PIONEERS OF MANAGEMENT
The study of management as a
discipline is relatively new, especially when compared with other scientific
disciplines. Yet, to truly understand current management thought, it is
necessary to examine the historical links. It is best to consider not only
management pioneers' management theories, but also the contextual and
environmental factors that helped to clarify the developmental process behind
the theories. Therefore, management pioneers may be easily placed along a
historical timeline.
Using the work of Daniel Wren as
a guide, the following categories are employed: (1) early management thought;
(2) the scientific management era; (3) the social man era; and (4) the modern
era.
EARLY MANAGEMENT THOUGHT:
THE ECONOMIC FACET
Adam Smith and James Watt have
been identified as the two men most responsible for destroying the old England
and launching the world toward industrialization. Adam Smith brought about the
revolution in economic thought and James Watt's steam engine provided cheaper
power that revolutionized English commerce and industry. In doing so, they also
laid the foundation for modern notions of business management theory and
practice.
ADAM SMITH.
Adam Smith (1723–1790) was a
Scottish political economist. His Wealth of Nations, published in 1776,
established the "classical school" and with its publication, he
became the father of "liberal economics." Smith argued that market
and competition should be the regulators of economic activity and that tariff
policies were destructive. The specialization of labor was the mainstay of
Smith's market system. According to Smith, division of labor provided managers
with the greatest opportunity for increased productivity.
JAMES WATT AND MATTHEW BOULTON.
James Watt (1736–1819), aided by
Matthew Boulton (1728–1809), and building on the work of his predecessors,
developed his first workable steam engine in 1765. Together the partners
founded the engineering firm of Boulton, Watt, and Sons.
Recognized as Watt's greatest
breakthrough, in 1971 he developed a steam engine with rotary, rather than the
traditional up-and-down, movement. This made the engine more adaptable to
factory uses as the engine replacing water wheel power for grinding grain,
driving textile machines, and operating bellows for iron works.
Steam power lowered production
costs, lowered prices, and expanded markets. In 1800 the sons of Boulton and
Watts took over the management of the company and instituted one of the first
complete applications of scientific management. In this plant there is evidence
of market research, including machine layout study involving workflow,
production standards, cost accounting, employee training, employee incentives,
and employee welfare programs.
EARLY
MANAGEMENT THOUGHT:
MANAGEMENT
PIONEERS IN THE FACTORY SYSTEM
The division of labor, combined
with the advances in technology, provided the economic rationale for the
factory system. However, the factory system brought new problems for owners,
managers, and society. Four management pioneers proposed solutions for coping
with the pressures of the new large-scale industrial organizations. They were
Robert Owens, Charles Babbage, Andrew Ure, and Charles Dupin.
ROBERT OWENS.
Robert Owens (1771–1858) was a
successful Scottish entrepreneur and a utopian socialist who sowed the first
seeds of concern for the workers. He was repulsed by the working conditions and
poor treatment of the workers in the factories across Scotland. Owen became a
reformer. He reduced the use of child labor and used moral persuasion rather
than corporal punishment in his factories. He chided his fellow factory owners
for treating their equipment better than they treated their workers.
Owen deplored the evils of the
division of labor and in his ideal system believed each man would do a number
of different jobs switching easily from one job to another. Additionally, Owen
hated the modern factory system, so he decided to revolutionize it. In 1813 he
proposed a factory bill to prohibit employment of children under the age of ten
and to limit hours for all children to 10 1 /2 hours per day with no night
work. The bill became law six years later, but was limited to cotton mills,
reduced the age limit to nine, and included no provision for inspections;
therefore, the law had little impact.
Feeling frustrated in his
attempts to reform Britain, Owen traveled to America in 1824. He continued on
to New Harmony, Indiana, where he had purchased a large plot of land. New
Harmony was the first and most famous of sixteen U.S.-based Owenite communities
appearing between 1825 and 1829. None, however, lasted more than a few years as
full-fledged socialist communities.
CHARLES BABBAGE.
Charles Babbage (1792–1871) is
known as the patron saint of operations research and management science.
Babbage's scientific inventions included a mechanical calculator (his
"difference engine"), a versatile computer (his "analytical
engine"), and a punch-card machine. His projects never became a commercial
reality; however, Babbage is considered the originator of the concepts behind
the present day computer.
Babbage's most successful book,
On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacturers, described the tools and
machinery used in English factories. It discussed the economic principles of
manufacturing, and analyzed the operations; the skills used and suggested
improved practices.
