Modern Management: concepts and skills, 14/e

Responsibility and Job Descriptions

Perhaps the most fundamental method of channeling the activities of individuals within an organization, responsibility is the obligation to perform assigned activities. It is the self-assumed commitment to handle a job to the best of one’s ability. The source of responsibility lies within the individual. A person who accepts a job agrees to carry out a series of duties or activities or to see that someone else carries them out.² The act of accepting the job means that the person is obligated to a superior to see that job activities are successfully completed. Even though a manager may delegate a task to another employee, the manager still remains responsible for the completion of the task. In other words, responsibility ...