Cebu Institute of Technology

University
N. Bacalso Avenue, Cebu City, Philippines
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
Department of Industrial Engineering

COURSEWARE
ES034 | ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
WEEK 1 (April 29 - 30)
 MANAGEMENT
PART ONE

Introduction
Management Ethics & Social Responsibility
Historical Perspectives of Management

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

 Define what are organizations like and recite who are manager and their functions
 Discuss the management process and find how are managerial skills and competencies
learned
 Discuss ethical behavior and examine how ethical dilemmas complicate the workplace
 Enumerate how can ethical standards be maintained
 Illustrate social responsibility and governance
 INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT

Watch this video before starting the module:

“Engineering Manager job description” by ExpediaGroup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ09zx7nT

Discussion Question: From the video, what are the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager?

INTRODUCTION

Engineering is a profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural science gained by study,
experience, and practice is applied with judgement to develop ways to utilize, economically, the materials
and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind (1979, US. Engineering societies).

Management is the process of working with and through others to achieve organizational objectives in a
changing environment. Central to this process is the effective and efficient use of limited resources.1

Engineer vs. Manager

ENGINEER MANAGER
 Build, test and oversee the production of  Develop plans and schedules for reaching
structures, machines and devices technical goals, such as new product
development.

 Technology centered  People centered

 Depends solely on his technical skills  Depends on the skills of his team of people

 Concentrates on the task at hand  Looks at a task from the point of view of the
value it adds, and the interest of stake
holders.

Functions of the Engineer

1. Research – where the engineer is engaged in the process of learning about nature and codifying
this knowledge into usable theories.
2. Design and development — where the engineer undertakes the activity of turning a product concept
to a finished physical item. Design for manufacturability and value engineering teams (a feature of
some companies) are charged with improvement of designs and specifications at the research,
development, design, and production stages of product development.
3. Testing — where the engineer works in a unit where new products or parts are tested for workability.
4. Manufacturing — where the engineer is directly in charge of production personnel or assumes
responsibility for the product.
5. Construction — this is where the construction engineer (a civil engineer) is either directly in charge
of the construction personnel or may have responsibility for the quality of the construction
 6. Sales — where the engineer assists the company's customers to meet their needs, especially those
that require technical expertise.
7. Consulting — where the engineer works as consultant of any individual or organization requiring
his services.
8. Government — where the engineer may find employment in the government performing any of the
various tasks in regulating, monitoring, and controlling the activities of various institutions, public or
private.
9. Teaching — where the engineer gets employment in a school and is assigned as a teacher of
engineering courses. Some of them later become deans, vice presidents, and presidents.
10. Management — where the engineer is assigned to manage groups of people performing specific
tasks.

The Engineering in Various Types of Organization

From the viewpoint of the engineer, organizations may

be classified according to the degree of engineering jobs
performed:
1. Level One — those with minimal engineering
jobs like retailing firms. The engineer will have a
slim chance of becoming the general manager
or president unless he owns the firm. The
engineer manager may be assigned to head a
small engineering unit of the firm.
2. Level Two — those with a moderate degree of
engineering jobs like transportation companies.
The engineer may be assigned to head the
engineering division. The need for management Figure 1.1 Types of Organization and the Management
Skills Required of Engineers
skills will now be felt by the engineer manager.
3. Level Three — those with a high degree of
engineering jobs like construction firms. This level provides the biggest opportunity for an engineer
to become the president or general manager – adequate management skills is needed.

What is Engineering Management?

Engineering management refers to the activity combining "technical knowledge with the ability to organize
and coordinate worker power, materials, machinery, and money."' When the engineer is assigned to
supervise the work of even a few people, he is already engaged in the first phase of engineering
management. His main responsibility is to lead his group into producing a certain output consistent with the
required specifications. The top position an engineer manager may hope to occupy is the general
presidency of any firm, large or small. As he scales the management ladder, he finds that the higher he
goes up, the less technical activities he performs, and the more management tasks he accepts. In this case,
it is but proper that the management functions taught in pure management courses be well understood by
the engineer manager.