Babbage believed in the benefits
of division of labor and was an advocate of profit sharing. He developed a
method of observing manufacturing that is the same approach utilized today by
operations analysts and consultants analyzing manufacturing operations.
THE
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ERA
Since management relied heavily
on engineers for advice in the new factories, it is not surprising that
associations of engineers were some of the first to examine and write about management
problems. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) was founded in
1880 and was one of the first proponents of the search for scientific
management.
HENRY TOWNE.
Henry Towne, president of the
Yale and Towne Manufacturing Company, began applying systematic management
practices as early as 1870. In 1866 he wrote a paper, The Engineer as an
Economist, that suggested that ASME become a clearinghouse for information on
managerial practices, since there was no management association.
Towne also published several
papers and a book, Evolution of Industrial Management, on the use of "gain
sharing" to increase worker productivity. In his last book Towne
contrasted the status of scientific management in 1886 and in 1921, noting the
establishment of industrial management courses, and crediting Frederick Taylor
as the apostle of the scientific movement.
FREDERICK A. HALSEY.
Frederick A. Halsey was another
engineer who wrote papers presented to ASME outlining his ideas about wages. He
attacked the evils of profit sharing and proposed a special "premium
plan" for paying workers based on time saved. Halsey proposed incentives
based on past production records, including a guaranteed minimum wage and a
premium for not doing work. Halsey's plan, along with Taylor's ideas on piece
rates, had a major influence in the United States and Great Britain on the
design of pay schemes.
THE
EMERGENCE OF ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY
HENRI FAYOL.
Two contributors to the
administrative theory of management are Henri Fayol (1841–1925) and Max Weber
(1864–1920). Both wrote during the scientific management era in America, but
neither was accorded the full measure of his contribution until some decades
after his death.
Fayol was trained as a mining
engineer and became the managing director of a coal-mining and iron foundry
combine. From his own experience, he formulated and wrote papers about his
ideas of administrative theory as early as 1900. His first mention of the
"elements" of administration came in a book published in 1916.
However, America was not thoroughly exposed to Fayol's theory until the book
was translated in 1949 and entitled General and Industrial Management.
Fayol identified the major
elements or functions of management as planning, organization, command, coordination,
and control. Planning and organization received the majority of his attention
in his writings. Fayol believed that management could be taught, that
managerial ability was sorely needed as one moved up the ladder, and that
management was a separate activity applicable to all types of undertakings.
Fayol's fourteen principles of
management included: division of labor, authority, discipline, unity of
command, unity of direction, subordination of individual interests to the
general interest, remuneration, centralization, scalar chain, order, equity,
stability of tenure of personnel, initiative, and espirit de corps (morale).
MAX WEBER.
The work of Max Weber (1864–1920)
runs chronologically parallel to that of Fayol and Taylor. Weber was a German intellectual
with interests in sociology, religion, economics, and political science. He was
a professor, editor, government consultant, and author. Weber used the concept
of "bureaucracy" as an ideal organizational arrangement for the
administration of large-scale organizations. His work was not translated into
English until 1947.
Weber's concept of the best
administrative system was actually similar to Taylor's. Some of Weber's
essential elements included division of labor, and chain of command. He also
believed that selection should be based on technical qualifications, officials'/managers'
appointments should be based on qualifications, managers should not be owners,
and impersonal and uniform rules should be applied.
PETER DRUCKER.
Peter Drucker (b. 1909) made an
enduring contribution to understanding the role of manager in a business
society. Unlike the previous Fayolian process texts, Drucker developed three
broader managerial functions: (1) managing a business; (2) managing managers;
and (3) managing workers and work. He proposed that in every decision the
manager must put economic considerations first. Drucker recognized that there
may be other non-economic consequences of managerial decision, but that the
emphasis should still be placed on economic performance.
THE
MODERN ERA: TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT
A quality revolution swept
through the business sector during the latter part of the twentieth century.
The universal term used to describe this phenomenon was "total quality
management" or TQM. This revolution was led by a small group of quality
gurus, the most well-known were W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) and Joseph Juran
(b. 1904).
W. EDWARDS DEMING.
Deming, an American, is
considered to be the father of quality control in Japan. In fact, Deming
suggested that most quality problems are not the fault of employees, but the
system. He emphasized the importance of improving quality by suggesting a
five-step chain reaction. This theory proposes that when quality is improved,
(1) costs decrease because of less rework, fewer mistakes, fewer delays, and
better use of time and materials; (2) productivity
