You are on page 1of 4

INTRODUCTION

In this essay author will describe and critically evaluate the role of management and issues
and challenges face by the large multinational and small entrepreneurial organisations. By
observing managers day to day activities Henry Mintzberg has produced a theory and
according to that theory Managers play ten management roles and these roles falls under
three categories.
A MODEL OF MANAGING
INFORMATIONAL PLANE
Nerve Centre: While performing regular jobs sometime we get stuck and cannot perform
task due to lack of understanding or no knowledge about particular job and dont know how
to perform it. Therefore, we seek help from our manager to help us in order to create clear
understanding so we can perform tasks in a best possible way. Managers role as Nerve
Centre is required good understanding and knowledge of his field so when team members
seek help, and then he should be there to provide his knowledge in order to resolve issues
(Barnard 1938). It doesnt mean they know everything but they should know more than their
subordinates. However, I have notice that most of the large multinationals prefer to hire
experienced and knowledgeable person as a manager in order to lead the team. On the
contrary, entrepreneurial organisations rely on entrepreneurs knowledge and experience for
resolving issues and facing all sort of challenges.
Disseminator: Manager as disseminator do cross-pollinates like bees. There is no point in
collecting information and not using it appropriately with the related people in your team.
Disseminators role is to collect the internal and external information from various sources
and share it appropriately with the concern team members so they can get benefited with
such information (Mintzberg, 2009). For example disseminator collects the information like
regulation changes, technological updates and trend and analyses and shares this with the
related team so they can take appropriate measures to deal with potential threat, challenges
or sometime opportunities. Due to enough available resources large organisations make
themselves ready for overcoming the upcoming trade regulations and technological
changes, on the contrary, small organisation has no or very limited resources to collect such
sort of information on-time due to less people doing too many jobs, resulting punished by the
regulation or other external factors. However, there is no hard and fast rule in this regard as
we have seen Kodak as market leader in camera manufacturing industry but they havent
understand the power of technology and didnt step in the digital camera industry or stepped
in very late. Therefore, they are out of race in compare with Nikon and Canon who shares
respectively 28% and 53% shares of digital camera market.

PEOPLE PLANE
Developing Individuals
Unlike informational manager, interpersonal managers get involve in the process of doing
rather just collecting information and developing people is one of their job like provide them
training, mentoring, teaching and counselling. Usually managers perform this task to
motivate and develop the skillset within the team but sometime they can expand their work
organisational base. This is the best example of seeing managers actually doing something
to develop individuals. In large organisations developing individuals do not perform within the
organisation but most of the time they send their staff for specialist training outside but small
organisations cant affording staff training outside the organisations this is why managers
shares their knowledge and wisdom with their colleagues so they can developed their skillset
and understanding in order to perform their jobs in a better manner.
Establishing and Strengthening Culture: This is the ultimate role for a manager as chief
executive officer to play a vital role in establishing and strengthening the culture. The idea
behind establishing culture is to lead individuals or group of people to encourage them and
take the best out of them. Unlike decision making as a form of controlling, culture is decision
shaping as form of leading (Morris et al. 1982). Most of the managers think if workers doing
their job in routine then they dont need human intervention or motivation and thats the point
where most of the managers fooled. This sort of manager can be considering as energy
centre of the organisation. In entrepreneurial organisations manager as chief executing
establish culture where he motivates and encourage people by paying them bonuses and
lead them from the front to strengthen the culture. On the other hand chief executive in large
organisations has no direct interaction with the functional managers and their team to
motivate or encourage them.
ACTION PLANE
Managing Projects: Managers role as project manager determines as designer and
initiator through a controlled changed in the company. The manager seeks for opportunities
and identifies possible issues and challenges that may be the reason to stop him to take
action. This could be project improvement, marketing and projection of new product(s),
recognition of formal structure, purchasing new equipment(s) and strengthening department.
Manager can engage his activities in order to improve project in three possible ways. (1) He
can shift the charge for designing and approval to his subordinates but he can keep the
power to change the person who is responsible of it. (2) He may perhaps shift the power of
design work to his subservient but can keep the power of approval in his hands. (3) He
possibly oversees the design-work by himself (Kraut et. al., 2005). However, it has been

noticed that project management in a large multinational and small entrepreneurial


organisation is equally challenging yet manageable. Scale of projects in large organisations
often large as compare to small organisation, hence they have more human resource to
delegate the jobs. On the contrary, entrepreneurial organisations have smaller and
manageable projects in order to market and improve their business activities. As manager is
the hub of the power, therefore it can be challenging role for managers to perform.
Disturbance Handler: If project managers role focuses on designing and initiating to bring
proactive change to the department causes exploitation of opportunities. Then disturbance
handlers job is to correct the long ignored issues, dealing with the new competitors who
may cause a disturbance and necessary correction if required. Managers role starts with
incidental activity or when routine break down or when unexpected snags appear (Sayles,
1979).

Therefore, this role is equally challenging for both sort of organisations due to

personal skills and expertise required as disturbance handler which may vary person to
person.
CONCLUSION:
Managers role is always dynamic, it does never be static. Though, Mintzbergs role of
management can be useful through outlining the organisational leadership, during
individuals working life it might possible that he may perform different managerial roles, but
it is impractical to expect that one person to fill each role in a large organisation. Instead,
intelligent hiring managers will hire people with one or two specific roles in mind, thus
creating a team of managers capable of handling the wide variety of challenges in the
business world today. However, it has been noticed that small organisations widely rely on
the one person who can perform most of the managerial tasks, hence, their performance
somehow compromised.

You might also like