KNOWLEDGE CHECK 1.1

1. Select one function of an engineer that you want to venture on in the future and why? What specific
level? What do you think are your responsibilities?
ORGANIZATIONS

Before knowing more about management and all its aspect, it is important to start with understanding the
what are organizations and how they create value in order to understand how essential is management to
the organization.

What is an Organization?

An organization is a collection of people working together to achieve a common purpose. It is a unique

social phenomenon that enables its members to perform tasks far beyond the reach of individual
accomplishment. This description applies to organizations of all sizes and types that make up the life of any
community, from large corporations to small businesses, and nonprofit organizations such as schools,
government agencies, and community hospitals.
All organizations are open systems that interact with their environments. They do so in a continual process
of obtaining resource inputs—people, information, resources, and capital—and transforming them into
outputs in the form of finished goods and services for customers. Organizations create value when they
use resources well to produce good products and take care of their customers. When operations add value
to the original cost of resource inputs, then (1) a business organization can earn a profit—that is, sell a
product for more than the costs of making it—or (2) a nonprofit organization can add wealth to society—
that is, provide a public service like fi re protection that is worth more than its cost.
In an article entitled “Putting People First for Organizational Success,” Jeffrey Pfeffer and John F. Veiga
argue forcefully that organizations perform better when they treat their members better.39 Managers in
these high-performing organizations don’t treat people as costs to be controlled; they treat them as valuable
strategic assets to be carefully nurtured and developed. So, who are today’s managers and just what do
they do?
Who are the managers?

You find them in all organizations and with a wide variety of job titles—team leader, department head,
supervisor, project manager, president, administrator, and more. We call them managers, people in
organizations who directly support, supervise, and help activate the work efforts and performance
accomplishments of others.

Levels of Managers

1. Top Managers guide the performance of the

organization as a whole or of one of its major parts.
They also set objectives and strategy, scan
environment, plan and make decisions and lead
the organization consistent with its purpose and
mission. Examples are the CEO, President and
Vice President of an organization.
2. Middle Managers are in charge of relatively large
departments or divisions consisting of several
smaller work units. Examples are clinic directors in
hospitals; deans in universities; and plant
managers, and regional sales managers in
businesses. Middle managers work with top
managers, coordinate with peers, and support
lower levels to develop and pursue action plans Figure 1.2 Levels of Managers
 that implement organizational strategies to accomplish key objectives.
3. First-line Managers report to middle managers and supervise nonmanagerial workers. Typical job
titles for these first-line managers include department head, team leader, and supervisor.

KNOWLEDGE CHECK 1.2

1. Give one organization that you have joined/familiar with. What do they do?

Management Defined

As mentioned previously, management is the process of working with and through others to achieve
organizational objectives in a changing environment. Central to this process is the effective and efficient
use of limited resources.1

Five components of this definition require closer examination: (1) working with and through others, (2)
achieving organizational objectives, (3) balancing effectiveness and efficiency, (4) making the most of
limited resources, and (5) coping with a changing environment.

The Management Process and Managerial Functions

The ultimate “bottom line” in every manager’s job

is to help an organization achieve high
performance by best utilizing its human and
material resources. Th is is accomplished through
the four functions of management in what is called
the management process—planning,
organizing, leading, and controlling.

PLANNING. Commonly referred to as the primary

management function, planning is the formulation
of future courses of action. Plans and the
objectives on which they are based give purpose
and direction to the organization, its subunits, and
contributing individuals. Figure 1.3 Four Functions of Management

ORGANIZING. Structural considerations such as the chain of command, division of labor, and assignment
of responsibility are part of the organizing function. Careful organizing helps ensure the efficient use of
human resources.

LEADING. Managers become inspiring leaders by serving as role models and adapting their management
style to the demands of the situation. The idea of visionary leadership is popular today.

CONTROLLING. When managers compare desired results with actual results and take the necessary
corrective action, they are keeping things on track through the control function. Deviations from past
plans should be considered when formulating new plans.
Managerial Skills and Competences
A skill is the ability to translate knowledge into action that results in desired performance. Harvard scholar
Robert L. Katz described the essential, or baseline, skills of managers in three categories: technical,
human, and conceptual.

Figure 1.4 Katz’s essential managerial skills—technical, human, and conceptual.

