Introduction to Management

Introduction to Management (hereinafter, the Course) is the course delivered by Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology as Vaughn College MGT110 and Shanghai Jian Qiao University as a part of its Aviation Maintenance Management Program in order to introduce its learners to basic management concepts. There is no prerequisite to the Course, but the Course is the prerequisite to Organizational Behavior.

Syllabus

Semester	Spring 2018
Credits	3
Grading System	Letter Grade (see Grading Scale)
Prerequisites	None

Instructor

• Instructor: Gary Ihar
• Title: Adjunct Instructor
• Office: virtual
• Office Hours: Monday -- Friday (9 a.m. -- 9 p.m.); Saturdays and Sunday evenings can be arranged. I also check posts and emails periodically throughout the day.
• Cell phone: exists
• E-mail: course messages are preferable

Textbook

Main wikipage: Management by Robbins and Coulter (14th edition)‎‎

Any of four editions: Management 11/E, 12/E, 13/E, or 14/E, Robbins, Stephen P., Coulter, Mary

Course Description

This course serves as an introduction to the discipline of management. It is designed to integrate the accepted theories in the area with real world applications to provide students with the basic knowledge and skills needed for managing others. This course begins with a discussion of the current issues in management and then proceeds to cover the traditional functions of management: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Lecture and class assignments given in the course are intended to help students understand the needs of modern public and private organizations, including emerging national and international trends.

Learning Techniques

Depending on student's choice, this course can be taught using a variety of techniques including:

• Lecture
• Text readings
• Class examples and discussion
• Case analysis
• Supplemental articles and readings
• Problem simulations.

Course Objectives

Course objectives are to:

1. Identify the principals of managing formal organizations,
2. Recognize the various challenges faced by today’s managers
3. Provide examples of organizations engaging in the management functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling.
4. Understand both the theory and practice of the art and science of Management
5. Gain practical, applicable knowledge, through study of real business cases and readings in Management
6. Think clearly about the concepts and principles that support the Management body of knowledge

Course Outcomes

After successful completion of this course, students will have acquired the ability to:

1. Work and manage in the environment of formal private or public sector organizations
2. Address the challenges faced by today’s managers
3. Engage in the management functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling.
4. Apply theory to the practice of the art and science of Management
5. Apply practical, applicable knowledge gained through study of real business cases and readings in Management
6. Practice clear thinking about the concepts and principles that support the Management body of knowledge

Course Requirements

All assignments, lectures and examinations are based on comprehension and utilization of concepts and their applications incorporated in the assigned material. Those concepts and applications are represented by glossary terms, which definitions are placed separately on the textbook's pages and at the end of the textbook.

• Forum-based assignments (14 items, 5% of the course grade). You are required to post some message by the end of each week in order to get full credit. However, the topic questions will emerge again as non-scored on your homework quizzes and as scored on your mid-term or final exams. The non-scored submission will get my detailed feedback. If you do better on the exams than on original forum submission, I will increase your initial grade.
• Homework quizzes (14 items, 1% of the course grade each) are posted each week. They include scored true-or-false questions and unscored essay-type questions, which are based on forum topics and will become scored questions in the midterm and final exams.
• Mid-term and final exams (8% of the course grade each) include essay-type questions based on forum topics.

Course Grade

Grade source	Number of items	Course grade percentage for a single item	Total percentage within the course
Forum-based submissions	14	5%	70%
Homework quiz		1%	14%
Examinations	2	8%	16%
Total			100%

Grading Scale

Grade	Numeric Value	Standard
A	90-100	Excellent
B+	85-89	Good
B	80-84
C+	75-79	Average
C	70-74
D	60-69	Minimal passing
F	Below 60	Failure

Incomplete Grades

Requests for Incomplete grades must be made in writing before the course ends, and after the mid-term has been passed.

