| Management
has been of concern to organized society throughout
civilized history, although its systematic study
as a separate branch of human knowledge is fairly
recent. The epoch of management inquiry and research
has largely developed during this century, and many
schools of thought have tried to formulate the underlying
principles of management.
Ancient
Civilizations
As
early as 3000 B.C., the Sumerians kept records on
clay tablets; many of those records applied to the
management practices of the priests in Ur. Early
Babylonia implemented a system of very strict control
of business enterprises with its Codes of Akkadian
and Hammurabi: Nebuchadnezzar, for instance, used
color codes to control production on the Hanging
Gardens, and these checks were performed every week
and cumulated yearly. Reward was for piecework,
which established norms for performance. The Hebrews'
understanding of hierarchy and the importance of
delegation is reflected in the Old Testament, particularly
in Exodus, chapter 18, which indicates that Moses
"chose able men out of all Israel and made
them heads over the people, rulers of thousands,
rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties and rulers
of tens. And they judged the people at all seasons;
the hard causes they brought into Moses, but every
small matter they judged themselves."
The
Egyptians And their Pyramids
Construction
of the pyramids, around 5000 B.C., was accomplished
by about 100,000 men working for 20 years on only
one of the larger structures. Around 2000 B.C. the
principle of decentralized control was illustrated
by the vesting of control in the individual states
of Egypt (only later did the pharaoh establish central
control over all). The Egyptians also employed long-range
planning and staff advisers. Interpretations of
early Egyptian papyri, extending as far back as
1300 B.C., indicate that the bureaucratic states
of antiquity recognized the importance of organization
and administration.
The
Chinese Dynasties
Similar
records exist for ancient China. Confucius's parables
include practical suggestions for proper public
administration. Claude George points out that one
could find, in the China of 3000 years ago, "concepts
that have a contemporary managerial ring: organization,
functions, cooperation, procedures to bring efficiency,
and various control techniques." The staff
principle, later perfected by military organizations,
was also used very effectively by Chinese dynasties
as far back as 2250 B.C.
The
Greek
Although
the records of early Greece do not give much insight
to the principles of management, the very existence
of the Athenian commonwealth, with its councils,
popular courts, administrative officials, and board
of generals, indicates an appreciation of the managerial
function. Socrates's definition of management as
a skill separate from technical knowledge and experience
is remarkably close to current understanding of
the function. The Greek influence on scientific
management is also revealed in their writings- for
example, Plato wrote about specialization.
The
Roman Empire
It
is known that in ancient Rome the complexity of
the administrative job evoked considerable development
of management techniques. It is thought that the
secret of the Roman Empire's success lay in the
ability of the Romans to organize.
Many
ancient leaders were skillful organizers. Hannibal's
crossing of the Alps in 218 B.C., with his Carthaginian
troops and equipment, was a remarkable organizational
feat, as were the efforts of Qin Shi Huang Di, the
"First Emperor" of China who organized
hundreds of thousands of slaves and convicts to
create his burial complex at Xian and to connect
portions of the Great Wall, at about that same time.
Many
of the techniques that we employ today in modern
organizations can be traced to ancient origins.
For instance, the first record of motion studies
appeared in the time of Cyrus, the Persian king,
about 600 B.C. These records indicate that flute
and pipe governed the motions, with songs for each
task. They introduced rhythm, standard motion, and
work tempo.
The
most efficient formal organization in the history
of Western civilization has been that of the Catholic
Church. This is due not only to the appeal of its
objectives but also to the effectiveness of its
organization and management techniques. The scalar
chain of command was introduced early in the organization
of the Church, as was the concept of specialization.
The
Arsenal of Venice, probably the largest industrial
plant in the world of the sixteenth century, was
an outstanding example of organizational efficiency.
It appeared in the time of Machiavelli, whose writings
emphasized the principle that authority developed
from the consent of the masses. His ideas, particularly
as set forth in The Prinee, have application to
our current study of leadership and communications.
Some
of the most important principles and practices of
modern business management can be traced to military
organizations. The principles of unity of command,
staff advisers, and division of work all evolved
from early military order, probably as early as
Cyrus and certainly refined by Alexander the Great.
