Management Courses taught in Universities ?

MANAGEMENT COURSES TAUGHT AT UNIVERSITIES

(1) COMPLEXITIES AND UNCERTAINTIES

The following are topics are currently being taught by various universities as published by the American Management Association:-

Administrative Professionals
Communication
Customer Service
Finance and Accounting
Finance for Managers
Human Resources
Leadership
Managerial Skills
Manufacturing/
Operations Management
Personal Development
Planning
Project Management
Purchasing
Quality
Sales and Marketing
Supervision
Team Building
Time Management

Just browse through any textbooks, it will be found that most if not all topics and subjects are taught in concepts, hypothesis and assumptions/

Planning, Management by Objectives, Operation Research, are grounded in concepts which are not easily implemented by staff in enterprises/


(2) QUANTITATIVE APPROACH

In "Introduction to Management Science 8th edition by Anderson, Sweeney and Williams", many issues and problems relating to transportation and production are supposedly solvable by mathematical computations such as the following:-

Linear Programming: Graphical method
(a) Manufacturer - develop production schedule and inventory policy
(b) Financial analysis - develop a mix of investment portfolio.
(c) Marketing - develop a mix of advertising media
(d) Warehousing - delivering from different locations.

Waiting Line programming : Poisson Equation
(a) Arrivals within time
(b) Probability of Arrival within time.

Simple Linear Regression (Gauss)
(a) Formula: Y= a + bY
(b) Y (Dependent variable) e.g. Expenditure
(c) X (Independent variable) e.g. Income
(d) b = {N(E.XY)} -{(E.X)(E.Y)}/{{NE.X2 - (E.X)2}

Yet, in practice, not many managers or bosses are able to solve their transportation or production problems by such quantitative mathematical computations precisely because of uncertainties with assumptions and widely differing and constantly changing conditions affecting organizational performance.

There is a critical need to attain organizational efficiency with a total control and coordination of overall activities in marketing, accounting, human resource control, revenue control, facility, enforcement, compliance beside technical and technological factors in production.

There is a need for coordinations and knowledge applications in all departments.

An enterprise has to develop the total coordination and knowledge application within every department to overcome diverse constraints and conditions.

It is such complexities and uncertainties which call for processing of tasks set in form- and work-form simple 4-step 10-department component work processes. With such standardized work processes, all staff are enabled to attain their own knowledge application and multi-functional coordination.

Constraints in marketing and production will steadfastly be translated into logical form- and work-form processes enabling staff to follow through all tasks with control, comparison measurements, processes, based on OSP Process organization structure.

The OSP Process Management Organization Structure as listed in OSP Process File List communicates all variances taking place in two-way corrective task-lines.

Whatever the approaches taken by any enterprises, whether by macro- or micro-level or human resource or financial methodology, all tasks can be efficiently and effectively followed through by staff with minimal instructions or policies if tasks are sequentially and logically laid out in lego-like component processes.

All the diverse psychological and organizational theories which are highly logical unfortunately are not easily translated into doable and attainable work processes performed by the staff as part of their daily works.

Hence, the first step towards upgrading and improving efficiency and effectiveness is to lay bare the internal process relationship, motivation, empowerments, forecasting method, budgeting and financial control, level of corporate governance etc. to be easily understood and performed with hands-on controls to reach results.

The objective function as assumed in quantitative method will need to be integrated to daily works in order to bring about efficiency and good corporate governance, while attaining organizational efficiency from knowledge application, system design, engineering solutions, technology, consistent and focused control, comparison and correction, effective organizational structures, supervisions, assessments, quality-time-cost knowledge applications etc.

Any management solution will have to take into account technology obsolescence, engineering, marketing, production, research and development, budget and financial control, factory design, technology level and knowledge application which are often non-mathematical.

Linear Programming and accounting or financial control should always be viewed in perspective.

(3) PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACH

Critical Path Analysis :

Start {Design {Routing > Cost Estimate } }
{Prototype > Testing } } Report ] Finish
{Market Brochure > Survey } Pricing }
{Market Research .....]

The real challenge is how to achieve real tangible hands-on control, comparison (measurements and data) processing, corrections in regard to overall system designs, marketing, production and implementation in integrated process management.

