History of Management

CHAPTER TWO

HISTORY OF MANAGEMENT

Introduction

The history of management is only about 100 years old as it began from the time of the Industrial Revolution in the early 20th century. Some argue, however, that management could have started very much earlier, as early as the building of the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China. There must be some planning, obviously meticulous one, some design, recruitment, existence of architects, supervisors and others in the building of these Wonders of the World. Then there was the management of church and the army, the two early human institutions. Nevertheless, management as a science is not that old, starting only with Frederick Taylor, the father of scientific management, when he had to find “one best way” to do things early last century when machines began to replace brute human strength. Since then other significant reforms steadily followed during the course of the last century which became the benchmarks in modern management.

Classical approach

2. This is the first reform in the history of management. Though Adam Smith expounded division of labor in his Wealth of Nations in 1776 this is more economics rather than management. The classical theory is the management approach that emphasizes organizational efficiency to increase organizational success. It is divided into the lower level management analysis and the comprehensive one. The former concentrates on the “one best way” way to achieve a task and became known as scientific management led by Taylor, the Gilbreths, and Gantt. The comprehensive approach involves studying the management functions as a whole whose proponents were Fayol, with his fourteen principles, and Chester Bernard

3. This classical approach is still relevant and applied in updated versions by contemporary organizations. If one looks closely, all organizations searched and found “one best way” to be efficient. The service industry like McDonald, KFC and even our...