Although such organizations were fairly simple until
recent times, they have gradually improved their
techniques of direction. Among the most important
of these has been the staff principle. The "general
staff," for example, organized under a chief
of staff, furnished specialized advice and information
and supplied auxiliary services that have come to
be essential features of military and business enterprise.
The line of command concept also had its origin
in the armies of antiquity and medieval times, and
the scalar principle is still a very important part
of military organizations today.
The
development of technology during the Industrial
Revolution produced a factory system that brought
workers into a central location and into contact
with other workers. It was during the development
of effective and efficient management control of
those newly founded organizations that many management
concepts began to emerge. Adam Smith in his writings,
and particularly in The Wealth of Nations, described
the "division of work" and "time
and motion studies" as they should be employed
in organizations. Other writers of that period,
including Robert Owen, Charles Babbage, and Charles
Dupin, wrote on the problems of management in factories.
Many of the principles that were later reemphasized
and further refined in both the scientific management
approach and the human relations approach were actually
first developed by those writers during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. For instance, Charles
Babbage, a mathematician, stressed the importance
of distinguishing mental from physical work, and
wanted to improve efficiency by encouraging managers
to use time study techniques, to centralize production,
to inaugurate research and development, etc. He
contributed much to the scientific management approach
and was a pioneer in developing the principles that
today are used in computers.
Various
methods have been used in the study of administration
in this century. The first systematic approach was
legalistic, being devoted to a study of the organization,
powers, and activities and limitations of the public
authorities. Later, a more scientific approach was
used, concerned chiefly with administrative organization
as the instrument of management. An attempt was
made to determine, on the basis of empirical evidence,
rules for efficient and effective administrative
organization and operation. More recently, behavioral
scientists have been using the methods of psychology,
sociology, and anthropology in an effort to secure
a better understanding of group behavior, leadership,
and decision making. These pioneering contributions
(some call them "schools") are referred
to differently in different texts, but the content
of each is readily recognized.
No
student can afford not to be familiar with the contributions
of the major pioneer thinkers in the field. This
is not to say that their ideas should be accepted
without question; however, their ideas are the basis
for the development of management as we know it
today, and their contributions provide insight into
the essence of management.
THE
SEMINAL WORKS
Classical
Organization Theory
Henry Fayol
Max Weber
Scientific
Management
Fredrik W Taylor
Henry L. Gantt
Frank & Lillian Gillberth
Standardization
Harrington Emerson
Bridging
Classical & Behavioral
Mary Parter Follett
Chester Barnard
Philip Selznick
Industrial
Psychology
Hugo Munsterberg
Mass
Production
Henry Ford
Human
Relations
Elton Mayo
Public
Administration
Lyndall Urwick
Contingency
Theory
Paul Lawrence & Jay Lorsch
Divisionalization
Konosuke Matusushita
Alfred Sloan Jr.
Corporate
Mission
Thomas Watson
Quality
Control
Walter Shewhert
Operation
Research
P M S Blackett
Theory
X, Theory Y
Douglas Megreger
Decentralization
Management by Objectives
Customer Orientation
Peter Drucker
Quality
Control
Edward Deming
Joseph Juran
JIT,
Kanban
Talichi Ohno
Humanism
Abraham Maslow
Decision
Theory
Herbert Simon
Howard Raiffa
Robert Schialer
Corporate
Strtegy
H Iger Ansoff
Theodore Levitt
System
4
Rensis Likert
Product
Portfolio Management
Boston Consulting Group
Managerial
Grid
Blake & Mouton
Positioning
Al Ries & Jack Trout
Theory
Z
William Ouchi
Corporate
Culture
Terrence Deal & Allan Kennedy
Info.
Based Management
Peter Drucker
Learning
Organization
Robert Mayes
Steven Wheelwright
Klm Clark
7S
Framework
Mckinsey & Co.
Excellence
Peters & Waterman
Competitive
Strategy
Michael Porter
Key
Success Factors
Kenichi Ohmae
Service
Niche
Jan Carlzon
Marketing
Warfare
Al Ries & Jack Trout
Globalization
of Markets
Theodore Levitt
Zero
Defect
Phillip Croshy
World
Class Manufacturing
Richard Schonberger
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