The Modern Way to Teach Management

The Second Edition of Management: A Practical Action —a concepts book for the introductory course in management—uses instructor feedback to identify the most successful features of the first edition and to improve upon them. As with our first version, we hope this new edition will make a difference in the lives of our readers. By blending our two strengths—Angelo's scholarship, teaching, and management-consulting experience with Brian's writing and publishing background—we have tried to create a research-based yet highly readable, innovative, and practical text.

Our principal goal is simple to state but hard to execute: to make learning principles of management as easy and effective 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 crunch of today's students. In an approach first tested in the first edition and fine-tuned based on instructor feedback, basically we break down topics into easily grasped portions coupled with frequent use of various kinds of reinforcement. Our hope, of course, is to produce a text that students will enjoy reading and provide them with practical benefits.

The text covers the principles that most management instructors have come to expect in an introductory text—planning, organizing, leadership, controlling—plus the issues that today's students need to be aware of and know in order to succeed: customer focus, globalism, diversity, ethics, information technology, entrepreneurship, work teams, the service economy, and small business.

Beyond these, our book has four key features that make it unique:

• Student approach to learning
• Emphasis on practicality
• Imaginative writing for readability
• End-of-chapter resources