AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
A CASE STUDY OF THE APPLICATION OF MANAGERIAL TECHNIQUES OF A SELECTED
TEAM MANAGER IN THE BUSINESS PRACTICE
a,b,c,e
MONIKA DÁVIDEKOVÁ,
d,f
SOŇA DÁVIDEKOVÁ,
c,g
MICHAL GREGUŠ ML.
a
Vysoká škola manažmentu, Panónska cesta 17, 851 04
Bratislava
b
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology,
Slovak
University of Technology, Ilkovičova 3, 85101 Bratislava
c
Faculty of Management Comenius University in Bratislava,
Odbojárov 10, P.O.Box 95, 820 05 Bratislava
d
Veřejnosprávní vzdělávací institut o.p.s, Náměstí Svobody 494,
696 62 Strážnice
email:
e
monika.davidekova@st.fm.uniba.sk
f
davidekova@sterling-invest.com
g
michal.gregus.ml@fm.uniba.sk
Abstract: The way of working has significantly changed over the past century. Before,
people were working in manufactures executing the same task each day. With the
industrial revolution the composition of working changed significantly. The evolution
went from individually executed tasks to tasks executed in teams. Team work
represents the future of working. However, team has to be created and maintained,
otherwise the team will split up. The leadership and management of a team lies in the
responsibility of the team manager who is monitoring the performance of his/her team
members. Yet, how does the team manager perform? This paper presents the results of
executed case study analyzing the managerial techniques applied by a chosen manager
in practice. Discussion proposes improvements to detected drawbacks.
Keywords: management, team work, leadership, managing virtual teams.
1 Introduction
Today´s business world is characterized by dramatic turbulent
changes in uncertain environment with international
multicultural influences and global international companies. Big
corporate companies with high number of employees are
struggling to survive and to succeed in the market with their
products and services. Nowadays, in times of cost reducing,
teams are becoming larger and far more employees are assigned
to one team manager when compared to the past. One manager
has to lead a whole group of specialists and create a team.
A manager “directs the activities of the organizational unit in
order to achieve set goals”
1
. The task of the manager is to care
for the members of his/her team, their needs, to ensure their
efficient and successful execution of assigned working tasks and
to ensure meeting of the set corporate goals. The role of a
manager is no easy task as the leading of people requires specific
skills, knowledge and personal attributes. A manager “works
with people and coordinates their activities in order to achieve
the goals of the organization”
2
. Leading people is no easy task
as people are unique and it is no easy task to connect their
individualities and get them working towards common goal. Not
every person is capable of it. However, everyone can learn it.
A manager is a person in the position or “a managerial
employee whose activities are devoted to particular field, who
applies his/her vision, has strategic perspective, works with
outlooks and looks into the future”
3
. Some managers are born
managers, granted with necessary skills and character attributes,
other can learn the necessary skills and talents and become a
manager.
To become a manager, the title from a university is not enough,
or to take a vacancy with the manager description. To be a
manager, it means to meet decisions. “A manager is not the only
one who is affected by the results of his/her decisions, his/her
decisions are affecting other subjects”
4
. To be a manager means
1
MAJTÁN, M. a kol. Manažment. Bratislava: SPRINT, 2008, p. 22.
2
MIKUŠ, P.; DROPPA, M.; BUDAJ, P. Vybrané problémy teórie manažmentu a
marketingu. Ružomberok: VERBUM, 2006, p. 7.
3
HANGONI, T.; IMRICHOVÁ, A. Manažment a jeho aplikácia v sociálnej práci.
Gorlice: ELPIS, 2010. p. 29.
4
PAPULA, J.; PAPULOVÁ, Z. Manažérske rozhodovanie: Prístupy a postupy.
Bratislava: Kartprint, 2014, p. 8.
to be able to manage the activities and tasks, lead assigned
workers and solve conflicts among team members or between
team members and other workers from other departments. “A
manager is the employee of the organization, who coordinates
the activities of one or more workers of a particular
organizational unit and is responsible for the results resulting
from the activities of this organizational unit.”
5
. His/her “main
mission is to manage goal-oriented the activities of others
through application of managerial functions indirectly, thus,
through his/her assigned, ensuring the achievement of
organizational goals”
6
. “Managers are responsible for the
achievement of results through of specialized effort of other
persons, individuals, in groups or in organizations”
7
.
“Management is first of all a process of leading people”
8
.
In today’s world, when big corporate companies build local and
virtual distributed teams across the whole organization or within
a department of that organization, which consist of one
nationality or more frequently of more cultures. These global
conditions increase the requirements on the management. To
lead a virtual distributed team and to become one with the team
is not simple. It is very difficult to create a pleasant comfortable
working atmosphere for the whole team out of a toxic
environment, which is sabotaging the team functioning and is
preventing any type of performance. To create a place, where the
workers will proactively execute working tasks and achieve far
higher results thanks to created synergy effect.
The employees today are under the cause of fluctuation are
leaving usually due to their superiors. “People leave managers,
not companies”
9
. The managers are embodying the organization
for them as they are denoting the main factors which are
influencing their future. They are the subjective judges of their
performance. There are many reasons for leaving jobs. However,
most of them are influenced by the direct superior manager
directly or indirectly. Due to a bad manager a good employee
can leave the organization. The organization won’t recognize
that a good employee has left as the organization will read solely
the bad reference which the manager wrote into the system. A
new employee will be found and take over the tasks of the left
employee who can be better or worse at the employee before.
Yet, he/she will need a quite long time to learn everything
necessary in order to execute the tasks as efficiently as the
worker before. And the organization is losing time and costs.
A good leader can inspire and motivate the assigned workers.
Such a manager each company is searching for. Despite of the
fact, that many specialized expert books are devoted to
management, many researchers are also today researching this
field as new obstacles are continuously showing up in business
practice. This article is describing the performed case study of
the application of managerial techniques in business practice of a
selected manager.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the
research subject and basic managerial techniques. In section 3
the results of observation are stated and discussed. The research
results are summarized in the conclusion.
2 Research Object and Methodology
In this chapter the research object and the used research
techniques are specified.
5
RUDY, J.; LUPTÁKOVÁ, S.; SULÍKOVÁ, R.; VARGIC, B.
Organizačné
správanie. Bratislava: Faber, 2007, p. 13.
6
MIKUŠ, P.; DROPPA, M. Základy manažmentu. Ružomberok: VERBUM, 2010,
p.40.
7
DONNELLY, J.; GIBSON, J.; IVANCEVICH, J. Fundamentals of management.
Boston: IRWIN, 1992. p. 2.
8
MÍKA, V. T. Základy manažmentu. Virtuálne skriptá. [online]. 2006. p. 8.
9
BUCKINGHAM, M.; COFFMAN, C. W. First, Break All the Rules: What the
World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. p.34.
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