What are the Roles of Managers?
Taylor laid the groundwork for understanding the general functions of the manager. Henry Mintzberg, in his text The Nature of Managerial Work (1973), built upon the P-O-L-C model by identifying the primary roles played by a manager.
Managers assume roles in carrying out their core functions. A role is an organized set of behaviors that are related to the managers responsibilities.
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Mintzberg identified 10 common managerial roles and categorized them as:
Interpersonal- The interpersonal relationships of the manager. The interpersonal roles ensure that information is provided.
- Figurehead role - The manager represents the organization in all matters of formality.
- Supervisor - The manager represents the workgroup to higher management and higher management to the workgroup.
- Liaison role - The manager interacts with peers and people outside the organization. The top-level manager uses the liaison role to gain favors and information, while the supervisor uses it to maintain the routine flow of work.
Informational - The informational roles link all managerial work together.
- Monitor - The manager receives and collects information.
- Disseminator - The manager transmits special information into the organization.
- Spokesperson - The manager disseminates the organizations information into its environment.
Decisional - The decisional roles make significant use of the information.
- Entrepreneur Role - The manager initiates change.
- Disturbance Handler - The manager deals with threats to the organization.
- Resource Allocator - The manager chooses where the organization will expand its efforts.
- Negotiator - The manager negotiates on behalf of the organization.
The top-level manager makes the decisions about the organization as a whole, while the supervisor makes decisions about his or her particular work unit.
The supervisor performs these managerial roles but with a different emphasis than higher-level managers. For example, supervisory management is more focused and short-term in outlook, while senior management focuses on long-term mission and strategy. Thus, the figurehead role becomes less significant and the disturbance handler and negotiator roles increase in importance for the supervisor.
Since leadership permeates all activities, the leader role is among the most important of all roles at all levels of management.Mint
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Which of the following are most likely to rely primarily on production reports for their decision-making needs? | Operational supervisors |
Web-based tools for videoconferencing and electronic meetings are the primary tools for GDSS. | False |
When managers represent their company in the outside world and perform symbolic duties, they are acting in their: | Interpersonal role |
ESS: | Have the ability to drill down into lower levels of detail |
High-velocity decision making systems are growing rapidly for decisions classed as: | Highly structured |
Improving the quality of high-value decision making by an executive will save an organization far more money than improving the quality of lesser-value decisions made at a lower level. | False |
Measures defined by management and used to internally evaluate the success of a firm's financial, business process, customer, and learning and growth are called: | KPIs |
KPI analysis is the leading methodology for understanding the most important information needed by a firm's executives. | False |
You would use location analytics to determine how best to route your deliveries of products to retail outlets. | True |
Big data is commonly used to analyze and predict consumer preferences. | True |
A ________ is a BI feature that presents users with an easy-to-understand visual display of performance information | Dashboard |
Predictive analytics is used for all of the following except: | Determining the best routes for product delivery |
Which of the following is not one of the Simon's four stages of decision making: | Analysis |
Behavioral models of management sees managers as being ________ than does the classical model. | More informal |
A _______ facilitates the solution to unstructured problems by a set of decision makers working together as a group. | GDSS |
MIS typically produce fixed, regularly scheduled reports based on data extracted and summarized from the firm's underlying transaction processing systems. | True |
Which of the following are most likely to rely primarily on the drill-down functionality of BI for their decision-making needs: | Middle managers |
Which of the following is not an example of a BI predefined production report: | Revenue forecasts |
Decisions regarding managing and monitoring day-to-day business activities are referred to as ________ intelligence. | Operational |
Which quality dimension of information is concerned that the data values of an informational source fall within a defined range: | Validity |
According to Mintzberg, managers in their informational role act as: | Nerve centers of the organization |
The dimension of _________ in information quality describes whether data is available when needed. | Timeliness |
Which of the following types of systems would be used to present senior marketing executives with in-depth information about customer retention, satisfaction, and quality performance: | ESS |
A ________ report is produced when a user enters various values in a pivot table to filter data. | Parameterized |
