Management a Factor of Production and Also an Economic Resources Essay

centering can be defined in various ways. In the words of Pride et al, concern is the butt of coordinating the resources of the organization to achieve the elementary goals of the organization. It is likewise defined as the organization and coordination of the activities of an enterprise in abidance with certain policies and in achievement of defined objectives. Taylor defined centering as knowing exactly what men do, and the seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way. Today, however, charge is obviously a much more complex problem than the above definition portrays. Griffins(1996) defines it as the process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling an organizations merciful financial, physical and information resources to achieve organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner. Management is a dynamic process of getting things done with and by dint of the co-operative labor of others. It involves utilizing the various resources of an organization and combining them in such a way that the organizations goals are attained.Effective management is crucial to an organizations overall success. Individuals who are prudent for helping organizations achieve their goals are designated MANAGERS. A MANAGER is individual whose primary activities are of the management process. Specifically, a animal trainer is someone who plans, organize, leads and control human, financial, and physical and information resources (Griffin 1996). In rear words, he or she is responsible for allocating human and material resources and directing the operations of an organization. Thus, managers are fully responsible for the realization of results through the concerted efforts of other populate. Todays managers face complex, difficult and exciting timber of work life, increased diversity of the workplace, more genial and ethical responsibilities, environmental protection and other legal ingestments. They plan for the future tense, explore avenues of mo tivating employees and strive to increase their companys overall efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. The managerial attend to is one of the approaches to understanding the dynamic and complex process called management.The managerial flows are general administrative duties that need to be carried step up in some all productive organization. The most popular approach has been to describe what managers do, which is considered the functional view. It specifies the management process as a sequence of logical and rational steps. The managers functions are interrelated and are often performed simultaneously to achieve desired objectives. Fayol (1949) identified quintet of these functions as planning, organization, command, coordination and control. Over the years, Fayols list of five managerial functions has been updated and expanded by management scholars to include decision- making, staffing, communication, leading and motivating. These functions are briefly explained as fol lows a.Planning This is a dynamic process of deciding today what actions should be taken at sometime in the future and how best to tackle them. Developing a strategy for guiding an organization to a desired linear perspective at a given time in the future is referred to as STRATEGIC PLANNING. Planning helps main(prenominal)tain managerial effectiveness by guiding future activitiesb.Organizing Once a workable plan has been established or developed, the next phase is to arrange and allocate work, authority and resources among an organizations members in order to achieve the organizations goals. Other canonic concepts of organizing include departmentalization, chain of command, division of compass, spans of control, coordination and specialization. Proper organizing helps ensure the efficient utilization of human resources. c.Leading The leading function involves directing, influencing and motivating employees to perform assigned tasks. Managers try to create the atmosphere and pea ceful organizational climate, inspire their subordinates by serving as exercise models and adapt their management style to the demands of the situation. d.Decision-making Decision making involves choosing from among alternative courses of action. It connects the organizations present circumstances to actions that will move the organization into the future. Past experiences plays a major role in determining the choices that managers take.e.Staffing This is an integral part of the management process. It includes human resources planning, recruitment, selection, orientation/socialization, training and education, performance appraisal and compensation. It is believed that organizations are as good as the people in them. f.Motivating The term motivation refers to the psychological process that gives behavior purpose and direction. Through motivation, managers try to get people to willingly channel their efforts towards the attainment of organizational goals. g.Communicating This is the transfer of information and understanding from one individual to another by means of meaningful symbols. It is a process that requires both a sender who initiates the process and a receiver-who completes the communication link. Managers use the communication process to carry out their functions and roles. For instance, no decision can be implemented until the managers effectively communicate it to the applicable individuals.h.Controlling The final phase of management process. It involves the following key elements establishing standards of performance, measuring current performance, comparing this performance to the established standards and taking corrective actions if deviations are detected. The controlling function helps keep the organization on track. Having discussed and defined management and its functions, we look at management as a factor of business. Production is the action of manufacturing, growing, extracting things especially in greathearted quantities. In economic s, production means creation or an addition of utility. While factors of production means inputs and finished goods means output. Output depends upon input. Input is the first point and output is the end point of the production process.The input output relationship is called production function. Factors of production (or productive inputs or resources) are any commodities or service apply to produce goods and work. Factors of production may also refer specifically to the primary factors which are including land, poke (the ability to work) and peachy goods applied to production. The primary factors facilitate production but neither become part of the product (as with raw materials) nor become pregnantly transformed by the production process (as elicit used to power machinery). The requirements or rather the factors of production are usually classified as the following a.Land Land is the natural resources available for production. It includes the natural resources inside the l and such as mineral deposits like coal and iron-ore. several(prenominal) nations are endowed with natural resources and exploit this by specializing in extraction and production of these resources.For example the development of the North Sea oil and gas. This is an important factor of production as modern factories extend on one level and require space for storage and parking. The returns or payments to land are called RENT. Land is not only the site of production but also natural above or below the soil. b.Labour This is the human effort, whether manual or mental that contributes to production. This also includes all human resources it may be skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled. Local labour markets vary in size and nature of the pool of labour. Cheap, unskilled and semi-skilled labour may be an important