What is the meaning of management?

What is the meaning of management?What is the meaning of management? – Etymologically, management is derived from the Old French "menagement" which means the art to implement and manage. While the terminological experts define management variously, including:

Follett defines management as the art of the work done through others. According to Stoner, management is the process of planning, organizing, directing, and monitoring efforts of the organization members and the use of human resources of other organizations in order to achieve organizational goals that have been set.

Gulick defines management as a field of science that seeks systematically to understand why and how people work together to achieve goals and make the system more useful to humanity.

Schein defines management as a profession. According to management is a profession that is required to work in a professional manner. The characteristics are professionals making decisions based on general principles, the professionals get their status because they achieve certain performance standards, and professionals should be determined based on a strong ethics code.

Terry gave the notion of what the meaning of management is, management defined as a process or framework, which involves guidance or direction of a group of people toward organizational goals or intentions are real. This includes knowledge of what to do, establish how to do it, to understand how they should do it and measure the effectiveness of the efforts that have been made.

From all definitions mentioned above, could be concluded that management is an effort together to define and achieve organizational objectives with the performance of the functions of planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling. Management is an activity; the implementations called managing and the actors are called managers.

Management needed at least to achieve the goal, keeping a balance between the goals are conflicting, and to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. Management consists of various elements, i.e., man, money, method, machine, market, material and information.
  • Man: Human resources;
  • Money: Money is needed to achieve the objectives;
  • Method: Method or system to achieve the goal;
  • Machine: Machines or apparatus for production;
  • Material: The materials needed in the activities;
  • Market: Market or a place to throw the production outputs;
  • Information: Things that can help to achieve the goal.
Essentially, to answer “what is the meaning of management?” the seventh elements mentioned above must be comprehensive understood. For further learning, read henry fayol principle of management