TEXT ONE

Ann: Now I think you’d better start the rice

Paul: Yeah…what you got there?
Paul: Will it all fit in the one?
Ann: No you’ll have to do two separate ones
John: Right…what next?
John: Foreign body in there
Paul: It’s the raisins
John: Oh is it oh it’s rice with raisins is it?
Paul: No no no it’s not supposed to be erm
John: There must be a raisin for it being in there
Paul: D’you want a biscuit?
John: Erm
Paul: Biscuit?
John: Er yeah

TEXT TWO
Come on now you’re getting carried away with yourselves down there. Suppress your
excitement. We have another instalment of the adventures of organising and managing
work… Now what I said to you last week just to make the connection back there was that
we were working within the general framework of the programme focussing on individuals.
And I pointed out there how we’re trying to move away from this traditional or systems
control thinking to a more processual way of looking at human beings and how they
interact. In there I mentioned the word strategy to suggest to you that individuals in their
lives can be uh they are strategic I said to a greater or lesser extent. Now I didn’t go a long
way in that to explain what I meant by strategy. That comes now where we talk about
strategy in a more conventional way being related to matters at the organisational level
the corporate level if you like

TEXT THREE
Management is frequently defined as 'the process of planning, organizing, leading and
controlling the efforts of organization members and of using all organizational resources to
achieve stated organizational goals' (Albert, Khedouri and Mescon: 1985). Although this
definition has remained fairly static over the years, the roles of managers, their
responsibilities and approaches to the subject have changed tremendously. Management as
a set of social practices and as an occupational group developed particularly in the 20th
century (see table below), and is very much a dynamic concept, adaptive to the times and
social condition. Therefore, the arrival of new theories and changes in the perceptions of
management must be grounded on historical and socio-political reasoning. This essay will
attempt to associate some significant changes in management practices with particular
developments in history, critically evaluating management's rise in significance in today's
society.

TEXT FOUR
Once, in the days of time immemorial, there was a king of Greece who had thirty-three
daughters. Each of these daughters rose up in revolt and murdered her husband. Perplexed
as to how he had bred such rebels, but not wanting to kill his own flesh and blood, their
princely father exiled them and set them adrift in a rudderless ship.