Course Schedule (subject to change)

The table below is created to accommodate those students who use various editions of the textbook:

Week #	Chapter topics for every week	Chapter numbers
		14/E or 13/E	12/E	11/E
Week 1	Planning the course	No chapter is assigned
Week 2	Management, organizations	1	1	1
Week 3	Decisions, decision making	2	6	7
Week 4	Managerial constraint, external environment, organizational culture, global environment, diversity, managing diversity, social responsibility, ethics	3‑6	2‑5	2‑5
Week 5	Change, innovation	7	7	6
Week 6	Planning	8	8	8
Week 7	Strategy	9	9	9
Week 8	Organizational structure	10‑11	11‑12	10‑11
Week 9	Human resources	12	13	12
Week 10	Work teams	13	14	13
Week 11	Communication	14	16	15
Week 12	Individual behavior	15	15	14
Week 13	Motivation	16	17	16
Week 14	Leadership	17	18	17
Week 15	Monitoring and controlling	18	10	18‑19

Coursework

Week 1. Planning the Course

• [What is a wiki]? - click the link on the left to know wiki basics and formatting
• In order to get to a specific project, you can click on any link below:

Week 2. Managers (Chapter 1 in 13/E)

1. Week 2 Graded Questions (true or false statements)
   • A manager can be defined as someone who manages organizational human and other resources to achieve organizational goals.
   • According to the textbook, there are two domains of skills that managers shall possess; they are technical and human skills.
2. Week 2 Pre-Midterm Questions (essay-type; these questions will emerge as scored in the midterm exam)
   • [What managers do]: Considering a managerial job as a process, pick three groups of words: one for its input, another for its tools and techniques, and the third for the output of this process. If the task were about scrambled egg cooking, for instance, raw eggs, frying oil, and gas could be inputs; recipe, stove, and frying pan could be tools and techniques, and scrambled eggs would be the output.
   • [Family vs organization]: Is a family an organization?
   • [Efficiency vs effectiveness]: Can some organization be efficient, but not effective?
   • (new) Is there one best "style" of management? Why or why not?

Week 3. Decisions (Chapter 2 in 13/E)

1. Week 3 Graded Questions (true or false statements)
   • Managers are directly responsible for an organization's success or failure.
   • The organizational culture should affect how managers take risks.
2. Week 3 Pre-Midterm Questions (essay-type; these questions will emerge as scored in the midterm exam)
   • [You are given a project. What is next?]: Imagine that you have just been hired to organize a new Speakers Series at Vaughn College to serve its students. The Boss is its VP Marketing. This is your first day at Vaughn. The team's budget is $50,000; your team needs to be hired. What shall your next 2-3 steps be?
   • Recently, some jobs are being moved from human beings to machines. Using 2-3 textbook's concepts discuss what decisions go first.
   • What, according to the textbook, is an alternative to the 8-step decision making and when shall it be used?
   • (new) Is there a difference between wrong decisions and bad decisions? Why do good managers sometimes make wrong decisions? Bad decisions? How can managers improve their decisions - making skills?

Week 4. Constraints (Chapters 3-6 in 13/E)

1. Week 4 Graded Questions (true or false statements)
   • Decision makers shall estimate the likelihood and impact of every risk and create suitable risk response strategies.
   • Top officers usually deal with more unstructured problems and make more nonprogrammed decisions than first-line managers.
2. Week 4 Pre-Midterm Questions (essay-type; these questions will emerge as scored in the midterm exam)
   • As a manager, you have $100 budget for managing (1) diversity, (2) social responsibility, and (3) ethics. Briefly discuss how you would distribute this budget to those three categories.
   • Imagine that you are about to start a new job. Briefly discuss when the external environment's influence on your performance would tend to be bigger: at the beginning or later, when you get accustomed with your job environment?
   • Briefly discuss whether using Sakai at Vaughn is a part of its organizational culture.
   • According to the textbook, ethics are based on principles, values, and beliefs. Logically, more diversity leads to more ambiguity with regard to ethics. What would a definition of an ethical employee of a highly diverse organization be?

