Management Techniques

Essential techniques for leaders and managers today

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KnowledgeBrief filters the best of business school knowledge into brief, usable tools for business professionals today. From the foundations that every manager needs, to solutions for specific business goals - KB Techniques are your essential tools for success.

Concept Overview

The definition and description or background of a concept ensures that you are looking at something relevant for you, whilst outlining its origins and development.

Business Evidence

Examines the respective strengths and weaknesses of an approach succinctly. The analysis of real world case evidence by companies showing the results obtained demonstrates practically what the concept can achieve.

Business Application

Guidance on effective implementation of the concept to an organisation whilst outlining the success factors and measures needed to produce the desired result.

Professional Tools & Further Reading

Watch leading videos on the subject, access useful tools/downloads and additional reading for all of the finer points relating to the concept.

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AIDA

AIDA

The AIDA concept explains successive stages buyers go through when making a decision to buy (or not to buy) a product and describes a four-step process that firms follow to reach prospective buyers.

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Balance Sheet

Balance Sheet

The balance sheet provides a good picture of the financial health of a business and is a tool used to evaluate liquidity. The concept helps small business owners, managers and practitioners to quickly grasp this financial term and to understand and identify the strength and capabilities of the balance sheet.

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Balanced Scorecard

Balanced Scorecard

This concept offers a practical guide to using the Balanced Scorecard and is designed to assist executives to benefit from this strategic management technique.

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Benchmarking

Benchmarking

The concept will help organisations to measure current performance levels and identify opportunities for improvement. It explains how to identify strengths, weaknesses and success factors in benchmarking.

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Brand Management

Brand Management

This concept has been designed to equip marketing professionals with the knowledge necessary to successfully manage brands within their organisations. It discusses the main principles of brand management and reviews the technique’s constraints and benefits.

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Business Ethics

Business Ethics

Businesses face ethical issues and decisions almost every day. The concept explores what it means for companies and what they can do to coordinate the interests of their stakeholders.

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Business Innovation

Business Innovation

The concept explores innovation and how it can create and capture value for organisations. It will provide professionals with a basic understanding business innovation.

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Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence

The theory reviews the notion of Business Intelligence and discusses the conditions necessary to make good decisions. It also explains how it helps organisations to unlock the hidden potential of data.

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Business Process Improvement

Business Process Improvement

Business process improvement (BPI) can enhance internal organisational efficiency and change the way organisations function. The concept provides an overview of BPI and describes the process and tasks used to support organisational objectives.

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Change Leadership

Change Leadership

Improvement hinges on leaders who set vision, mobilise stakeholders, manage resistance effectively. Boundary-spanning approaches outperform leader-centric approaches (Higgs, Kuipers and Steijn, 2023), while targeted development of implementation leadership and climate improves adoption and sustainment (Aarons et al., 2024).

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Change Management

Change Management

Planned change management structures tasks across stages, helping organisations navigate complex environments. An evidence-based approach that blends research, organisational data, stakeholder input and practitioner expertise improves implementation quality (Rousseau and ten Have, 2022).

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Competitive Advantage

Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantage is a fundamental principle of management in competitive economies. This concept is designed to help business owners to rapidly understand those resources that allow business entities to develop and maintain an edge over competitors.

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Contract Management

Contract Management

This concept describes different types of contracts, effective contracting methodologies and the benefits of contract management activities.

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Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility

This concept explores the different ways in which CSR is defined and provides an account of success factors and business evidence.

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Crisis Management

Crisis Management

Crisis management focuses on rapid response and continuity, but recent work adds three priorities: a structured readiness process, leadership for continuous (not one-off) crises, and contingent performance indicators aligned to crisis type and phase (Björck, Bläse and Bastida, 2024; Hällgren and Buchanan, 2024; Deverell and Ganic, 2024).

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Customer Satisfaction

Customer Satisfaction

This concept discusses the notion of customer satisfaction and provides a critical examination of the strengths and pitfalls of organisational practice. The concept also suggests how to increase customer satisfaction by offering a step-by-step guide.

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Customer-driven Strategy

Customer-driven Strategy

Customer-driven strategy is an essential business philosophy that all organisations should embrace. The concept provides a detailed summary of the key elements of customer-driven strategy and offers critical implementation advice and success factors.

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Diamond Theory of Competitive Advantage

Diamond Theory of Competitive Advantage

The concept examines the Diamond Theory of Competitive Advantage and explores the impact of the national environment on international competitive performance. It offers useful business evidence and lists the weaknesses and advantages of this theory, as well as professional tools that can direct you to further resources.

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Direct Marketing

Direct Marketing

This concept will help practitioners to develop and consolidate their understanding, knowledge and application of direct marketing principles and techniques. It reviews the theory and provides practical tools, business applications and implementation information related to direct marketing.

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Diversity Management

Diversity Management

Effective workplace diversity management policies have been demonstrated to aid creative thinking processes and innovation. Case study evidence from a variety of sectors and implementation advice is provided to help managers increase the success of diversity management initiatives.

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Due Diligence

Due Diligence

The concept provides convenient access to a range of information on due diligence, as well as some case evidence demonstrating how it influences organisations. It also reviews success factors and lists the main benefits of due diligence activities.

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Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence

High levels of emotional intelligence benefit individuals in any occupational field. The concept describes three types of model that help us to understand the notion of Emotional intelligence and reviews a wide range of benefits, weaknesses and key success factors.

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Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement

The concept explores the significance of employee engagement and the factors that influence the extent to which employees are committed to organisational goals, mission and vision. It also provides an insight as to how organisational employee engagement can increase productivity and decrease staff turnover.

