open-book management

Examples of open-book management in the following topics:

• Complaint Procedures

  • Though employees are the stakeholders who are arguably most visible to management on a day-to-day basis, they do not often command the majority of attention in terms of decision-making influences.
  • Grievance and due process systems allow employees to address grievances and to argue their point if they feel they are wronged by management or another employee.
  • Open-book management empowers employees with the information they need to see the reality of the organizational situation and to give relevant and helpful input (Case, 1997).
  • Similar to open-book management are open-door policies, where management makes it clear that employees can informally raise issues or give input at any time.
  • Team mechanisms such as quality circles, work teams, and total-quality management teams provide employees with the ability to synthesize their individual input into a better solution to organizational problems.

• Providing employee voice and influence

  • Many managers recognize the importance of giving their employees a voice, but often this open communication does not result in authentic employee involvement or influence on the actual decision making process (Golan, 2003).
  • Action provides the follow up that allows management to make it apparent to employees that they have influence; it also allows management to see real change and benefit from the insight provided by employees.
  • Open book management empowers employees with the information they need to see the reality of the organizational situation and to give relevant and helpful input (Case, 1997).
  • Similar to open book management are open-door policies, where management makes it clear that employees can informally raise issues or give input at any time.
  • The open-door policy page on the Central Parking Corporation website provides an example of such a policy and the procedures employed by the company for submitting and receiving employee input (Central Parking Corporation, 2004).

• Discussion questions, exercises, and references

  • What Can You Learn from Open-Book Management?
  • The Hiring and Firing Question and Answer Book.
  • Stanford: Stanford Business Books.
  • London: Penguin Books.
  • The HR Answer Book.

• The Need for Management

  • IBM is still in business today due to the management skills of Louis V.
  • Services could be sold as an add-on to companies that had already bought IBM computers, while barely profitable pieces of hardware were used to open the door to more profitable deals.
  • The purpose of management is to serve customers.
  • Yet, if one looks through most management books for a definition of management, 99.9 percent of the time the word customer will not be mentioned.
  • Equally remiss is the fact that most definitions of management neatly filter out service in their descriptions of management.

• When to think about using database management software

  • Microsoft's widely-used database management software is called ACCESS, and versions of Microsoft Office that use ACCESS are available for purchase.
  • On the other hand, open source database management software is also available at no cost to you.
  • As of this writing, the worldwide community for ACCESS is much larger, and there are many books written about it.
  • However, according to the Gartner Group, a highly-respected technology research company based in the US, open source database management software is becoming more attractive.
  • "During 2008, since our last note about open-source database management systems (DBMSs), we have seen an increase in the interest and use of open-source DBMS engines in a production environment.

• Preface

  • The Global Text Project (http://globaltext.org/) was initiated in early 2006 to develop a series of free, open content, electronic textbooks.
  • The first book in the series is on information systems, because the founders of the Global Text Project are both
  • Information Systems professors who knew many other IS academics who wanted to help start the book.
  • Creation of an open content textbook on information systems required the cooperation of the worldwide community of faculty and their students, as well as practitioners.
  • The idea of having students write a book as a part of a course assignment proved to be bear fruit as a books on IT Management and Change Management were created by graduate classes at the University of Denver and the University of Washington, respectively, during the spring of 2009.

• Elton Mayo

  • George Elton Mayo is known as the founder of the Human Relations Movement and was known for his research, including the Hawthorne Studies and his book, The Human Problems of an Industrialized Civilization (1933).
  • This enabled Mayo to make certain deductions about how managers should behave.
  • People will form work groups, and this can be used by management to benefit the organization.
  • Companies need their employees to be able to successfully communicate and convey information, to be able to interpret others' emotions, to be open to others' feelings, and to be able to solve conflicts and arrive at resolutions.
  • Elton Mayo's work is considered the counterpoint of Taylorism and scientific management by various academics.

• Introduction

  • acquire an appreciation of why it is important to manage is risks
  • This chapter explores how Information Systems (IS) can be used by managers to better develop their business idea, launch and sustain their businesses.
  • It will also examine how IS forms the foundation for operations management, customer relationship management and financial and managerial accounting.
  • In his famous book, The World is Flat, (Friedman 2005) Thomas Friedman explains how IS has changed the way the world works.
  • The best examples of a large number of individuals collaborating on a common project is the so-called "open" movements: Open source programs like Linux and others we discuss later in this chapter, Open access to research journals, and the Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative which provide free educational resources over the Internet developed by volunteers from all over the world, of which the textbook you are reading from the Global Text Project is a prime example.

• Definition of Management

  • This view opens the opportunity to manage oneself, a pre-requisite to attempting to manage others.
  • There are different types of management styles, and the management process has changed over recent years.
  • The addition of work teams and servant leadership has changed what is expected from managers, and what managers expect from their employees.
  • There is a hierarchy of employees, low level management, mid-level management, and senior management.
  • In traditional management systems, the manager sets out expectations for the employees who need to meet goals, but the manager receives the reward of meeting those goals.

• Centralized versus decentralized organizations

  • Decentralized organizations tend to utilize many channels of information flow, allowing for more open communication between group members.
  • Also, the needs of customers and employees are more easily and quickly met because fewer levels of management are involved.
  • To ensure organizations stay on task, upper management should maintain open lines of communication with local management.
  • In his book The E-Myth, Michael Gerber makes the case that entrepreneurs should build and document their business as if it were the first of 5,000 locations, even if they never plan to expand.