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The management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling
are widely considered to be the best means of describing the manager’s job, as well
as the best way to classify accumulated knowledge about the study of management.
Although there have been tremendous changes in the environment faced by managers

and the tools used by managers to perform their roles, managers still perform these
essential functions.
KEY TAKEAWAY
The principles of management can be distilled down to four critical
functions. These functions are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
This P-O-L-C framework provides useful guidance into what the ideal job of a
manager should look like.
EXERCISES
1. What are the management functions that comprise the P-O-L-C
framework?
2. Are there any criticisms of this framework?
3. What function does planning serve?
4. What function does organizing serve?
5. What function does leading serve?
6. What function does controlling serve?

1.4 Economic, Social, and Environmental Performance
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Be able to define economic, social, and environmental performance.
2. Understand how economic performance is related to social and
environmental performance.
Webster’s dictionary defines performance as “the execution of an action” and
[1]
“something accomplished.” Principles of management help you better understand
the inputs into critical organizational outcomes like a firm’s economic performance.
Economic performance is very important to a firm’s stakeholders particularly its
investors or owners, because this performance eventually provides them with a return
on their investment. Other stakeholders, like the firm’s employees and the society at
large, are also deemed to benefit from such performance, albeit less directly.
Increasingly though, it seems clear that noneconomic accomplishments, such as
reducing waste and pollution, for example, are key indicators of performance as well.
Indeed, this is why the notion of the triple bottom line is gaining so much attention in
the business press. Essentially, the triple bottom line refers to The measurement of
business performance along social, environmental, and economic dimensions. We
introduce you to economic, social, and environmental performance and conclude the
section with a brief discussion of the interdependence of economic performance with
other forms of performance.
Economic Performance
In a traditional sense, the economic performance of a firm is a function of its
success in producing benefits for its owners in particular, through product innovation
and the efficient use of resources. When you talk about this type of economic

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