Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Management

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This text was published on the cheap. Be forewarned that even the condensation from a glass of ice water, transferred by your hand to the page, can cause a paragraph of text to run easily. The binding is also not well constructed. I would have preferred an electronic edition of this book due to the sheerly poor nature of its print quality. As for the text itself, it is often contradictory and perpetuates myths that have long been debunked in the business world. In one of my favorite examples, the book praises organizational planning and rigid structure, referring to systems that sound like communist five year plans; the book then proceeds to upend its argument by touting that Steve Jobs and Apple Computer have been successful not just in spite of organization structure but rather because they have turned the old concepts upside-down. Some would say this simply shows the book being fair and balanced. Unfortunately, many times it simply comes off somewhere between pedantic and silly.

I used this book in my business class. I found a few chapter's completely uninformative and rather boring. One such chapter was on communication and the other was on motivation. Either of which, if you have basic common sense is more helpful then the textbook.

The book is also very contradictory in its writing and examples. It seemed to me the author's had an agenda which was to push the business practices and ideas they deem the best, then bash the rest in a sneaky backhanded way. Then later on in the same chapter compliment the other side, as a means to try to make it balanced.

I would never use this book for personal exploration or knowledge not worth it.

I found Fundamentals of Management to be a very well organized and informative learning tool. The chapters start simply and build upon one another in a manner that facilitates retention-(in order to learn from one chapter you must have understood the previous one.) This book develops a solid management base that will enable a student to succeed in the rest of their managerial education. Each chapter is prefaced with a prevalant example of a current managerial situation that ties directly to the chapter's content. These real life examples help to encorporate what the student learns with how it applies to today. The combination of these examples and the diagrams and pictures that are distributed throughout the chapters, present an easy to understand and current depiction of management. The sectioning of the chapters and the questions at the end of each chapter help the student to organize the important information in their own mind. These questions emphasize the important points and give students a place to begin when it's time to study. This form of presentation is very student friendly and will definitely enhance their learning experience

I used this book in my Fundamentals of Management course at Harlaxton College. Of the two textbooks used for this class, I thought this one was much more useful. My favorite aspects were the definitions in the margins, the quizzes at the end of each chapter and the various exhibits throughout the chapters. I felt these learning tools made taking notes easier, let me see what exactly I did and did not know about the material and helped me better understand some of the more difficult concepts being taught. I also enjoyed the short "real world" managerial examples at the beginning of each chapter. I felt these stories helped me ease into the material I was about to read and give it a little more meaning in an outside the classroom situation. Overall, I found this textbook as helpful and informative.

I found this book very easy to read. It flowed well from topic to topic. I was kept engaged by the use of current companies and information. I particulary found that the answers to the learning outcomes very helpful. This book outlines points to know when finished with the chapter. They then answered those same questions at the end. Overall this textbook is very useful for an introductory management class.

This book contains lot of information. Book describes everything clearly, important concepts are shown very well. Many times important stuff is explained through graphs, and in bold prints or given on the sides. This book would we really helpful in becoming a better manager, it has anormous amout of imformation concerning managenment. Also this book is not very hard to understand. This book gives an idea about the real world, and it shows how things are going to be in the workforce, this book shows path toward better management.

As a avid reader of this book I found the concepts to be of great use in the management world. Such things as the Break-Even Analysis, will aide in making sure taht all costs are covered when selling products. Also since reading this book I have determined that I clearly support Affirmative action programs and anything that will upgrade or improve the business. Another quality that I have learned through this book is how to not only delegate responsibility but also how to make problem solving teams. Through the use of these teams we can clearly balance out the productivity of the workers. I truly support and believe in the concepts taught in this book and recommend it to anybody interested.

I feel that this book clearly puts its concepts in a language understandable to the students at hand. Through using this book and careful instruction I have already learned many useful tools that will aide me in my management position. Many of the solutions and formulas necessary for the work site are found in this book. This book further aides me in ways to get more productivity out of co-workers and also ways to settle differences between co-workers. I truly believe that if you are going into the management field that this book will contain the principles necessary for you to do your best.

The Fundamentals of Management, written by Stephen Robbins, is quite an interesting textbook. I personally enjoyed the self-assessment tests in the book and on the C.D. ROM that came with the book. The C.D. ROM was the most useful for me. The tests helped me in completing part of an assignment. They revealed my personality and the best working environment for me. I also liked the easy reading of this book. It was written in a way that I could understand and learn from. The quizzes at the end of the chapters were useful as well. They helped me to know what I should have learned and what I still needed to study. I personally will not use this book later in life since I am not a business management major, but it was still useful for my class. It was also nice to learn some general information about management. I would suggest that anyone teaching a management class use the Fundamentals of Management.

The text Fundamentals of Management Essential Concepts and Applications, written by Stephen P. Robbins and David A. DeCenzo was used in my Principles of Business Management course, taught by Dr. John Schafer at Hannibal-LaGrange College. The text was well written and provided real life examples and situations that made the text applicable in my life. My favortie features of this text include the CD-ROM which aided me in other class projects for the course and the quizzes at the end of each chapter which asked realistic questions of what the chapter was based upon. I probably will not keep the text at the end of this course because I am an Accounting/Business Administration double major, and I do not plan on holding a manager job for my career. One suggestion I have for the authors of this text is to make the chapters a little shorter because sometimes the material presented in drawn out, lengthy manner. The charts and graphs helped present the concepts and explain them thoroughly no matter how difficult the subject matter. This text definitely explains things in a much simpler manner than many of my other texts for other classes. The book may have helped to reaffirm my carrer choice to make me see that accounting is really where I want my career to be heading. Overall, this text was enjoyable and an asset to the class lectures.