Key Business Functions: Management, Operations, and Ethics

Posted on Nov 13, 2025 in Business Administration and Management (BAM)

Organizational Design and Human Resources (HRO)

Functions of Management

  • Planning: Setting performance objectives and deciding how to achieve them.
  • Organizing: Arranging tasks, people, and other resources to accomplish the work.

Managerial Competencies

  • Communication: Ability to share ideas and findings clearly in written and oral ways—including giving/receiving feedback and using technology.
  • Teamwork: Ability to work effectively as a team member and team leader—includes team contribution, team leadership, negotiation, and consensus building.
  • Leadership: Ability to influence and support others to perform complex and ambiguous tasks—includes diversity awareness, global understanding, and strategic action.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The five levels of human needs, from most basic to highest:

  1. Physiological Needs: Most basic of all human needs; need for biological maintenance: food, water, and physical well-being.
  2. Safety Needs: Need for security, protection, and stability in the events of day-to-day life.
  3. Social Needs: Need for love, affection, and a sense of belongingness in relationships with other people.
  4. Esteem Needs: Need for respect in the eyes of others, prestige, recognition; need for self-esteem and mastery.
  5. Self-Actualization Needs: Highest level; need for self-fulfillment, to grow and use abilities to the fullest and most creative extent.

Organizational Culture

The set of shared values and norms that controls organizational members’ interactions with each other and people outside the organization. Also known as Corporate Culture.

The Iceberg Model of Culture

This model highlights two key elements:

  • Observable Culture: Visible and readily apparent at the surface of every organization. Expressed by: the way people dress at work, how they arrange their offices, how they speak to and behave toward one another, and the nature of their conversations. Also found in stories, heroes, rituals, and symbols.
  • Core Culture: Consists of the core values, or underlying assumptions and beliefs that shape and guide people’s behaviors. Examples include performance excellence, innovation, social responsibility, customer service, and teamwork.

Essential Leadership Traits

  • Self-confidence: Successful leaders trust themselves and have confidence in their abilities.
  • Creativity: Successful leaders are creative and original in their thinking.

Operations and Supply Chain Management

Definition of Operations Management

The design, operation, and improvement of the systems that create and deliver the firm’s primary products and services.

Core Operations Concepts

  • Operations: A system that transforms inputs into outputs (value increases).
  • Value Chain: Activities that add value to a product or service.
  • Lean Product: Doing more with less (inventory, workers, space).

Lean Production/Manufacturing Elements

These elements drive efficiency and quality:

  • Push System: Relies on predetermined production schedules. Example: Amazon – stocking warehouses based on demand forecast.
  • Pull System: Relies on customer request (preventing over/under production), forcing the system to work in coordination. Example: Amazon – direct sales from a third-party seller.
  • Small Lots: Improves quality and reduces lead time (processing time, move time, waiting time, setup time). Example: Amazon – lean inventory reduces waste.
  • Quality at the Source: Smaller lot sizes encourage quality.
  • Visual Control: Procedures that make problems visible. Example: Coca-Cola – quality control system thanks to technology, checking fill levels and labeling for consistency.
  • Supplier Network: Synchronized production, supplier certification, and long-term supplier contracts. Example: Coca-Cola – strict approved supplier list ensures consistency.

Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Four Alternative Views of Ethics

  1. Individualism: Promotes one’s long-term self-interest.
  2. Utilitarian: The greatest good for the most people.
  3. Justice: Shows fairness and impartiality.
  4. Moral Rights: Maintains fundamental rights of all human beings.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

The obligation to serve one’s own interest as well as those of society.

Key Stakeholders

Groups affected by organizational decisions:

  • Employees
  • Governments
  • Customers
  • Owners
  • Media
  • Suppliers
  • Local Communities
  • Special Interest Groups

Accounting Fundamentals

Financial Accounting

Serves external decision makers such as stakeholders or banks; past oriented, less flexible, summary reports.

Managerial Accounting

The process of accumulating information that helps managers fulfill organizational tasks; main users are organization managers; future oriented, flexible, detailed reports.

Marketing Principles

Definition of Marketing

Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in beneficial ways for the organization and stakeholders.

The Dark Side of Marketing

Examples of negative consequences related to marketing practices:

  • Terrorism: Negative consequences of attacks.
  • Addictive Consumption: Dependence on a product or service.
  • Exploited People: Selling body parts or babies on eBay (illegal markets).
  • Illegal Activities: Human deception/fraud.
  • Anti-consumption: Spray painting property or product tampering.