[Solution] Contemporary Management Issues and Challenges
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Author: Sarah Bennett
The rate of change in the business world accelerated dramatically around the turn of the twenty-first century. This brought with it a host of new challenges for managers—and a host of proposed solutions from business authors.
Management Theory Gets Popularized
The economic boom of the 1980s saw a flood of new books on management theory from authors like Warren Buffett, Stephen Covey, and Malcolm Gladwell—all of whom have influenced management theory and practice ever since. Successive waves of such books have followed as new management challenges have arisen in recent decades.
New Challenges for a New Century
Contemporary managers face a range of challenges that didn't exist or were less prominent in earlier eras:
- Managing increasingly diverse workforces
- Adapting to rapid technological changes
- Competing in a global marketplace
- Navigating economic uncertainty and volatility
- Meeting social and environmental responsibilities
Select the correct response(s) to the following question.
Which of the following are examples of new challenges managers face today? Check all that apply.
- Developing mathematical models to maximize the efficient allocation of company resources
- Giving employees more flexibility with when to take paid holidays, based on their religion
- Making business decisions based on experts' best guesses about whether a pandemic will affect a certain market
- Designing an incentive pay system that takes into account workers' group norms about acceptable production levels
View Explanation
Taking into account a pandemic when making business decisions is an example of the new challenge of dealing with an unpredictable economy, while taking into account different religious practices when formulating a holiday plan is an example of the new challenge of managing diversity.
Taking into account workers' group norms and designing mathematical models are older challenges that will continue, but have been explored by theorists from the behavioral and quantitative management perspectives.
