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The Four Functions of Management

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The Four Functions of Management

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M.E.

Westwood College – South Bay Campus
Torrance, CA

June 15, 2013

M.E

Principles of Management
15 June 2013
The Four Functions of Management
Management in business is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. By using available resources efficiently and effectively. The major functions that a manager completes can be categorized into four different functions known as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources. Since organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a system.
The four functions of management are standard across industries, whether it’s in a manufacturing plant, a home office, a grocery store, a retail store, a restaurant, a hotel, or even an amusement park. Effective managers understand how planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are used to achieve organizational success. For most of us, we only see the final two - leading and controlling – however for every managerial behavior we do see, there is an equal amount that we do not. Behind the manager's closed door, they spends a good deal of their time planning and organizing so that they can effectively carry out the functions of leading and controlling.

The first of the managerial functions is planning. Deciding what will happen in the future in this step the manager will create a detailed action plan aimed at some organizational goal. Sometimes these goals may be short term goals like next week or next month or they may be long term goals like

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