What is Priority

The research outlines the relative importance of the commonly used management tools among the managerial staff in organizations in selected worldwide areas, with deeper focus on emerging Central and East Europe economy – namely Slovenia. This paper examines the influence of the manager's position on utilization of single management tool. The survey covered 155 managers working in Slovenian organizations. 23 out of 25 considered management tools significantly differ in the level of utilization by managers at various positions in organizations. The middle managers most commonly use the top five most used management tools – outsourcing, benchmarking, total quality management, knowledge management and strategic planning. Further on, the first line managers more frequently than the top managers use outsourcing, benchmarking, total quality management, and strategic planning. The top managers frequently use knowledge management. The paper provides at the end several practical implications and recommendations for practice.