Traditionally, management refers to both the activities and the people involved in the basic functions of running an organization: planning, organizing, directing, leading and coordinating activities. Recently, some management experts have contended that this traditional view is outdated and that management in today's world must place greater emphasis on leadership skills, including establishing and communicating a company's vision and goals and guiding the employees of the company toward accomplishing. In a recent article, Aramark Corporation was identified as a major player that was using differentiated growth, market focus and organizational structure strategies to set is apart its competitors and to dominate the on-site food service business.
Generally, experts maintain that management today must be more facilitative, participatory and empowering in how visions and goals are established and carried out. For example, The Wharton School's Complete MBA Companion argues that the old certainties in general management are breaking down. The School maintains that effective general management today includes the ability to communicate, to be approachable, to encourage and respond to the upward flow of ideas, and to adopt great behavioral flexibility.
Notably, many business experts assert that the apparent dichotomy between traditional management and modern leadership is not an actual change in the management functions. Rather, modern theory merely emphasizes certain aspects of management. Consequently, a manager of Aramark will need to understand the traditional management functions and how such functions can be adapted to the continuing development of Aramark's organizational structure. Today, both the traditional and the modern view continue to acknowledge that an effective manager must understand the company's desired results and must marshal the company's resources to attain those results through planning, organizing, direc...