| Course | MGT 414 Principles of Management |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 1 |
| Paper type | Management principles paper |
| Length | About 1,042 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MGT 414 Module 1
Ninety-One Interruptions and Four Hundred Plates: What a New Kitchen Manager's Saturday Shows About Managerial Work
Student Name
Business Administration Program, Aspen University
MGT 414: Principles of Management
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Ninety-One Interruptions and Four Hundred Plates: What a New Kitchen Manager's Saturday Shows About Managerial Work
Riverside Hall Events, a composite venue in Chattanooga, Tennessee, hosts weddings, corporate dinners and fundraisers in three halls along the river. Its kitchen employs 38 people, including cooks, dishwashers and banquet servers, and produces up to 600 plated meals on a busy night. Three months ago, the venue promoted its sous chef, a skilled cook with eight years in the kitchen, to kitchen manager. The general manager asked her to keep a log of every contact and decision on one Saturday with two weddings totaling 400 guests. This paper uses that log to examine what managerial work involves.
Folklore and Facts
Mintzberg (1975) observed chief executives and reviewed studies of other managers and concluded that several common beliefs about managers were folklore. Managers are said to be reflective, systematic planners, but the evidence showed they work at an unrelenting pace in brief, varied and discontinuous activities. They are said to rely on formal information systems, but they prefer telephone calls, meetings and conversation. Management is said to be a science, but managers' methods remained largely in their heads. The kitchen manager's Saturday matches the evidence: she recorded 91 separate contacts in a sixteen-hour day, most lasting under two minutes, almost all spoken.
Ten Roles
Mintzberg grouped managerial work into ten roles. Interpersonal roles are figurehead, leader and liaison. Informational roles are monitor, disseminator and spokesperson. Decisional roles are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator.
| Role group | Example from Saturday | Contacts |
|---|---|---|
| Interpersonal: leader, liaison | Briefing cooks at 2 p.m.; coordinating with the event planner | 22 |
| Informational: monitor, disseminator | Checking deliveries; passing a guest's allergy change to the line | 19 |
| Decisional: disturbance handler | A walk-in cooler alarm; two cooks calling in sick; a late fish delivery | 31 |
| Decisional: resource allocator, negotiator | Moving a dishwasher to plating; agreeing to a substitute fish with the bride's family | 15 |
| Decisional: entrepreneur | Sketching a faster dessert station during a lull | 4 |
Three Skills
Katz (1955) argued that effective administrators need three skills. Technical skill is proficiency in specific methods and tools. Human skill is the ability to work with people and build cooperation. Conceptual skill is seeing the enterprise as one system whose units rely on each other. In his account, frontline supervisors draw most on technical skill, executives draw most on conceptual skill and every level needs human skill. The kitchen manager's technical skill is excellent; cooks seek her out for help. Her human skill is solid but tested now that she supervises former peers. Her conceptual skill is the least developed: she rarely considers how kitchen decisions affect sales, costs or the event planners' commitments.
Scientific Management on the Plating Line
Taylor (1911) argued that managers should study each task scientifically, select and train workers for it, cooperate with workers to ensure methods are followed and take responsibility for planning the work. Some of his ideas have aged badly, especially his view that workers needed close direction. But one idea applied directly on Saturday. Plating 200 identical dinners for one wedding used to take 31 minutes, with cooks crowding the pass. The manager had timed each step the week before, assigned one cook per component in a fixed order and set plates moving down a line. Service for the second wedding took 22 minutes.
What Taylor Missed
The cooks themselves suggested two of the changes on the plating line, including where to stand to avoid crossing paths. Taylor's assumption that planning belongs to managers and execution to workers would have lost those ideas. Later research on management, which the course will reach in later modules, treats workers as a source of improvement.
Supervising Former Peers
Katz's human skill takes a particular form for a manager promoted from within. Three of the cooks she now supervises trained alongside her, and one applied for the same job. On Saturday, she noticed that she softened instructions to these cooks and corrected newer staff more directly. Two newer cooks remarked on it during the evening. Consistency, applying the same standards to everyone, is part of human skill, and building it early will matter more than any single decision she makes in her first year.
What the Venue Can Do
Some of the fragmentation comes from how the venue is organized, not from the manager. Event planners change menus by phone on the day of an event, delivery windows overlap with prep and no one but the kitchen manager can approve a substitution. Mintzberg noted that managers are shaped by the systems around them. The general manager can help by setting a cutoff for menu changes 48 hours before each event and spreading deliveries across the morning.
Strengths and Gaps
The log shows a manager who is effective at the moment-to-moment work of keeping a kitchen running but who has little time or habit for planning. Of the 91 contacts, only four involved improving how the kitchen works, and none involved the kitchen's budget, which the general manager now expects her to own.