Week 5. Change and Innovation (Chapter 7 in 13/E)

1. Week 5 Graded Questions (true or false statements)
   • According to the textbook, cultural, structural, and human resource variables stimulate innovation.
   • According to the textbook, organizational changes could be divided in two types, structural changes and technology changes.
2. Week 5 Pre-Midterm Questions (essay-type; these questions will emerge as scored in the midterm exam)
   • Discuss whether regular employees in common organizations welcome changes. Why or why not? What organizations can do about it?
   • Generate any creative idea related to this course. If it is implemented, what type of innovation would it lead to?
   • In terms of the textbook, discuss whether a student should be satisfied in order to study better.

Week 6. Planning (Chapter 8 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 6 Assignment (essay-type)
   • [Planning, control and strategy in startups]: If you needed to adapt the textbook's planning chapter for startup management, search for a job in environments unknown to you, or another unstructured activity, what changes would you make?
   • (debatable) If plannng is so crucial, why do some managers choose not to do it? What would you tell these managers?
2. Week 6 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • As a part of managerial controls, benchmarking is not used in early stages of planning such as strategy formulating.
   • All in all, planning shall answer three questions; they are (1) what is the objective of the work, (2) how this objective is going to be achieved, and (3) how to measure whether this objective is going to be achieved or is achieved.

Week 7. Strategy (Chapter 9 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 7 Assignment (essay-type)
   • If you are in a new career discovery stage, how would you define your competitive advantage and choose your competitive strategy?
   • Describe the six steps in the strategic management process.
   • (new) Describe the diferent ways organizations can go international.
2. Week 6 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • The BCG matrix can be used to manage any strategy including managing schedule items of an individual, charity donations of a business, and financial instruments of a country.
   • It is very important to choose one strategy and stick to it until this strategy is accomplished.

Week 8. Organizational Structure (Chapter 10-11 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 8 Assignment (essay-type)
   • [Organizational Structure]: Suggest a type of organizational structure for a US presidential hopeful's team.
   • (new) How can an organization operate without boundaries?
2. Week 8 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • Benchmarking can include (1) identifying competitors, (2) analyzing product, production, sales, and marketing differences to identify gaps, and (3) implementing changes to utilizing best competitor's practices to improve product, production, sales, or marketing endeavors.
   • Mechanistic structures can include functional, geographical, product, process, and customer departmentalization structures, while organic structures can include team, matrix, project, boundaryless, and learning structures.

Midterm exam :: subject to change

• Week 2
  1. Considering a managerial job as a process, pick three groups of words: one for its input, another for its tools and techniques, and the third for the output of this process. If the task were about scrambled egg cooking, for instance, raw eggs, frying oil, and gas could be inputs; recipe, stove, and frying pan could be tools and techniques, and scrambled eggs would be the output.
  2. Is a family an organization?
  3. Can some organization be efficient, but not effective?
• Week 3
  1. Imagine that you have just been hired to organize a new Speakers Series at Vaughn College to serve its students. The Boss is its VP Marketing. This is your first day at Vaughn. The team's budget is $50,000; your team needs to be hired. What shall your next 2-3 steps be?
  2. Recently, some jobs are being moved from human beings to machines. Using 2-3 textbook's concepts discuss what decisions go first.
  3. What, according to the textbook, is an alternative to the 8-step decision making and when shall it be used?
• Week 4
  1. As a manager, you have $100 budget for managing (1) diversity, (2) social responsibility, and (3) ethics. Briefly discuss how you would distribute this budget to those three categories.
  2. Imagine that you are about to start a new job. Briefly discuss when the external environment's influence on your performance would be bigger: at the beginning or later, when you get accustomed with your job environment?
  3. Briefly discuss whether using Sakai at Vaughn is a part of its organizational culture.
• Week 4. In terms of the textbook, discuss whether a student should be satisfied in order to study better.
• Week 5. If you needed to adapt the textbook's planning chapter for startup management, search for a job in environments unknown to you, or another unstructured activity, what changes would you make?
• Week 6. If you are in a new career discovery stage, how would you define your competitive advantage and choose your competitive strategy?
• Week 7. Suggest a type of organizational structure for a US presidential hopeful's team.

