Literature Summary
BMZ management
NOTE: This document contains the most important information from the literature that is
assigned in the BMZ2025 (Entrepreneurial management in healthcare) module.
Information highlighted in yellow is very important to understand as many questions in the
exam will relate to them. Good luck!
➔ Week 1: Basics of Organizations:
(Pearsons book)
Definition of management:
- Management: is an activity or process. Management is the process of assembling and
using sets of resources in a goal-directed manner to accomplish tasks in an organization.
Main parts of the definition of management:
1. It is a process
2. It involves the assembling and using sets of resources
3. It involves acting in a goal directed manner to accomplish tasks
4. It involves activities carried out in an organization
→ Management is too complex as a concept to be defined accurately.
Managerial challenges: Things that managers find difficult and challenging when doing
there job:
1. Managing change
- Managing change is not a simple task as most people naturally resist change.
Managers must find ways to gain employees’ acceptance of change in order to
implement it effectively.
- Things that can drive change in managers is Technology → Technology
developments often force managers to make changes whether they want to or not
2. Managing resources:
- The manager must ensure the efficient use of resources but also use the resources
in ways that maximize achieving the organization’s goals. The most important
resources for managers are financial capital, human capital, physical resources,
and technology.
3. Managing strategically:
- Managerial challenges create an incredibly complex, dynamic and competitive
landscape in which most managers must operate. To survive in such an
environment, managers throughout the organization need to manage strategically.
Managers at the top of the organization - CEOs like Steve Jobs - establish goals
and formulate a strategy for achieving those goals.
, 4. Managing entrepreneurially:
- Managers should regularly search for new opportunities in the current
marketplace or identify ideas that could create new markets.
- Entrepreneurship = new opportunities
Managerial roles:
- Leader role → influencing others
- Liaison role → communication with outside
- Monitor role → information seeking
- Disseminator role → sending information
Three dimensions characterize a managerial job:
- The demands made on it → Activities and
duties that have to be carried on
- The constraints placed on it → Factors that limit a manager’s response to demands
- The choices permitted in it → despite demands and constraints, managers always have
the opportunity to exercise discretion.
(Mintzberg resource)
General notes:
- Various basic types of organizations = Configurations
- Recent management theory has moved away from the “One best way approach”, towards
an “it all depends” approach known as “Contingency theory”
6 basic parts of the Organization:
1. Operators:
- At the base of organizations are operations, those are people who perform the
basic work of producing the products and rendering the services.
- They form the operating care.
2. Strategic apex:
- All organizations require at least one full time manager, who occupies what is
called the strategic apex, where the whole system is overseen.
3. Middle line:
- As organizations grow, more managers are needed, not only managers of the
operators but also managers of the managers. Therefore, a middle line is created
- Middle line = a hierarchy of authority between the operating core and the strategic
apex
4. Analysts:
, - Needed when the organization grows more and becomes complex.
- Analysts = groups of people that perform administrative duties to plan and control
formally the work of others but of a different nature labeled as “staff”.
- These analysts form the “Techno-Structure”, outside of the hierarchy of line
authority.
5. Support staff:
- Most organizations also add staff units of a different kind, to provide various
internal services, such as a cafeteria or mailroom or legal counsel. These units are
part of the organization sand they form the “Support Staff
6. Ideology:
- Every active organization has a sixth part called the ideology.
- Ideology = by which is meant a strong “culture” or norms
- Ideology encompasses the traditions and beliefs of an organization that
distinguish it from other organizations.
Important figure of organization parts:
- We have a small strategic apex connected by a flaring middle line
to a large, flat operating core at the base. These 3 parts of the
organization are drawn in one uninterrupted sequence to indicate
that they are typically connected through a single chain of formal
authority.
- The technostructure and support staff are shown off to either side
to indicate that they are separate from this main line of
authority, influencing the opening core only indirectly.
- The ideology is shown as a kind of halo that surrounds the entire
system.
- All of whom work inside the organization to make its decisions and take its actions -
full-time employees or committed volunteers = thought of as influencers who form a kind
of internal coalition
- External influences = various outside people who also try to exert influence on the
organization, seeking to affect the decisions and actions taken inside. Examples: owners,
unions and other employee associations, suppliers, clients, partners, the government.