_______ are visual tools for presenting performance data in a BI system. | Dashboards and scorecards |
Data visualization technologies are used to help human users see patterns and relationships in large amounts of data. | True |
Which of the following is not one of the five observed ways in which managerial behavior differs from the classical description of managers: | Managers prefer regular, written reports on firm activities |
The ________ phase of decision making finds or recognizes a problem, need, or opportunity | Intelligence |
Which of the following BI tools or abilities have been driving the movement toward "smart cities?" | Big data analytics |
MIS typically produce: | Fixed, regularly scheduled reports based on data extracted from the organization's TPS |
Checking store inventory is an example of a _______ decision. | Structured |
The management methodology of using a firm's strategy to generate operational targets for the business and measuring progress towards them using the firm's enterprise systems is called: | BPM |
The concept of management ________ describes situations in which managers act on preconceived notions that reject information that does not conform to their prior conceptions. | Filters |
When there is no well-understood or agreed-on procedure for making a decision, it is said to be: | Unstructured |
The implementation phase of Simon's decision-making model includes choosing among solution alternatives. | False |
An information system which combines data from internal TPS with information from financial systems and external sources to deliver reports such as profit-loss statements and impact analyses, is an example of: | ESS |
A well-designed ESS will allow management to: | Track the activities of competitors |
DSS are a special category of GIS | False |
Middle management face primarily unstructured decisions. | False |
An information system for a building company that tracks construction costs for various projects across the United States would be categorized as a type of: | MIS |
GDSS: | Implement structured methods for organizing and evaluating ideas |
A structured decision can be made by following a well-defined set of procedures. No "feel" or intuition is necessary. | True |
Which of the following statements best describes the term business intelligence: | The infrastructure for collecting and managing business data |
The role of liaison falls into which of Mintzberg's managerial classifications? | Interpersonal |
All of the following managerial roles can be supported by information systems except: | Entrepreneur |
Which quality dimension of information is concerned that the data values of an information source fall within a defined range: | Validity |
Which of the following is not one of the six main analytic functionalities of BI systems for helping decision makers understand information and take action: | Business case archives |
Which type of decision is deciding whether to introduce a new product line: | Unstructured |
Which of the following statements best describes the business value of improved decision making: | Improved decision making results in a large monetary. . . |
DSS primarily address structured problems. | False |
Backward sensitivity analysis software is used for goal seeking. | True |
Which of the following is not one of the five classical functions of managers: | Leading |
A geographic information system is a decision support system designed specifically to work with spatial information. | True |
Which of the following describes how the Simon framework of decision-making works in high-velocity decision environments: | The first three steps of the process are handled by software algorithms and the final step is handled by experienced managers |
The leading methodology for understanding the really important information needed by a firm's executives is called the ______ method. | Balanced scorecard |
The third stage in Simon's description of decision making is choice. | True |
What-if analysis works forward from known or assumed conditions. | True |
A pivot table is a: | Spreadsheet tool that displays two or more. . . |
As discussed in the chapter text, the three main reasons that investments in information technology do not always produce positive results are: | Information quality, organizational culture, and management filters |
The decisions involved in creating and producing a corporate intranet can be classified as _______ decisions. | Semistructured |
The intelligence phase of decision making consists of discovering, identifying, and understanding the problems occurring in the organization. | True |
If you can follow a definite procedure to make a business decision, you are making a ________ decision. | Structured |
The role of entrepreneur falls into which of Mintzberg's managerial classifications: | Decisional |
Which of the following systems support a manager's role as leader of an organization: | Telepresence systems |
Which of the following is not one of the six main elements in the business intelligence environment discussed in this chapter: | Organizational environment |
A structured decision is repetitive and routine, for which known procedures provide solutions. | True |
BI that is designed to determine the most likely effects of changes in the business environment is called: | Predictive analytics |
Structured decision making is most prevalent at lower organizational levels. | True |