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‘Management’ is the activity for getting things done through other people. For getting the work of an enterprise completed through the efforts of other people, it becomes necessary to guide, direct, co-ordinate and control human efforts towards the fulfillment of certain common goals or purposes. Management represents that skill which directs, regulates and integrates human efforts in the discharge of all operations required for an enterprise. Popularly speaking, management is taken to mean the persons who assume the functions of management; but in reality it is a functional concept and does not include the persons who practice management. Persons assuming management functions are called managers, executives and even administrators in some cases.
Management plays a pivotal role in the operation of business enterprises. A business is comprised of several elements, viz., men, materials, money, machines, methods, markets and management. Of these seven M’s, ‘Management’ stands at the apex of the enterprise pyramid and it determines and controls all other factors of business operation. It is sand-wiched in between administration on the one end and organization on the other. Administration determines the goal and management strives towards it. Organization is the machine of management in its achievement of the ends determined by administration. The relation between management and organization can be better indicated by drawing one analogy with the human body. Management represents the entire body, while planning is the brain, organization constitutes its nervous system, direction makes up its respiratory organs, and control stands for the human mind. Management is a functional concept and covers a comprehensive and all-pervading field. It links and puts together many things and many human facilities into one complete whole and creates an organization with allocation of authority, responsibility and accountability by exerting the leadership and control over one cohesive whole.
In short, ‘Management’ may be regarded as the sum total of those activities which pertain to the laying down of certain plans, policies and purposes; securing men, money, materials and machinery needed for their achievement; putting all of them into operation; checking their performance; and providing material rewards and mental satisfaction to the men engaged in the operation.
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