Management and geography – why not?

The verb ‘to manage’ has some basic meanings, from which it is clear that ‘management’ is a purposeful process of influence over an object (machine, process, system, person or community), achieved by transmission, recording and revision of information.

TO MANAGE: (1) Deal, work, manipulate; (2) Lead, control, watch (work), administer; (3) Supervise, cope with, master; (4) Succeed, contrive.

In our opinion, management is a process of planning, organizing, motivating and controlling, which is necessary for formulating and reaching the goals of an organization. Management knowledge affects many people — from those working in business organizations to those working in the public sector.

Studying management is important because progress in society is dependent on institutions and organizations producing the goods and services that we need — and these organizations are managed by the decisions of people who deal out resources in order to reach different and sometimes competing goals. Managers have the power and responsibility for creating dangerous or non-dangerous products, to make peace or war, to build or destroy cities, to protect or pollute environments. Managers define conditions in which we receive work, incomes, goods, services, protection, health and education.

Geographers, who probably don’t have special management education, must often work as managers. Geographers investigate regional interactions between nature and society and this always involves resource management (human, natural, economic, financial etc.). Many are interested in strategies for developing municipalities, districts and regions, for which a knowledge of management is necessary. Those who work as teachers, as specialists in governmental or non-governmental organizations, or in the private sector, may one day be managing schools or universities, ministries or organizations, firms or projects. Similarly, many geographers are specialists in the fields of culture, religion, ethics, and customs in countries all over the world; if they study management they will be highly valued in multinational corporations, because of the need to understand the specific culture of each of their partners.

Within the nine Masters programs in Geography at Sofia University, the syllabus for each is divided into two parts — compulsory and optional. Students are able to choose subjects such as ‘Marketing and Management’ and ‘Basics of Government’. But students may make light of these subjects and we contend that they need to learn ‘Fundamentals of Management’ in the Bachelors programme.

Graduates of the Master’s degree programmes are qualified to go on to work in fields including: urban planning and regional management; environmental protection and natural resource use; tourism; or setting up their own consultancies and businesses. For example, In the Master’s degree programme, Physical geography and landscape ecology, we are training experts for: ecology departments of municipalities, involving management, planning and protection of the environment; and advisers for government and international projects in the field of ecology and protecting the environment. The curriculum includes the course “Landscape planning and management”; without learning the fundamentals of management, the full potential for work on management of projects or in work in the administration of municipalities cannot be realised.

Masters Programmes in Geography at Sofia University

1. Geographic information systems and cartography

2. Geomorphology

3. Management of hydro climatic resources

4. Physical geography and landscape ecology

5. Regional and political geography

6. Regional development and management

7. Human resources management

8. Citizen registration and administrative service

9. Geography education

Programme developers freely employ the word ‘Management’ in promotional literature and curricula. Therefore we have programmes that sound attractive, but that do not always give the contents expected by students.

To summarize, all Masters degree programs hold the promise of work in the sphere of management. If students learn the fundamentals of management at Bachelor’s degree level, they can then develop their knowledge further in a Masters degree programme. All organizations in the world - and of course including Bulgaria - must have managers. The future success of geographers at international and local level will be dependent on their ability to manage human and natural resources.

In view of the above, we recommend the inclusion of a course,“Fundamentals of Management”, both in Bachelors andMasters degree programmes. As a result, geographers will be better equipped as specialists, and this will then contribute to enhancing geography’s appeal and capacity to attract students in higher education.

Notes

This is an excerpt from the paper presented to the HERODOT Conference, Doing a Better Job for European Geographers, held at Sofia University, April 2004.