A Development Plan
Three steps follow from the analysis. First, to reduce disturbances, she will designate a lead cook on each shift to handle routine problems, such as sick calls and late deliveries, freeing her for decisions only she can make. Second, to build conceptual skill, she will meet monthly with the general manager to review food costs, labor hours and event bookings, and will prepare the kitchen's quarterly budget with guidance. Third, to strengthen human skill as a supervisor of former peers, she will attend the venue's supervisor training and sit down privately with every cook, a few each week, over the next two months.
Measuring Progress
In six months, she will repeat the Saturday log. Success would show fewer disturbances reaching her, more time on planning and a kitchen budget prepared on time.
Conclusion
The kitchen manager's Saturday confirms Mintzberg's portrait of managerial work as fast, fragmented and verbal, and it shows a strong technical manager still growing into the conceptual side of the job. Katz's skills identify the gap, and Taylor's century-old method shows that careful study of work still pays when combined with workers' own ideas. Delegating disturbances and learning the business side are her next steps.
References
Katz, R. L. (1955). Skills of an effective administrator. Harvard Business Review, 33(1), 33-42.
Mintzberg, H. (1975). The manager's job: Folklore and fact. Harvard Business Review, 53(4), 49-61.
Taylor, F. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management. Harper & Brothers.
MGT 414 Module 1 instructions, in plain terms
Aspen describes MGT 414 as covering the functions of management and how management thought developed, so the opening assignment tends to center on explaining managerial work through older and newer thinking. Your Module 1 classroom prompt governs; the example below studies one manager. Describe a manager and the setting. Compare common beliefs about managerial work with research findings. Classify the manager's activities using a recognized framework. Assess the skills the role requires and which the manager has. Explain how at least one classical approach still applies. Close with recommendations for the manager's development, tied to the skills the analysis found lacking.
How the MGT 414 Module 1 example is put together
The paper opens with the new kitchen manager at Riverside Hall Events, promoted from sous chef three months ago and now responsible for 38 cooks, dishwashers and servers. Mintzberg's Harvard Business Review article challenged the folklore that managers are reflective planners, finding instead brevity, variety and a preference for talk. A table sorts a Saturday's 91 recorded contacts into interpersonal, informational and decisional roles, with disturbance handling the most frequent. Katz's Harvard Business Review article on administrator skills distinguishes technical, human and conceptual skills and argues their mix changes with level. Taylor's book on scientific management explains how timing and sequencing the plating line cut serving time for 200 guests from 31 to 22 minutes. The development plan pairs the manager with the general manager for budget and planning work and sets a repeat log in six months.
Where the marks sit in the MGT 414 Module 1 rubric
Instructors grading a first management paper reward accurate use of frameworks, specific evidence from a real or realistic manager and a thoughtful connection between classic and modern thought. This example uses Mintzberg's roles to classify a recorded day rather than describing roles abstractly. The table makes the pattern visible and supports the finding that disturbance handling crowds out planning. Katz's skills give the paper a way to judge the manager's strengths and gaps. Taylor's ideas are applied with both their value and their limits. The development plan follows from the skill gaps the analysis found.
MGT 414 Module 1 help from the desk
First management papers often define the four functions and stop there, without showing what a real manager does. Observe or construct a specific manager's day and classify it. Another weakness is presenting classic theories as history only; show how an older idea still applies and where it falls short. Use Mintzberg's or a similar framework precisely, with examples for each role you discuss. Assess skills honestly, noting gaps. Keep the setting specific, with numbers such as staff size or output. Avoid generic praise of good managers. Finally, make recommendations that follow from your findings, such as which skill to develop first and how. Say how progress will be checked.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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MGT 414 Module 1 questions, answered
What does MGT 414 Module 1 usually ask for?
Aspen's MGT 414 begins with what managers do and the development of management thought, so a paper applying classic and modern ideas to a manager is typical. Read your classroom prompt.
What are Mintzberg's managerial roles?
Ten roles in three groups: interpersonal (figurehead, leader, liaison), informational (monitor, disseminator, spokesperson) and decisional (entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, negotiator).
What are Katz's three managerial skills?
Technical, human and conceptual skills; technical skill matters most at lower levels and conceptual skill at higher levels, while human skill matters at all levels.
Where can I find a free MGT 414 Module 1 sample paper?
The example above follows a new kitchen manager through a busy Saturday, sorting activities by Mintzberg's roles and assessing skills with Katz's framework.
Is scientific management still relevant?
Parts of it are. Timing and standardizing tasks still improve repetitive work, though Taylor's view of workers as needing close direction is widely rejected.