The Four Basic Functions of Management

The most generally accepted list of management functions includes four basic activities:

1.  Planning

2.  Organizing

3.  Directing

4.  Controlling

          This is the list of basic management functions that we shall study. However, some business scholars prefer to extend the list to identify separately such activities as staffing, evaluating, motivating, and communicating. While it's true that managers do these things, we believe they are included in our basic list of only four functions. Besides, we must recognize that the four functions are interdependent parts of the total management job, not "islands" unto themselves. With this in mind, we shall study of the four basic management functions.