History Lesson: 200 Years of Management, uhm, Thought
17 August 2014 at 8:19 am Nicolai Foss 5 comments
| Nicolai Foss |
OK, surely you have come across those timelines featuring the great economists, á la Aristotle-the Spanish Scholastics–William Petty-Cantillon-Smith-Ricardo-Say-Menger-Wicksteed-Marshall-Mises-Hayek-Boettke-Langlois-Klein-etc. Here is a similar timeline with the Greats of management theory, 1800-2000 (Lien seems to be missing, however). Many of the names of those management types are clickable, taking you to e.g. their wikis. Fun brush-up, and may be good for students.
Entry filed under: - Foss -, Management Theory.
Organizations and Markets 
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Peter Klein | 17 August 2014 at 10:13 pm
It’s interesting to see how these timelines deal with scholars who make multiple, distinct contributions over time. E.g., they put Williamson in the 1960s (presumably for managerial discretion) though TCE should be dated at least a decade later. People like Alchian, Demsetz, Winter, etc. could be almost anywhere from the 1960s to 1990s. Fun stuff.
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spender7 | 18 August 2014 at 6:35 am
Anything that makes us more aware of our discipline’s history is a blow for the good. Precision is not the key feature of the historians’ art – which invariably opens up alternative explanations. It would be interesting to have another line on the chart indicating what questions the various notables were trying to address.
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Peter Klein | 18 August 2014 at 2:19 pm
JC, I agree!
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David Van Fleet | 26 August 2014 at 11:56 am
My chronology is a work in progress (slowly). Hopefully it can be used in classes. I tried to locate folks by their first major contribution. Suggestions are all welcome; some will likely be used and some not, but all are welcome.
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spender7 | 26 August 2014 at 2:38 pm
Glad to hear ‘in progress’ – to be admired and warmly welcomed.
I mentioned the questions being addressed because we tend to forget how we came to learn about the various ‘contributions’ – and now get confused when we forget it. Thus Khurana’s three phases of modern business – social duty, managerial capitalism, and investor capitalism (though I have extended this typology) – helps us understand the differences between, say, Follett, Barnard, Simon, Drucker, Chandler, and Hayek.
Witzel, Morgen, & Warner, Malcolm (Eds.). (2013). Oxford Handbook of Management Theorists. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
is good on this.