Division of labor and coordination:
The structure of an organization can be defined simply as the total of ways in which
its labor is divided into distinct tasks and then its coordination achieved among those
tasks.COORDINATION MECHANISMS
, 1. Mutual adjustment: achieves coordination of work by the simple process of
information communication. The people who do the work interact with one
another to coordinate with each other. This is used is the simplest organizations
2. Direct supervision: in which one person coordinates by giving orders to others,
tends to come into play after a certain number of people must work together. Need
for a leader.
3. Standardization → a virtue of standards that predetermine what people do and
so ensure that their work is coordinated. Types of standardization:
- Standardization of work processes: means specification which is the
programming of the content of the work directly, the procedures to be
followed. It is the job of analysts to so programme the work of different
people in order to coordinate it tightly.
- Standardization of outputs: means the specification not of what is to be
done but of its results. Which is meeting targets and goals but not in a
specific way - more about achieving the output/result
- Standardization of skills: here it is the workers rather than the work or
the outputs that is standardized. He or she is taught a body of knowledge
and a set of skills which are subsequently applied to the work. Such
standardization takes place outside the organization - example: in a
professional school of a university before the worker takes his or her first
job.
- Standardization of norms: means that the workers share a common set
of beliefs and can achieve coordination based on it.
→ As Organizational work becomes more complicated, the favored means of
coordination seems to shift from mutual adjustment (the simplest mechanism) to direct
supervision, then to standardization, preferably of work processes or norms, otherwise of
outputs or of skills, finally reverting back to mutual adjustment.
Design Parameters → Used to design the organizational structure with links to division of
labor and coordination: used to divide labor and coordination
1. Job specialization: refers to the number of tasks in a given job and the worker’s control
over these tasks.
- A job is horizontally specialized to the extent that it encompasses a few narrowly
defined tasks (more specialization)
- A job is vertically specialized to the extent that the worker lacks control of the
tasks performed. Example: professional jobs are typically specialized horizontal
but not vertically (there is a clear hierarchical)
- Specialization is a means of making the most efficient use of employees’ skills
and successfully improving them through repetition.
BMZ management
NOTE: This document contains the most important information from the literature that is
assigned in the BMZ2025 (Entrepreneurial management in healthcare) module.
Information highlighted in yellow is very important to understand as many questions in the
exam will relate to them. Good luck!
➔ Week 1: Basics of Organizations:
(Pearsons book)
Definition of management:
- Management: is an activity or process. Management is the process of assembling and
using sets of resources in a goal-directed manner to accomplish tasks in an organization.
Main parts of the definition of management:
1. It is a process
2. It involves the assembling and using sets of resources
3. It involves acting in a goal directed manner to accomplish tasks
4. It involves activities carried out in an organization
→ Management is too complex as a concept to be defined accurately.
Managerial challenges: Things that managers find difficult and challenging when doing
there job:
1. Managing change
- Managing change is not a simple task as most people naturally resist change.
Managers must find ways to gain employees’ acceptance of change in order to
implement it effectively.
- Things that can drive change in managers is Technology → Technology
developments often force managers to make changes whether they want to or not
2. Managing resources:
- The manager must ensure the efficient use of resources but also use the resources
in ways that maximize achieving the organization’s goals. The most important
resources for managers are financial capital, human capital, physical resources,
and technology.
3. Managing strategically:
- Managerial challenges create an incredibly complex, dynamic and competitive
landscape in which most managers must operate. To survive in such an
environment, managers throughout the organization need to manage strategically.
Managers at the top of the organization - CEOs like Steve Jobs - establish goals
and formulate a strategy for achieving those goals.
, 4. Managing entrepreneurially:
- Managers should regularly search for new opportunities in the current
marketplace or identify ideas that could create new markets.
- Entrepreneurship = new opportunities
Managerial roles:
- Leader role → influencing others
- Liaison role → communication with outside
- Monitor role → information seeking
- Disseminator role → sending information
Three dimensions characterize a managerial job:
- The demands made on it → Activities and
duties that have to be carried on
- The constraints placed on it → Factors that limit a manager’s response to demands
- The choices permitted in it → despite demands and constraints, managers always have
the opportunity to exercise discretion.