location factor for multinational companies while skilled labour is significant in high technology industries. For example, most products are manufactured in China because they o ffer cheap labour. Industries may be capital-or-labour intensive.Not all labour is of the same quality. Some workers are more productive than others because of the education, training and experience they have received. The reward or payments for labour is called WAGES. c.Capital To an economist, capital has several meanings including the finance brocaded to operate a business. But normally the term capital means investment in goods that can produce other goods in the future. This is also denoted as machinery or tools which are used in combination with labour for the purpose of making goods. It covers all man- made aids to future production. There can be fixed or circulating capital. The former relates to goods such as buildings or machinery while the latter refers to the stock of goods a firm has ready for use in the future, raw materials and components. Capital is the only factor of production which itself is created in the production process. Increases to the capital stock of a n ation are called investment. Investment is important if the economy is to achieve economic growth in the long run. INTEREST is the returns for capital.d. Entrepreneurship This is sometimes referred to as Management. Entrepreneurs are people who organize other productive resources to make goods and services. Some economists regard entrepreneurs as a specialist form of labour input. Others believe that they deserve recognition as a separate factor of production in their own right. The success or failure of a business often depends critically on the quality of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship can also be referred to as the managerial, mod and risk taking qualities which an individual displays when combining the other factors of production in order to generate output. Management skills are a vital factor of labour and production under the heading of entrepreneurship. Management is often included as a factor of production along with machines, materials and money. match to the manage ment guru Peter Drucker (1909 2005), the basic task of management is of two folds marketing and innovation.Innovation in the sense of creation of new products, ideas or services and marketing in the sense that management not only combines the available resources and other factors of production in the most suitable techniques of production in order to produce goods and services but it also ensures that these goods and services get to their final consumers in a perfect shape in that locationby maximizing profit which is the returns for entrepreneurship. Quite often the term management is used to refer to both the persons who occupy managerial positions as well as activities which managers perform. Management as a discipline consist of the interlocking of functions of formulating corporate policy and organizing, planning, controlling and directing an organizations resources to achieve the policys objectives.Management can be said to be the brain or main factor of production because it controls and directs the other factors of production through various ways land- it is management that decides the best and most suitable site for production and it also knows and organizes for the expansion of the industrys production site if need be. Management also sources for capital or funds to run a business, it also sources for raw materials and machines require for the effective production of goods and services. Management also influences the human behavior which is essential factor of production. Every worker is individually different from the other workers as regards to his ability, knowledge, skills, socio-economic status, attitudes and ideologies.Management is concerned with the integration of individual efforts and how to decentralize them towards achieving the desired goal or result. Most workers tend to perform better when they are being supervised this supervising is also carried out by management or manager. Finally, having enumerated the role of management in the production process, you will strongly believe the assertion that management is a factor of production and also plays a vital role in an organization. In fact, without management, there will be no production and organization. Management is the chief head of all the factors of production because it is the only factor that assembles and integrates the other factors of productionMANAGEMENT AS AN ECONOMIC RESOURCEEconomic resources can be defined as the commodities that include goods, services, properties, merchandises and supplies that produce and generate income in the country. These are the assets (things of value) which an economy or business may have available to supply and produce goods and services to meet the ever changing needs and wants of individuals (as in the case of business) and society (in the case of society as a whole) Economic resources are scarce sexual intercourse to the infinite needs and wants of people and businesses operating in the economy. It is important to use these resources efficiently in order to maximize the output that can be produced from them. According to an economist, management is one of the factors of production, the other factors of production being land, labour, and capital. In a small enterprise, the owner may act as the manager. But in large corporations, there is a divorce between ownership and management. Management is the most active factor of production because it assembles the other factors. The efficient use of land and capital depends upon labour which is in turn governed by management.Management coordinates the other Ms (manpower, methods, markets, materials, machinery and money) of an organization and therefore, it occupies a unique place among the productive factors as can be seen. The efficiency of management factor can be ameliorated through training and development of executives. The importance of management increases with the tempo of industrialization. The economic and social development of mankind s ince the 2nd world war has occurred as a result of systematic and purposeful work on developing managers. The directors and managers have the power and responsibleness to make decisions to manage enterprise. The size of management can range from one person in a small organization to hundreds or thousands of managers in multinational companies.In large organizations, the board of directors formulates the policy which is then implemented by the chief executive officers. Some business analyst and financiers accord the highest importance to the quality and experience of the managers in evaluating an organizations current and future worth. As an economic factor of resources, management makes a productive enterprise out of physical and human resources. efficacious management is the most important input in the success of an organization. The inputs of manpower, materials, machinery and money do not by themselves ensure growth they become productive through the catalyst of management.Fina lly, having defined management and discussed management and also economic resources, it is obvious that management is a multipurpose organ that manages a business and manages managers and manages worker and work. Without management, there will be no organization and vice versa. Entrepreneur should ensure that the management team in their organization is effective and efficient in carrying out their duties as managers. The entrepreneur can also engage the management team in on the job training, seminars and other forms of training in order to improve their knowledge and at the long run improve the company productivity. The success and failure of a business often depends on the quality of the management team.