principles when operating the business. These principals are important as they can determine the success or failure of the organization. The managers need to ensure good relationships between the business and its stakeholders. Group and teams should be managed well to yield positive synergy. The employees should be motivated to improve their productivity. Managers should invest in innovative products and processes to ensure competitiveness of their businesses. Consecutively, managers are faced with numerous challenges ranging from organizational conflicts to competition and maintaining social responsibility. However, managers who have the necessary managerial skills and knowledge should adopt mechanisms such as identification of mechanisms that enhance competition with other competitors, conflict resolution and employee motivation strategies.

References

Bartol, Tien, Matthews, Sharma, scott-ladd. (2010).Management: a pacific rim focus 6^th edition. Mc Graw Hill.

Kakabadse, A., Bank, J., & Vinnicombe, S. (2004). Working in organisations. Burlington, Vt, Gower.

Rendtorff, J. D. (2009). Responsibility, ethics, and legitimacy of corporations. [Frederiksberg, Denmark], Copenhagen Business School Press.

Steers, R. M., Sánchez-Runde Sánchez, C. J., & Nardon, L. (2010). Management across cultures: challenges and strategies. Cambridge [etc.], Cambridge University Press.