GSB721 Processes of Management
This is a unit designed to equip students with the capability to identify, analyse and resolve problems in what is termed the ‘general management’ domain of the management of organisations. Very broadly, the focus is on the internal functioning of organisations, rather than strategic operation, although these are ultimately closely interdependent.
The objective of the unit is so encompassing that the approach taken is one of characterising the requirements of managers, and the context within which they must perform, in ways that enable the identification of general and useful conceptual frameworks. The approach in the unit is to search for important dimensions that underlie the mass of individual characteristics of organisations or parts of them. Once identified, these are then used as analytical devices to deal with management problems.
The unit is strongly conceptual. It does not emphasise specific, fine management skills. It is designed to be relevant to all types of organisation.
There is not a massive amount of reading in the unit but there is a need for students to reflect a good deal on the material they do have to read. For many students this unit involves some reconsideration of what they might previously have regarded as conventional wisdom about organisations and management. The unit is conceptually broad and not a wise choice early in the programs of people who have not studied at university before.
Most part-time students would benefit by studying the unit on its own. The nature of the unit makes it highly desirable for students to work steadily through it. There is a pretty strong cumulative character to it which is difficult to absorb if several topics are being squeezed into one week’s study.
It makes sense to study this unit soon after or before Organisational Behaviour which is, in many ways, a sister unit.
Students enjoy the persistent insights the unit creates into issues and events in their own experience. At the same time, it takes most of the trimester for students to distil the material in the unit and to come to a unified overview of what the unit is about. (This is one reason it is not a good unit to take early in your program if study is new to you; the experience can be somewhat unnerving.)
Students find that the unit, whenever they study it, integrates a good deal of the content of more tightly focused units, thereby drawing their study together. It is preferable to do it early, subject to the above caution for people new to study.