(Mintzberg resource)
General notes:
- Various basic types of organizations = Configurations
- Recent management theory has moved away from the “One best way approach”, towards
an “it all depends” approach known as “Contingency theory”
6 basic parts of the Organization:
1. Operators:
- At the base of organizations are operations, those are people who perform the
basic work of producing the products and rendering the services.
- They form the operating care.
2. Strategic apex:
- All organizations require at least one full time manager, who occupies what is
called the strategic apex, where the whole system is overseen.
3. Middle line:
- As organizations grow, more managers are needed, not only managers of the
operators but also managers of the managers. Therefore, a middle line is created
- Middle line = a hierarchy of authority between the operating core and the strategic
apex
4. Analysts:
, - Needed when the organization grows more and becomes complex.
- Analysts = groups of people that perform administrative duties to plan and control
formally the work of others but of a different nature labeled as “staff”.
- These analysts form the “Techno-Structure”, outside of the hierarchy of line
authority.
5. Support staff:
- Most organizations also add staff units of a different kind, to provide various
internal services, such as a cafeteria or mailroom or legal counsel. These units are
part of the organization sand they form the “Support Staff
6. Ideology:
- Every active organization has a sixth part called the ideology.
- Ideology = by which is meant a strong “culture” or norms
- Ideology encompasses the traditions and beliefs of an organization that
distinguish it from other organizations.
Important figure of organization parts:
- We have a small strategic apex connected by a flaring middle line
to a large, flat operating core at the base. These 3 parts of the
organization are drawn in one uninterrupted sequence to indicate
that they are typically connected through a single chain of formal
authority.
- The technostructure and support staff are shown off to either side
to indicate that they are separate from this main line of
authority, influencing the opening core only indirectly.
- The ideology is shown as a kind of halo that surrounds the entire
system.
- All of whom work inside the organization to make its decisions and take its actions -
full-time employees or committed volunteers = thought of as influencers who form a kind
of internal coalition
- External influences = various outside people who also try to exert influence on the
organization, seeking to affect the decisions and actions taken inside. Examples: owners,
unions and other employee associations, suppliers, clients, partners, the government.
Division of labor and coordination:
The structure of an organization can be defined simply as the total of ways in which
its labor is divided into distinct tasks and then its coordination achieved among those
tasks.COORDINATION MECHANISMS
, 1. Mutual adjustment: achieves coordination of work by the simple process of
information communication. The people who do the work interact with one
another to coordinate with each other. This is used is the simplest organizations
2. Direct supervision: in which one person coordinates by giving orders to others,
tends to come into play after a certain number of people must work together. Need
for a leader.
3. Standardization → a virtue of standards that predetermine what people do and
so ensure that their work is coordinated. Types of standardization:
- Standardization of work processes: means specification which is the
programming of the content of the work directly, the procedures to be
followed. It is the job of analysts to so programme the work of different
people in order to coordinate it tightly.
- Standardization of outputs: means the specification not of what is to be
done but of its results. Which is meeting targets and goals but not in a
specific way - more about achieving the output/result
- Standardization of skills: here it is the workers rather than the work or
the outputs that is standardized. He or she is taught a body of knowledge
and a set of skills which are subsequently applied to the work. Such
standardization takes place outside the organization - example: in a
professional school of a university before the worker takes his or her first
job.
- Standardization of norms: means that the workers share a common set
of beliefs and can achieve coordination based on it.
→ As Organizational work becomes more complicated, the favored means of
coordination seems to shift from mutual adjustment (the simplest mechanism) to direct
supervision, then to standardization, preferably of work processes or norms, otherwise of
outputs or of skills, finally reverting back to mutual adjustment.
Design Parameters → Used to design the organizational structure with links to division of
labor and coordination: used to divide labor and coordination
1. Job specialization: refers to the number of tasks in a given job and the worker’s control
over these tasks.
- A job is horizontally specialized to the extent that it encompasses a few narrowly
defined tasks (more specialization)
- A job is vertically specialized to the extent that the worker lacks control of the
tasks performed. Example: professional jobs are typically specialized horizontal
but not vertically (there is a clear hierarchical)
- Specialization is a means of making the most efficient use of employees’ skills
and successfully improving them through repetition.
