Explain any four significance of Principles of Management.

Answer – Management principles are broad guidelines for managerial decisions and behaviour. A technique is a procedure for achieving an objective; a value is an ethical belief about desirable conduct.

Nature

• Universal applicability: useful in all organisations, with adaptation to their circumstances.
• General guidelines: they guide judgement rather than prescribe a single mechanical answer.
• Formed by practice and experimentation: experience and observation establish their usefulness.
• Flexible: managers can modify their application to suit a situation.
• Mainly behavioural: they chiefly concern human behaviour, although resources also matter.
• Cause-and-effect relationships: they indicate likely outcomes of managerial action.
• Contingent: application depends on conditions; fair pay, for example, depends partly on capacity and prevailing standards.

Significance

• Provide useful insight from accumulated managerial experience.
• Improve resource utilisation and effective administration by reducing waste and personal bias.
• Support reasoned, scientific decisions instead of trial and error alone.
• Help organisations respond to changing environmental requirements.
• Guide social responsibility, fairness and responsible use of power.
• Supply foundations for management training, education and research.