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Empowering Employees

Empowering Employees

Over 70% of organisations now use empowerment initiatives. This concept explores how and why companies apply them. Empowerment is a key driver of motivation, autonomy, and innovation. Edmondson (2018) and Parker (1998) show it thrives in safe cultures and well-designed roles.

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Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is a highly relevant concept for those leading and working in organisations and not just those starting new ventures. This concept covers technology, creative and social enterprise dimensions and introduces the types and main principles of entrepreneurship. The creation of an entrepreneurial culture is also addressed.

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Game Theory

Game Theory

Game theory is a highly influential theory in business, economics and politics. The concept explains the origins of game theory and the key ideas behind the theory and uses case studies from across different industries and sectors to illustrate how game theory has been used in practice.

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Hierarchy of Needs

Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs outlines five levels of human motivation: physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation. It provides businesses with insights to enhance employee engagement, improve performance, and develop strategies that align with core motivational drivers for impactful results.

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Human Capital

Human Capital

The view of human resources as a form of capital is not new, but only recently practitioners and academics have turned their attention to the benefits of the efficient employee management. The concept describes these benefits and reviews the success factors and implementation information that will help you improve your HR strategies.

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Innovation Management

Innovation Management

The concept determines the critical factors of innovation management. It reviews the managerial practices of successful innovators and summarises the strengths and limitations of innovative approaches.

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Kaizen

Kaizen

Kaizen is a Japanese word typically translated as 'continuous improvement'. The term refers to the strategy of making small improvements on a continuous basis. The concept will help managers and practitioners to better understand how to benefit from applying Kaizen in their organisations.

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Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management

This concept provides a review and interpretation of previous work on knowledge management and offers a comprehensive account of benefits achieved by properly managing knowledge, implementation information and success factors.

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Leadership

Leadership

Good leaders are continually working on, and studying to improve, their leadership skills. This technique explores what makes a good leader and covers the characteristics of good organisational leadership.

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Managing Global Virtual Teams

Managing Global Virtual Teams

Improve productivity by 5%+, save on property costs and lead on staff retention by managing virtual teams well.

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Market Segmentation

Market Segmentation

The concept describes three stages that form the process of market segmentation and explores the reasons for segmenting the market. The concept also reviews the advantages of market segmentation and provides examples of how organisations have achieved stronger positioning through this technique.

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Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix

The concept explains McCarthy’s 4P classification of the marketing mix and compares it with the developed later 7Ps classification. You will also find some practical examples and recommendations on how to implement it in your organisation.

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Matrix Management

Matrix Management

The concept explains how organisations design matrix structures to create dual-reporting structures. It illustrates with case study examples across different industries and sectors the advantages and disadvantages of this organisational form and some of the success factors for designing effective matrix structures.

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Mentoring

Mentoring

The concept explains the value of introducing formal mentoring schemes within organisations. It also explains the typical characteristics of a formally-structured mentoring programme, together with the most common implementation steps and objectives which are normally agreed by the mentor and their protégé.

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Performance Appraisal

Performance Appraisal

Performance Appraisal is a systematic evaluation of employee performance that can be used to understand their personal abilities for further growth and development. The concept reviews the objectives of performance appraisal, its advantages, and implementation steps.

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PESTEL Analysis

PESTEL Analysis

A PESTEL analysis is a tool used to assess external factors influencing an organisation’s success. By examining political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal elements, businesses can anticipate risks, seize opportunities and adapt strategies. Often paired with SWOT analysis, PESTEL supports informed, future-focused decisions.

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Portfolio Management

Portfolio Management

Portfolio management requires making decisions about investment mix and policy, matching investments to objectives, asset allocation for individuals and institutions, and balancing risk against performance. The concept explores these in more detail and offers a few case studies on how companies across different sectors benefit from it.

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Product Life Cycle

Product Life Cycle

Product life cycle refers to the stages through which a product or a product category bypass. The concept describes the four stages and offers some practical suggestions on how companies can use product life cycle information in their strategy development and marketing operations.

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Public Relations

Public Relations

The goal of this concept is to provide an understanding of the nature of the profession and practice of public relations. This concept covers the development and history of PR, major theories that inform it, role and position of PR in the organisation, and skills and requirements for success in PR.

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Quality Management

Quality Management

The concept focuses on quality management practices and their role in establishing and sustaining competitive advantage. It reviews the main capabilities, success factors and useful implementation information.

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Sensitivity Analysis

Sensitivity Analysis

This concept is designed to assist decision-makers to identify the variables which affect cash-flow forecasts and expose inappropriate projections.

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Six Sigma

Six Sigma

The Six Sigma concept is designed for professionals who are not familiar with it but need to have a basic understanding of what it means and how it can benefit their organisations. You will learn Six Sigma basics, advantages and limitations.

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Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

This concept reviews the process of strategic planning and shows how companies can implement strategies to enhance company and product competitiveness. It also offers a summary of the benefits of the process and examples of its application.

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Supply Chain Management

Supply Chain Management

The concept reviews SCM and its boundaries in terms of business functions. It also examines current practices, trends and issues in supply chain management, as well as the critical success factors of SCM and some business evidence.

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Time Management

Time Management

Managing time effectively is essential to maximise performance. The concept offers a review of different time management techniques and highlights the main benefits, success factors, as well as some practical application steps and case evidence.

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Transformational Change

Transformational Change

This concept summarises evidence on transformational change: it affects performance via challenge/hindrance appraisals (Yan et al., 2022), requires governance trade-offs in depth, scope and pace, and in digital contexts depends on transformational leadership, agility and aligned digital strategy (AlNuaimi et al., 2022).

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