Editorial: Engineering management for technological leadership

MANAGEMENT has been defined in many different ways ever since the pioneers in this field, notably H. Fayol and F. Taylor, established the basic criteria for the understanding of critical issues involved in it. The definitions vary from each other, sometimes significantly, but they all have a common framework. It is a task-oriented framework which describes management as a collection of activities, such as planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and control. This description divides the management concept into recognizable tasks and provides a basis for measurements, comparisons, and performance evaluations in each area. By taking this approach, management scholars have extensively studied the things that a manager does, the functions he performs, and the actions he takes in administering the rules, policies, and procedures to assure successful completion of the activities under his responsibility. It is a good approach for this purpose, and it has proved to be fruitful for scholars focusing on various combinations of management functions such as planning for organizing, organizing for control, etc.