QUESTION

1(a) WHAT IS STRATEGIC PLANNING?

1(b) USING ILLUSTRATIONS, DISCUSS THE BASIC STRATEGIC PLANNING MODEL.

To meet the many demands of performing their functions, managers assume many roles in management. Management is one of the important human activities and has critical impact on life, growth, development or destruction of an organization. In an organization, managers with any rank or status should understand their basic duties, that is, managers would not be able to perform their duties unless they are aware of their managerial roles. In this paper, the terms management, roles and organization will be defined, management’s research history will be briefly looked at and then Henry Mintzberg’s ten managerial roles will be discussed.

Stoner(1992:4), define management as, “the process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the work of organization members and using all available organizational resources to reach stated organizational goals.” McShane and Steen(2009) define management as a process of assembling and using sets of resources in a goal-directed manner to accomplish tasks in an organizational setting. Therefore it can be said that management is what managers do, it is not passive, but an activity that involves coordinating and overseeing the work activities of others so that their activities are completed efficiently and effectively in achieving the organizational goals.

According to Mintzberg(1973) cited in Ramezani and Tondnevis(2011:559), a role is defined as, “an organized set behaviors identified with a specific management position and therefore, is measured by what individuals do in their day-to-day work.” A role can also be defined as, “ a prescribed or expected behavior associated with a particular position or status in a group or association.”(www.businessdictionary.com). In this