# Introduction

This free course provides you with a short introduction to three managerial approaches adopted by organisations currently. The course is divided into three sections that cover:

1. Managing through organisational culture
2. Managing through internal marketing
3. Managing through collective leadership.

You will start by thinking about the expectations that underpin the task of managing and explore the diverse and often conflicting aspects of these expectations in contemporary times. These will illustrate the importance of developing a comprehensive knowledge about what ‘managing’ means, together with why this topic has come to be so important.

There are specific ways of thinking about management and managing that are sometimes positioned as though they are innate talent, but you will also reflect on the idea that managing (in common with most activities) is not simply impartial, neutral or benign. This is partly because the information, knowledge and behaviours relating to the activity are based firmly upon a historically and culturally specific way of deciding what counts as ‘knowledge’, as well as how the consequences of practising management (or managing) ripples out to affect a wide range of people and resources.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course B870 Managing in a changing world which looks at the different viewpoints surrounding the concept of management and managing.

OpenLearn - Contemporary issues in managing
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