 Technical Skills is the ability to use a special proficiency or expertise to perform particular tasks.
Accountants, engineers, market researchers, financial planners, and systems analysts, for
example, possess technical skills within their areas of expertise. Figure 1.4 shows that technical
skills are very important at job entry and early career levels.

 Human and Interpersonal Skills is the ability to work well in cooperation with other people.
Recruiters today put a lot of weight on a job candidate’s “soft” skills—things like ability to
communicate, collaborate, and network, and to engage others with a spirit of trust, enthusiasm,
and positive impact. As pointed out in Figure 1.4, the interpersonal nature of managerial work
makes human skills consistently important across all levels of managerial responsibility.

 Conceptual and Analytical Skills ability to think critically and analytically. It involves the capacity
to break problems into smaller parts, see the relations between the parts, and recognize the
implications of any one problem for others. Figure 1.4 shows that conceptual skills gain in
importance as one moves from lower to higher levels of management.

Action Learning Exercise for Managerial Skills 1.1

1. You have just been hired as the new head of an audit team for a national accounting fi rm. With four years of
experience, you feel technically well prepared for the assignment. However, this is your first formal
appointment as a “manager.” Things are complicated at the moment. The team has 12 members of diverse
demographic and cultural backgrounds, as well as work experience. There is an intense workload and lots of
performance pressure. How will this situation challenge you to develop and use essential managerial skills
and related competencies to successfully manage the team to high levels of auditing performance? Among
the various managerial skills and competencies, which do you consider the most difficult to develop, and why?

ETHICS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY

Ethics is defined as the moral code of principles that sets standards of good or bad, or right or wrong, in
one’s conduct. A person’s moral code is influenced by a variety of sources including family, friends, local
culture, religion, educational institutions, and individual experiences. Ethics guide and help people make
moral choices among alternative courses of action. And in practice, ethical behavior is that which is
accepted as “good” and “right” as opposed to “bad” or “wrong” in the context of the governing moral code.
Ethics in the Workplace
A college student gets a job offer and accepts it, only to get a better offer two weeks later. Is it right for her
to reject the first job to accept the second? A student knows that his roommate submitted a term paper
purchased on the Internet. Is it right for him not to tell the instructor? One student confides to another that
a faculty member promised her a high final grade in return for sexual favors. Is it right for him to inform the
instructor’s department head?
The real test of ethics occurs when individuals encounter a situation that challenges their personal values
and standards. Often ambiguous and unexpected, these ethical challenges are inevitable. Everyone has to
be prepared to deal with them, even students.

Ethical Dilemmas
An ethical dilemma is a situation that requires a choice regarding a possible course of action that, although
offering the potential for personal or organizational benefit, or both, may be considered unethical. It is often
a situation in which action must be taken but for which there is no clear consensus on what is “right” and
“wrong.” Here are some common examples of situations that present managers with ethical dilemmas.
 Discrimination—Your boss suggests that it would be a mistake to hire a qualified job candidate because
she wears a headscarf for religious purposes. The boss believes your traditional customers might be
uncomfortable with her appearance.

 Sexual harassment—A female subordinate asks you to discipline a coworker that she claims is making
her feel uncomfortable with inappropriate sexual remarks. The coworker, your friend, says that he was
just kidding around and asks you not to take any action that would harm his career.

 Conflicts of interest—You are working in another country and are offered an expensive gift in return for
making a decision favorable to the gift giver. You know that such exchanges are common practice in
this culture and that several of your colleagues have accepted similar gifts in the past.

 Product safety—Your company is struggling financially and can make one of its major products more
cheaply by purchasing lower-quality materials, although doing so would slightly increase the risk of
consumer injury.

 Use of organizational resources—You bring an office laptop computer home so that you can work after
hours. Your wife likes this computer better than hers, and asks if she can use it for her online business
during the weekends.

KNOWLEDGE CHECK 1.4

1. What ethical dilemmas have you encountered in any organization that you joined or in school? Why
do you consider that as an ethical dilemma?
Maintaining High Ethical Standards
Moral Management
Management scholar Archie Carroll makes a distinction between immoral, amoral, and moral managers.

