McGraw-Hill Education Essentials of Contemporary Management with Student CD-ROM

Essentials of Management concisely surveys current management theories and research. Through a variety of real world examples from small, medium, and large companies the reader learns how those ideas are used by practicing managers. The organization of this text follows the mainstream functional approach of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling; but the content is flexible and encourages instructors to use the organization they are most comfortable with. The themes of diversity, ethics, and information technology are clearly evident through in-text examples, photographs, “unboxed” stories, and the end-of-chapter material - all areas of importance that truly serve to bring to life the workplace realities that today’s student will encounter in the course of a career. From the Publisher Chapter 2, Managers, Entrepreneurs, and Organizational Culture, puts the student in the manager's shoes by focusing on managers and entrepreneurs as feeling, thinking human beings. This chapter explains how the personal characteristics of managers and entrepreneurs influence an organization's culture and the process of management and entrepreneurship. Given the current business climate, today's managers are called upon to act ethically to protect all stakeholders and to respect the individuality that diverse people bring to an organization while utilizing their skills and talents. Chapter 3, Managing Ethics and Diversity, prepares students to meet these challenges. And, to further prepare students to make ethical decisions, the text includes an ethical dilemma exercise at the end of every chapter, called Managing Ethically. A career appendix gives students guidance in choosing a career in management as well as in finding and landing the right job.A real life case opens each chapter and illustrates how individuals or companies approach problems. These chapter-opening cases are designed to pique reader interest and to foreshadow the theory and application for the upcoming chapter."You're the Management Consultant" exercises appear at the end of every chapter. These exercises present a realistic scenario in which a manager/organization faces some kind of challenge, problem, or opportunity and the student plays the role of a management consultant offering advice and recommending a course of action based on the chapter content. Because managers and organizations frequently need this kind of help either internally (from other members of the organization) or externally (from consultants), these exercises provide students a real, hands-on way to take an action-oriented approach to solving "real" problems by applying what they've just learned in the chapter. These exercises also address the fact that, while people often complain about the status quo, the key benefit of learning about management is that it gives you the tools to address problems and improve things for the better.The Management Case in the News for each chapter feature a Business Week Case (based on an actual Business Week article) and discussion questions encourage students to read about and analyze how real managers handle problems in the business world.Integration of Key Themes is one of the principle strengths of this text. The authors seamlessly integrate stories and examples about key issues - integrated "boxes" highlight key issues: Focus on Diversity, Ethics in Action, Management Insight, and Managing Globally, Technology Byte In addition to the end-of-chapter features mentioned above ('You're the Management Consultant' and Management Case in the News), the creative and flexible end-of-chapter materials are designed to be used in either large or small classes and each chapter includes:¨ Topics for Discussion and Action¨ Building Management Skills ¨ Small Group Breakout: The authors recognize that today working effectively in small groups is a vital skill for future managers. This feature ensures that students learn the importance of collaboration