(4) DIVERSE MULTI-FUNCTIONAL MANAGEMENT SKILLS

A Manager’s Guide to Human Behavior
The Complete Training Course for Managers
Communication Skills for Managers
Corporate Governance: What it Means for Managers
New! Delegating for Business Success
Updated! Fair, Square, and Legal
How to Be an Effective Facilitator
How to Manage Conflict in the Organization
Leadership Skills for Managers
Managing and Achieving Organizational Goals
Managing Conflict (audio)
Performance Appraisals: How to Achieve Top Results
Performance Management
What Managers Do

Detailed technical skills cannot be implemented without supportive integrated work processes in coordination with other functional activities.

(5) DIVERSE TECHNICAL OR SPECIALIST SKILLS

Management Skills for New Managers
Successfully Managing People
One-Day Delegation Bootcamp
What Every Manager Needs to Know
Improving Your Managerial Effectiveness

Skills may be useful and relevant but unless they are translated into integrated work processes easily performed by all, they will remain conceptual and complex.

(6) DIVERSE OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES

(a) OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT OVERVIEW

Organizational Systems and Process
Work Flow Management
Project Management
Quality Assurance
Documentation and Records
IT in Operations and Management

Normally, procedures may be useful for quality-time-cost controls. But there exist diverse constraints to be overcome other than the immediate performance of a task. In order to be efficient in production, it has to produce in sync with schedules and economic lot zize and comply with revenue and budget controls to reach real organizational efficiency.

b) FINANCIAL CONTROL METHODOLOGY

The Profit and Loss Statement
The Balance Sheet
Financial Ratios and their Applications
Cash Flow and Management of Working Capital
Costing
Budgets

Financial year-end performance data and disclosures are often unrelated to hands-on quality-time-cost controls, coordination, knowledge applications or objective supervision and put up as look-good after-the-event or post-mortem analysis. So to that extent it is unable to impact management efficiency and productivity.

7) DIVERSE MARKETING MANAGEMENT APPROACHES

Overview of Marketing
Understanding Consumer Behavior
Market Research
Market Segmentation
Product Portfolio
Developing Marketing Strategies
The Marketing Process
The Selling Process

Cool HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT OVERVIEW

Organization Structure
Employment Procedures and Conditions
Deployment and Supervision
Performance Appraisal and Counseling
Training and Development
Organization Development

Organization theorists regard organization as extremely complex consisting of formal and informal grouping, rules and regulations, standard operating procedurs, authority, departments and activities.

Workers are regarded as being influenced by personal behaviours of perception as well as the environments.

Human Behaviourists regard workers as either negative and lazy on the one hand or positive responsive to motivations and rewards on the other.

What is lacking however is that Human Resource management practices are too diverse, conceptual and self-centred hardly capable of being measured objectively or practically.

Further, as enterprises grow in size they become more and more complex and demanding of controls, communications, processes and corrections.

The challenge is to translate all the complex tasks into simple processes capable of control, measurements, corrections to meet diverse constraints and challenges.

(9) SUN SZU ART OF WAR

Sun Szu Art of War regards soldiers (modern day's version: workers) as responsive to 5 elements: (a) Morality (EQ of leaders) (b) External forces (Heavens) (c) Circumstances (Terrains) (d) Commands (e) Doctrines.

The issues of Morality (EQ) Environments (Constraints) and circumstances and Command and Doctrine (Communication, Data, Controls) are part of the integrated quality-time-cost work processes which can be consistently practised to obtain results in OSP.

Without integrating Sun Sze Art of War methodology to actual works and performances, all will be discussing war strategy on papers one of the common causes of failures in business according to another Chinese common saying.

SOPs and ISOs may be formalization or extrapolation of existing work procedures put together for public relation and advertising purposes. Often they are intuitive rather than cause-effect in logic. To be effective, such SOPs should be integrated as part of daily works to be performed naturally and logically.

NOTE: A simple call centre will take care of translating concepts, ideals, goals and policies into part of daily works to be pursued consistently with regular inspections and objective corrections to reach results.

Contact:robertkhteh@hotmail.com