1. Executive Summary The roles of a manager have been identified or discussed by various researchers over the years.

But it has been impossible to see a consensus emerging out of all those contradicting theories. Though the roles and duties of a manager are not unanimously agreed upon, yet the roles and activities of any firm or organisation is more or less same. Moreover because of advent of globalisation it becomes more important and eminent in the modern industrial world to evolve a universal definition of management. This essay endeavours to highlight this contradiction on

managerial role definition. It will carry out an exploratory study of few research papers on managerial definition and will delineate the similarities and differences present in their view points. At last it will conclude in a way to draw a consensus out of all the views. 2. Introduction There have been very many studies done in order to highlight the practice of management and the Theories of management. Contradiction is very conspicuous as there is no agreed role allocation for managers. Actually there is no standardisation of
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roles. Moreover the success of any organisation has been the basis of benchmarking for roles and activities of a manager. But it is very peculiar that role definition is varying of common set of roles to be carried out. Carroll and Gillen (1987), in their extensive research have academically supported, planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling as the important roles of any manager. Contrary to those Kraut et al (2005) has emphasized a broader scope for the viewpoint of management and allied roles. 3. Comparison Taking a closer look at the research findings of Carroll and Gillen (1987), it is evident that they have emphasized more on the traditional role allocation for managers. The most stressed upon components of their work on roles of management and hence managers were a) Simplifying complexity: Through all the important five roles that this study academically support, it can safely be inferred that easing off the difficulties is a prevalent and ever existing activity which a manager must perform.

b) Effectiveness in communication: Communication effectiveness is a prerequisite and moreover most executed role of managers whether they are involved with function of

planning, organizing, staffing, directing or controlling. Rather the intensity and effectiveness of communication is more emphasized as we go up in the managerial hierarchy. c) Knowledge acquisition and disbursement: The dynamic nature of the business requires managers to keep themselves abreast with the latest know how. Also the senior managers are required encourage and mentor their juniors in a way to ease of gradual succession. This study has also highlighted the role of a manager to trade off and balance perceived work pressures and perceived job rewards. Carroll and Gillen (1987, p. 48) contend that, in spite of the hectic workday of executives, the classical functions still represent the most useful way of conceptualizing the managers job. Now if we consider study undertaken by Kraut et al (2005), it can be inferred from his work that the emphasis is on. a) Establishing and maintaining relationship between managerial hierarchies: The relationship management across the levels of
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management is crucial for the performance and sound operation of organisation as a whole. He also emphasized that this function is more crucial for senior and middle level managers than for lower- level managers. b) Entrepreneurial action: This role cites for risk taking capability of a manger. Considering and exploring new avenues for business development is highlighted here. Thus it is directly linked with the sustenance of the business altogether. Now comparing these two studies it is quite evident that the former study takes more traditional stand. Moreover it also captures a bird eye view of management and while allocating roles it hardly segregates it on the basis of managerial hierarchy. While carrying out their study, they took subjective view on roles of a manger and have resorted to interpretivism. This study is self-sealing in a way that it persuades respondents within the fixed outline of the research. On the other hand the research finding of Kraut et al (2005) has more objective view about the roles undertaken by managers. Thus it seems that it he resorted to positivism while carrying out his studies. Moreover his findings can be segregated on the basis of level of managerial hierarchy. These finding also suggest that
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managerial level provides a structural ability to make more of organizational factors that support entrepreneurial action. 4. Conclusion The most prevalent definition which signifies the managerial roles is that a manager is individual who achieve goals through other people (Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge, 2007, P. 8) . Thus whatever the allocated job of a manager is, the people skill takes a prominence. It can be an argument that planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling describe what management is and not how it is carried out. I put forward the proposal that in todays ever dynamic and turbulent organizational world, the spotlight for managers should be on the framework of management rather than on the managerial functions themselves. The functions are very generic in nature. Much of the work in organizational behaviour till date has the underpinning of relatively stable ambience. Since this is not a valid and realistic assumption, the validity of such studies per se is called into question If managers and workforce are working in highly tumultuous environments, considerably more research

needs to be carried out to comprehend such situations and the way people work in them. Managers need to develop and hone their interpersonal skills if they are going to be effective in their jobs ( Stephen P. Robbins and
Timothy A. Judge, 2007, p. 34).

In a nutshell, it can be said that the contradiction on the roles and jobs of a manager is a result of the circumstantial conditions and this can only be resolved by properly understanding these circumstances and then resorting to some fundamental research to come out with an agreeable definition.