Management: A Practical Introduction 5th Edition

Book Preface

The fifth edition of Management: A Practical Introduction—a concepts book for the introductory course in management—uses a wealth of instructor feedback to identify which features from prior editions worked best and which should be improved and expanded. By blending Angelo’s scholarship, teaching, and management-consulting experience with Brian’s writing and publishing background, we have again tried to create a research-based yet highly readable, innovative, and practical text.

Our primary goal is simple to state but hard to execute: to make learning principles of management as easy, effective, and effi cient as possible. Accordingly, the book integrates writing, illustration, design, and magazine-like layout in a program of learning that appeals to the visual sensibilities and respects the time constraints and different learning styles of today’s students. In an approach initially tested in our first edition and fine-tuned in the subsequent editions, we break topics down into easily grasped portions and incorporate frequent use of various kinds of reinforcement techniques. Our hope, of course, is to make a difference in the lives of our readers: to produce a text that students will enjoy reading and that will provide them with practical benefi ts.

The text covers the principles that most management instructors have come to expect in an introductory text— planning, organizing, leading, and controlling—plus the issues that today’s students need to be aware of to succeed: customer focus, globalism, diversity, ethics, information technology, entrepreneurship, work teams, the service economy, and small business. Beyond these, our book has four features that make it unique:

1. A student-centered approach to learning.
2. Imaginative writing for readability and reinforcement.
3. Emphasis on practicality.
4. Resources that work.