Conceptions of the Manager

1.Classical economists made no distinction between the «manager» and the «entrepreneur», the person who brings together land, labour, and capital and puts them to work. This distinction has not been marked in the literature until the appearance in 1933 of the classic study by Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means which was called «The Modern Corporation and Private Property». The authors demonstrated that in most American corporations the owners, that is, the stockholders, played no direct role in the management of the concern they are owing. And when they showed, that the managers generally had insignificant holdings of stock, it became apparent that theories of entrepreneurial behaviour had little to contribute to the understanding of the behaviour of managers.

2.The conception of «specialized management» is closely connected with the name of Max Weber.A German economist and sociologist had approached the study of managerial behaviour through his concept of bureaucracy. To Weber the term bureaucracy did not have to bear the negative connotation often heard in casual conversations, lie used the term simply to point to a phenomenon of growing importance of a manager even in his time, it was defined as the large organization with fixed positions linked together in a hierarchical pyramid, with specialization and division of labour, and with established rules and regulations governing behaviour. To Weber the manager was the individual who interpreted and applied the rules of the organization.

3.Later organizational sociologists, though recognizing the importance of Weber's contribu-tion focusing attention on the impersonality and rationality of modern industrial and govern

mental organizations, pointed out that Weber's model failed to take into account some ol the most important features of the modern business organization. They argued that it gave an unduly rigid picture of organizations, that it failed to devote attention to processesof change, and that it built so exclusively on the hierarchy of authority as to neglect relations not explicitly defined by the struc­ture. In any case, Weber's formulations were of interest primarily to social scientists.

4. Practicing managers and students in business schools at that time were likely to have little
familiarity with the Weberian approach to managerial behaviour. The early model of the manager
taught in American business school applied these formal structural concepts by emphasizing func­
tional specializations. In these terms the manager was one who had mastered such subjects as
accounting, marketing, production, finance, and so on. One should agree that this was functional
approach. It did not completely denote the conception of manager.

5. Later it was recognized by theoreticians and practicing managers alike that management
was a good deal more than the sum of these specialized functions. And this realization in turn let!
lo the conception of the manager as generalist, who would understand ihe various specialized
functions and the people engaged in them. The emphasis turned to decision making, leadership,
and the relation of the firm to its environment.

6.The growing number of people working in professional, managerial and administrative oc­cupations is related to the importance of large — scale organizations in modern societies. It is also will be connected with the expanding numbers of people working in sectors of the economy where ihe state plays a major role — for example, in government, education, health and social welfare. Professionals, managers and higher-level administrators gain their position largely from their pos­session of «credentials» — degrees, diplomas and other qualifications. As a whole they enjoy relatively secure and remunerative careers, and their separation from people in more routine non-inanual jobs has been probably increased more pronounced in recent years.

2. Выпишите из абзацев 1,2,6 предложения, содержащие форму глагола в стра­-
дательном залоге — Passive Voice, определите в каждом из них временную форму.

3. Выпишите из 1,3,4,5 абзацев текста предложения с it, that, one, обращая вни­-
мание на разницу в переводе этих слов. Предложения переведите.

4. Выпишите из абзацев 1,2,5 предложения, содержащие глаголы to be, to do, to
have, предложения переведите.

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