Performance Appraisals
A very important, yet often neglected aspect of managerial responsibility is performance appraisal. Simply stated, appraisals measure how well an employee is accomplishing assigned tasks. They also provide a means for communication between managers ...
Peak Performance
The importance of orientation and training of new salespersons, and the responsibility of the sales manager to keep sales force motivated are explained.
Origins of Total Quality Management
The origins of the Total Quality Management philosophy can be traced back more than half a century to the work of W. Edwards Deming. In working with Japanese engineers and scientists to rebuild Japan's industrial capacity following World War Two, De...
Personal Best
Management of self is a four dimensional process that involves management of time, territory, records and stress.
Operational Efficiency Case Study: General Dynamics
General Dynamics' Convair Division produces weapons for the military. Under pressure to increase efficiency, the company instituted "just-in-time" production in 1990. In addition, Convair installed an automated warehouse system and began training wo...
Organizational Re-Design: Mercy Hospital and Medical Center
To operate more efficiently in the increasingly competitive world of health care, Mercy Hospital and Medical Center instituted a massive organizational re-design called Care 2000. In Mercy's former design, the simplest tasks were parceled out to a m...
Organizational Design and Change
Like Hospitals everywhere, Mercy Hospital and Medical Center has had to deal with drastic changes in a business environment that has become increasingly competitive.
Organizational Culture and Quality
In the 1980's, the issue of quality became so critical that an entire philosophy of management--known as total quality management, or "TQM,"--evolved. It was based on the notion that, ultimately, corporate success rests on quality. The impact of thi...
Organizational Culture: Manager's Role, The
A company's culture is much like the culture of a society. It is the sum total of that organization's behaviors, beliefs, and values. One outgrowth of a firm's culture is the environment or "climate" that exists within the organization. Along with w...
Organizational Structure
Organizing, as the word suggests, is the phase of management that defines the structure of an organization. It lays out a set of parts and coordinates efforts to achieve goals developed in the planning phase. In practice, however, many organizations...