WHAT IS FAMILY RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO TODAY’S AMERICAN FAMILY?
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
from International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family
Resource management is the process in which individuals and families use what they have to get what they want. It begins with thinking and planning and ends with the evaluation of actions taken. Three fundamental concepts in resource management are values, goals, and decision making. Values such as honesty and trust are principles that guide behavior. They are desirable or important and serve as underlying motivators. Values determine goals, which are sought-after end results. Goals can be implicit or explicit. They can be short-term, intermediate-, or long-term. Decisions are conclusions or judgments about some issue or matter. Decision making involves choosing between two or more alternatives and follows a series of steps from inception to evaluation.
Through choices, individuals and families define their lives and influence the lives of others. The study of resource management focuses on order, choices, and control, and how people use time, energy, money, physical space, and information. As an applied social science, it is an academic field that is fundamental to our understanding of human behavior. “The knowledge obtained through the study of management is evaluated in light of its ability to make an individual’s or family’s management practice more effective” (Goldsmith 2000, p. 5).
