Management Information System

Description

In for-profit work, management has as its primary function the satisfaction of a range of stakeholders. This typically involves making a profit (for the shareholders), creating valued products at a reasonable cost (for customers) and providing rewarding employment opportunities. In nonprofit management, add the importance of keeping the faith of donors. In most models of management/governance, shareholders vote for the board of directors and the board then hires senior management. Some organisations have experimented with other methods (such as employee-voting models) of selecting or reviewing managers but this occurs only very rarely. In the public sector of countries constituted as representative democracies, voters elect politicians to public office. Such politicians hire many managers and administrators, and in some countries the political appointees lose their jobs on the election of a new president/governor/mayor. 
Given the scale of most commercial operations and the lack of mechanised record-keeping and recording before the industrial revolution, it made sense for most owners of enterprises in those times to carry out management functions by and for themselves. But with the growing size and complexity of organisations, the split between owner (individuals, industrial dynasties of group shareholders) and day-to-day managers (independent specialists in planning and control) gradually became more common. While management has been present for millennia, several writers have created a background of works that assisted in modern management theories. This book sheds light on some of them.