Page 286 - Business Principles and Management

Chapter 11 • Management Functions and Decision Making

LEVELS OF MANAGEMENT
A manager completes all four management functions
on a regular basis and has authority over other jobs
and people. In each of the situations above, where
employees were completing what seemed to be man- As businesses and industries grow and decline,
agement functions, they were doing those tasks infre- employment opportunities change. As you
quently, were not completing all of the management think about your own future, you should use
functions, or were completing them for their job information to help you make a career decision.
only. Seldom do nonmanagement employees have The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes
authority over other employees for more than a short estimates of job growth. Point your browser to
period of time. www.thomsonedu.com/school/bpmxtra. Review
There is typically more than one level of manage- the estimates of job opportunities in major
ment in most companies. Large companies may have occupational areas from 1994 to 2014. Select
five or six management classifications. However, three industries that offer jobs that may be
today many companies are attempting to reduce the of interest to you. Compare the projected job
number of levels of management, making each level growth by total number of jobs and percentage
of management and each manager’s work more increase. Prepare a bar graph that illustrates
important. your findings. In addition to job growth, what
A manager whose main job is to direct the work other types of information are important to
of nonmanagement employees is called a supervisor. you as you make career plans?
Supervisors are typically the first (or beginning)
level of management in a company and often have www.thomsonedu.com/school/bpmxtra
many nonmanagerial activities to perform as well.
An executive is a top-level manager who spends
almost all of his or her time on management functions
and decisions that affect the entire company. Executives have other managers
reporting to them. Between executives and supervisors in larger organizations,
there will be one or more levels of mid-managers.
A mid-manager completes all of the management functions, but spends
most of the time on one or two management functions such as planning or
controlling, or is responsible for a specific part of the company’s operations.
Figure 11-1 shows how the time spent on management functions changes for
different levels of managers in a business.
You can see from the figure that as a manager moves up in the organiza-
tion, responsibilities change. Supervisors work most directly with employees

FIGURE 11-1 The amount of time spent on each function depends on
the level of management.

Planning

Organizing
Executives
Mid-Managers
Implementing
Supervisors

Controlling

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