Practical Management for the Digital Age: An Introduction for Engineers, Scientists, and Other Disciplines

Practical Management for the Digital Age is an innovative introductory management textbook that shows the sweeping impact of information technology on the business world. At the same time, it addresses the pressing issue of how environmental aspects are interwoven with management decisions. This book forms an academically rigorous, accurate, and accessible first exposure to a topic that often challenges novices with competing definitions, inconsistent use of terminology, methodological variety, and conceptual fuzziness. It has been written for readers with little or no prior knowledge of management and is compact enough to be read cover-to-cover over the course of a semester.

Features of this book:

• Provides a broad, self-contained treatment of management for those without prior knowledge of management or commerce, emphasizing core ideas that every manager should know.
• Establishes the context of modern management by characterizing the nature of the private enterprise, the economic theory of the firm, the economics of digitalization and automation, processes of innovation, and life cycle thinking.
• Introduces readers to various activities of managing, including business modeling, new business formation, operations management, managing people, marketing, and the management of quality and risk.
• Provides practical introductions to broadly applied management techniques, including financial planning, financial analysis, evaluating flows of money, and planning and monitoring projects.

This book is aimed at a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate students in a variety of disciplines, as well as practitioners. It will be especially useful to those in the fields of engineering, science, computer science, medicine, pharmacy, social sciences, and more. It will help student readers engage confidently with project work in the final parts of their degree courses and, most importantly, with managerial situations later in their careers. For instructors, who may not have a management background, this book offers content for a self-contained year-long course in management at the intermediate undergraduate level. In addition, it has been developed for undergraduate and postgraduate courses with accreditation requirements that include a taught element in management, such as the UK Engineering Council’s Accreditation of Higher Education (AHEP) framework.

Martin Baumers is Associate Professor of Additive Manufacturing Management at the University of Nottingham. With a background in economics, Martin worked in the metals industry before becoming an academic. Martin completed his PhD at Loughborough University in 2012 on the management and operation of Additive Manufacturing technology, commonly known as 3D Printing. As an academic researcher, Martin has written over 30 research articles, appeared at more than 15 conferences and written three book chapters. At Nottingham, Martin teaches a range of management-related subjects mainly to engineering students. Martin is fascinated by the implications of digital technologies for business, especially in manufacturing. This is Martin’s first book.

is Honorary Professor in the Composites Group at the University of Nottingham. John has worked in the engineering industry since graduating from the University of Middlesex (then Middlesex Polytechnic) in 1974. John was awarded a PhD in 1980 for work at Rolls Royce on the lubrication of high-speed roller bearings. He has experience of management in very large (aerospace), medium (motor sport) and micro (specialist composites) businesses. Since 2003, John has been teaching in the Faculty of Engineering at Nottingham, mainly in the areas of Management and Engineering Design. Although now semi-retired, John takes a keen interest in teaching what he has learnt over the course of a career in engineering management to undergraduate students.