Week 8. Human Resources (Chapter 12 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 8 Assignment (essay-type)
   • [Advantages and disadvantages of workforce diversity]: Discuss advantages and disadvantages of more diverse workforce generally and in different stages of group development particularly.
   • (new) What, in your view, constitutes sexual harassment? Describe how companies can minimize sexual harassment in the workplace.
2. Week 8 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • Ethics may vary from one group of people to another one.
   • Management sciences define how managers should behave in every situation.

Week 9. Work Teams (Chapter 13 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 9 Assignment (essay-type)
   • [Conflict-Management Techniques]: Suggest 5 situations in which every of conflict-management techniques is the best.
2. Week 9 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • Managers should avoid groupthink since it is a negative by-product of group decision making.
   • Managers should avoid conflicts because it is an essential part of managerial work.

Week 10. Communication (Chapter 14 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 10 Assignment (essay-type)
   • [Ideal classroom]: In terms of communication management, discuss the ideal classroom.
   • (new) Why is it a challenge to "keep employees connected" in today's organizations?
2. Week 10 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • Employee's attitudes, perceptions, group norms, informal interactions, interpersonal and intergroup conflicts could be hidden aspects of organizations.
   • While selecting a type of organizational communication network (Chain, Wheel, or All-Channel), managers shall mostly rely on employees' personalities.

Week 11. Individual Behavior (Chapter 15 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 11 Assignment (essay-type)
   • Common shorcuts in judging others: How managers shall overcome the common shortcuts in judging others?
2. Week 11 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • Perception plays a little role in individual decision making.
   • As managers, we can always judge subordinates well.

Week 12. Motivation (Chapter 16 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 12 Assignment (essay-type)
   • [Links between motivation and personality]: In terms of managing HR, discuss links between motivation and personality.
2. Week 12 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • Managerial practice well supports the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory.
   • If the early Theory X can be compared with the contemporary Reinforcement Theory, the early Theory Y can be compared with the contemporary Equity Theory.

Week 13. Leadership (Chapter 17 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 13 Assignment (essay-type)
   • Imagine that an Ukrainian aircarier is interviewing you for a new position to lead their office in New York. They have just asked you to state three most important steps you do first. List them here.
2. Week 13 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • The perspective that one's culture or religion is better than anyone else's one is an example of a geocentric attitude.
   • In a stable business that runs ongoing operations, planning is a part of controlling according to the textbook definitions.

Week 14. Monitoring and Controlling (Chapter 18 in 13/E) :: subject to change

1. Week 14 Assignment (essay-type)
   • [Planning vs control]: Why are planning and control can potentially be combined in one textbook part?
2. Week 14 Quiz (true or false statements)
   • A management information system (MIS) is a computer-based system used to provide managers with needed information on a regular basis.
   • The control processes can be divided in three phases - (1) measuring actual performance, (2) comparing actual performance against standard, and (3) taking managerial action based on the difference. If so, true or false would be a statement that the outputs from the control process can be inputs to the planning process?

Final exam :: subject to change

• Week 8. Discuss advantages and disadvantages of more diverse workforce generally and in different stages of group development particularly.
• Week 9. Suggest 5 situations in which every of conflict-management techniques is the best.
• Week 10. In terms of communication management, discuss the ideal classroom.
• Week 11. How managers shall overcome the common shortcuts in judging others?
• Week 12. In terms of managing HR, discuss links between motivation and personality.
• Week 13. Imagine that an Ukrainian aircarier is interviewing you for a new position to lead their office in New York. They have just asked you to state three most important steps you do first. List them here.
• Week 14. Why are planning and control can potentially be combined in one textbook part?

Optional assignments

1. [Skills managers need to possess]: At the end of this course, what skills are you going to obtain?
2. [The state of governmental changes]: Thomas Jefferson suggested, "I am not an advocate for frequent changes, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind." What do you like and don't like in governmental changes?
3. [Stages of Group Development]: Discuss stages of group development in terms of conflict management.
4. [Non-diverse workforce]: Can any workforce be non-diverse?
5. [How big diversity expenses shall be]: Diversity accommodation could be expensive. Where to stop?
6. [Guidelines for decision making]: May we create guidelines for managerial decision making?
7. [SWOT analysis]: Can weaknesses be strengths? Can threats be opportunities?