Practical Management for the Digital Age : An Introduction for Engineers, Scientists, and Other Disciplines

Practical Management for the Digital Age is an innovative introductory management textbook that shows the sweeping impact of information technology on the business world. At the same time, it addresses the pressing issue of how environmental aspects are interwoven with management decisions. This book forms an academically rigorous, accurate, and accessible first exposure to a topic that often challenges novices with competing definitions, inconsistent use of terminology, methodological variety, and conceptual fuzziness. It has been written for readers with little or no prior knowledge of management and is compact enough to be read cover-to-cover over the course of a semester.

Features of this book:

• Provides a broad, self-contained treatment of management for those without prior knowledge of management or commerce, emphasizing core ideas that every manager should know.
• Establishes the context of modern management by characterizing the nature of the private enterprise, the economic theory of the firm, the economics of digitalization and automation, processes of innovation, and life cycle thinking.
• Introduces readers to various activities of managing, including business modeling, new business formation, operations management, managing people, marketing, and the management of quality and risk.
• Provides practical introductions to broadly applied management techniques, including financial planning, financial analysis, evaluating flows of money, and planning and monitoring projects.

This book is aimed at a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate students in a variety of disciplines, as well as practitioners. It will be especially useful to those in the fields of engineering, science, computer science, medicine, pharmacy, social sciences, and more. It will help student readers engage confidently with project work in the final parts of their degree courses and, most importantly, with managerial situations later in their careers. For instructors, who may not have a management background, this book offers content for a self-contained year-long course in management at the intermediate undergraduate level. In addition, it has been developed for undergraduate and postgraduate courses with accreditation requirements that include a taught element in management, such as the UK Engineering Council’s Accreditation of Higher Education (AHEP) framework.

Preface

Part 1 : The Context of Management
Chapter 1 : Toward Modern Management
Chapter 2 : The Private Enterprise
Chapter 3 : The Economic Theory of The Firm
Chapter 4 : The Economics of Digitalization and Automation
Chapter 5 : Technology, Innovation and Disruption
Chapter 6 : Life Cycle Thinking

Part II : The Activity of Managing The Business
Chapter 7 : Business Modeling
Chapter 8 : New Business Formation
Chapter 9 : Managing Operations
Chapter 10 : Managing People
Chapter 11 : Marketing
Chapter 12 : Managing Quality and Risk

Part III : Practical Management Techniques
Chapter 13 : Financial Planning and The Basics of Financial Accounting
Chapter 14 : Financial Analysis
Chapter 15 : Evaluating Flows of Money
Chapter 16 : Planning and Monitoring Projects

Index