Management is an overused term.

In the introduction of his book, Peter Drucker, provided a more specific definition of management:

"This is a MANAGEMENT book. It intentionally leaves out BUSINESS CHALLENGES – even very important ones such as the question of whether the EURO will displace the U.S. dollar as the world's key currency, or what will succeed the 19th century's most successful economic inventions, the commercial bank and the investment bank. It intentionally does not concern itself with ECONOMICS – even though the basic MANAGEMENT changes (e.g., the emergence of knowledge as the economy's key resource) will certainly necessitate radically new economic theory and equally radically new economic policy. The book does not concern itself with politics – not even with such crucial questions as whether Russia can and will recover as a political, military and economic power. It sticks with MANAGEMENT issues.

There are good reasons for this. The issues this book discusses, the new social, demographic and economic realities, are not issues that GOVERNMENT can successfully deal with. They are issues that will have profound impact on politics; but they are not political issues. They are not issues the free market can deal with. They are also not issues of ECONOMIC THEORY or even of ECONOMIC POLICY. They are issues that only MANAGEMENT and the INDIVIDUAL knowledge worker, professional or executive can tackle and resolve. They are surely going to be debated in the domestic politics of every developed and every emerging country. But their resolution will have to take place within the individual organization and will have to be worked out by the individual organization's MANAGEMENT – and by every single individual knowledge worker (and especially by every single executive) within the organization.

A great many of these organizations will, of course, be businesses. And a great many of the individual knowledge workers affected by these challenges will be employees of business or working with business. Yet this is a MANAGEMENT book rather than a BUSINESS management book. The challenges it presents affect ALL organizations of today's society. In fact, some of them will affect nonbusinesses even more, if only because a good many nonbusiness organizations – the university, for instance, or the hospital, let alone the government agency – are more rigid and less flexible than businesses are, and far more deeply rooted in the concepts, the assumptions, the policies of yesterday or even, as are universities, in the assumptions of the day before yesterday (i.e., of the 19th century)."

Source: Drucker, P. (2002). Management challenges for the 21st century. New York: Harper Collins.

This unit uses a specific meaning to emphasize the importance of management as a lifelong skill for personal and professional development.

Behaviour pattern: Success to the successful

Behaviour pattern: Shifting the burden

Behaviour pattern: Tragedy of the commons

Behaviour pattern: Pavlov's dogs

Behaviour pattern: Pygmalion effect

Recognition of management styles help develop strategies for professional development.

The process of management control may be applied to individuals, groups and organizations.