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On the Nature of Managerial Tasks and Skills: Their Distinguishing Characteristics and Organization

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  • Richard Whitley

Abstract

Managerial activities have grown in importance as large corporations co‐ordinate and control an increasing number and variety of economic activities. Their distinctive characteristics derive from their constitutive role in establishing, maintaining and changing such organizations as relatively distinct and semiautonomous units of resource combination and use. As a result, managerial tasks and problems are highly interdependent and systemic, relatively unstandardized, they combine both social reproduction and innovation and generate collective, indirect outputs. These characteristics mean that managerial skills differ considerably from other sorts of expertise in their limited standardization across industries, their susceptibility to change, their specificity to situations rather than problems and their diffuse, varied knowledge base. These differences imply management education and research should be more concerned with developing organizational skills and understandings than analytical skills derived from highly abstract and general models.

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  • Richard Whitley, 1989. "On the Nature of Managerial Tasks and Skills: Their Distinguishing Characteristics and Organization," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 209-224, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:26:y:1989:i:3:p:209-224
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.1989.tb00725.x
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    1. repec:jtr:journl:v:3:y:2011:i:1:p:9-38 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Przemyslaw Hensel, 2013. "Doradztwo jako temat badan naukowych – przegl¹d wspolczesnej literatury. (Consulting as a subject of study – a review of a recent literature.)," Problemy Zarzadzania, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 11(43), pages 9-24.
    3. Luis Antonio Orozco Castro, 2015. "Diversidad y heterogeneidad en redes de colaboración científica. Un estudio de las escuelas de administración de América Latina," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Administración de Empresas, edition 1, number 44, August.
    4. Ye, Jun & Cardon, Melissa S. & Rivera, Efrain, 2012. "A mutuality perspective of psychological contracts regarding career development and job security," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 294-301.

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