 The immoral manager chooses to

behave unethically. He or she does
something purely for personal gain and
knowingly disregards the ethics of the
action or situation.
 The amoral manager also disregards
the ethics of an act or a decision, but
does so unintentionally or unknowingly.
This manager simply fails to consider
the ethical consequences of his or her actions, and typically uses the law as a guideline for behavior.
 The moral manager considers ethical behavior as a personal goal. He or she makes decisions and
acts in full consideration of ethical issues.

Although it may seem surprising, Carroll suggests that most managers act amorally. Though well
intentioned, they remain mostly uninformed or undisciplined in considering the ethical aspects of our
behavior. The moral manager, by contrast, is an ethics leader who always serves as a positive role model.

Ethics Training
Ethics training is one way to try to instill ethical behavior in an organization. It takes the form of structured
programs to help participants understand the ethical aspects of decision making and better integrate high
ethical standards into their daily behaviors. Ethics training seeks to help people understand the ethical
aspects of decision making and to incorporate high ethical standards into their daily behavior.

Codes of Ethical Conduct

They are formal statements of an organization’s values and ethical principles that set expectations for
behavior. Ethics codes typically address organizational citizenship, illegal or improper acts, and
relationships with coworkers and customers.

Whistleblower Protection
Picture this: (1) Dave, a student, reports to that their teacher is not attending the class on time; and (2)
Anna, a teacher, complained to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) that they are underpaid.

These two people come from different organization settings and are linked to different issues. But, they
share two important things in common. First, each was a whistleblower who exposed misdeeds in their
organizations in order to preserve ethical standards and protect against further wasteful, harmful, or illegal
acts. Second, each was punished for such action – the teacher failed Dave in their class and Ann was fired
from her job, respectively.
Research by the Ethics Resource Center has found that some 44% of workers in the United States fail to
blow the whistle to report wrongdoings they observe at work. The top reasons are “(1) the belief that no
corrective action would be taken and (2) the fear that reports would not be kept confidential.”
 Action Learning Exercise for Ethical Behavior 1.2: What would you do?
1. Window to the Future. You have just seen one of your classmates snap a cell phone photo of an
essay question on the exam everyone is taking. The instructor missed it and you’re not sure if anyone
else saw it. You know that the instructor is giving an exam to another section of the course next class
period. Do you let this pass and pretend it isn’t all that important? Or, do you take some action?

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND GOVERNANCE

Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) describes the obligation of an organization to act in ways that
serve both its own interests and the interests of society at large. Consider these brief examples.

 Trish Karter co-founded the Dancing Deer Bakery in Boston with a winning recipe for social
responsibility. She hires people who lack skills, trains them, and provides them with a financial stake in
the company. She also donates 35% of company proceeds to fund action programs to end family
homelessness.
 Deborah Sardone owns a housekeeping service in Texas. Noticing that clients with cancer really
struggled with chores, she started Cleaning for a Reason. The nonprofit organization networks with
cleaning firms around the country to provide free home cleaning to cancer patients.
Corporate social responsibility comes to life in day-to-day management through stewardship, the notion
that managers at all levels should act in ways that respect and protect the interests of society. A good
steward, for example, supports and displays sustainable practices; a poor steward could care less.

Corporate Governance
Corporate governance refers to the active oversight of management decisions and company actions by
boards of directors. Businesses are required by law to have boards of directors that are elected by
stockholders to represent their interests. The governance exercised by these boards most typically involves
hiring, firing, and compensating the CEO and top management; assessing strategy; and verifying financial
records. The expectation is that board members will hold management accountable for ethical and socially
responsible leadership.
When corporate failures and controversies occur, weak governance often gets blamed. And when it does,
you will sometimes see government stepping in to try to correct things for the future. Even as one talks
about corporate governance and top management accountability, it is important to remember that all
managers must accept personal responsibility for doing the “right” things. It is not enough to fulfill one’s
performance accountabilities; it must be fulfilled in an ethical and socially responsible manner which is
referred as the ethics self-governance.

ACTION LEARNING EXERCISE 1.3

1. Give a concrete example of a company/organization in Philippines that supports or displays
sustainable practices; thus, actively pursues corporate social responsibility. Include a short description
of the company and how it exemplifies corporate social responsibility.