The History of Management Thought

1
The History of Management Thought

• By
• Julia Teahen and Regina Greenwood

Based on The History of Management Thought, 5th
edition, 2005 by Daniel A. Wren
2
Part Four

• The Modern Era

3
Chapter Twenty One

• Science and Systems in Management

4
Science and Systems in Management

• Operations Research World War II
• Ideas the U.S. took to Japan
• Impact of Computers

5
Quest for Science in Management

• Scientific Method roots in Aristotle,
  Descartes, Babbage, and scientific management
• Operations research developed in Great Britain
  during World War II by P.M.S. Blackett and others.

6
Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (1897-1974)

• Attempted to apply the scientific method and to
  quantify complex problems.
• Blacketts Circus was a team of specialists who
  could bring a variety of techniques to apply to
  problems.
• Operations research applications after the war
  were primarily in the area of production
  management.

Patrick Blackett
7
Frederick Taylor Revisited

• Used specialists in his metal-cutting
  experiments, suggesting numerous parallels
  between management science and scientific
  management.
• Optimal Decisions is this the One Best Way?
• The search was for a use of science in
  management, not a science of management.

Frederick W. Taylor
8
Production Management in Transition

• Gordon and Howells 1959 remark Production
  management courses are often the repository for
  some of the most inappropriate and intellectually
  stultifying materials to be found in the business
  curriculum
• Also, they recommended more mathematics for
  business school students.
• Production management and operations research
  merged into into production/operations management.

9
Gantt Chart

• The Gantt Chart concept was extended with newer
  variations for planning and controlling, PERT and
  CPM (Critical Planning Method)
• PERT and CPM together plan a network of
  activities, their relationships, and their
  interaction along a path to a given completion
  point.

10
Gantt Chart
11
Old Lessons Relearned

• Product quality was important historically the
  hallmark concept allowed customers to connect
  quality with the maker of the firm (Carnegie).
• Some maintained that the U.S. forgot how to
  complete which enabled the Japanese to use U.S.
  experts such as W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran,
  and others for statistical quality control.
• Wickham Skinner incorporating manufacturing
  into overall corporate strategy.
• Richard Schonberger integrating the firm around
  a chain of customers.

12
Old Lessons Relearned

• Statistical quality control was pioneered at
  Western Electric by Walter Shewhart (1891-1967).
• Edwards Deming (1900-1993) revived Shewharts
  ideas and took them to Japan.

W. Edwards Deming Courtesy of the University of
Western Ontario
13
Old Lessons Relearned

• Joseph Juran (1904-) also influenced by Shewhart
  and Taylor.
• Japanese developed quality circles.
• Wickham Skinner incorporating manufacturing
  into overall corporate strategy.
• Richard Schonberger integrating the firm around
  a chain of customers.

14
Inventory Management

• Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) developed.
• Taiichi Ohno and just-in-time planning for
  materials delivery was influenced by earlier work
  at Ford Motor Company.

15
Systems and Information

• Systems an ancient concept found new meaning
  in General Systems Theory (GST)
• GST a product of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, was a
  Gestalt concept. The GST view was
• Study of the whole organism
• Organisms sought equilibrium
• All systems were open

Ludwig von Bertalanffy
16
Norbert Weiner (1894-1964)- Cybernetics

• Developed cybernetics
• Cybernetics fits into GST by providing feedback
  loops so systems could learn.
• Example consider a firm that scans its
  environment to sense changes that need to be
  incorporated into future plans (strategic
  planning).

Norbert Weiner
17
Computer Age to the Information Age Death to
the Slide Rule
The Faber-Castell 67/87 is a plastic 6-inch
simplex pocket rule with the Reitz scale
arrangement and extended, self-documenting
scales. It's a nice little rule, and that's
before you discover its secret flip it over, and
there's a 6-digit addiator on the back! Source
http//www.toddtolhurst.com/sliderules/fc67-87.htm
l
18
Computer Age to the Information Age

• Alan Turing - a specialized machine to break
  the German Code.
• Herman Hollerith, founded the firm that became
  IBM his punch cards were reminiscent of the
  Jacquard loom.
• John Atanasoff built an electronic digital
  computer for Iowa State University in the 1930s
  his ideas were plagiarized by Mauchly and Eckert.

John V. Atanasoff Courtesy of Iowa State
University
19
Computer Age to the Information Age
IBM1401 Source http//www.computinghistorymuseum
.org/

• Early computers were monsters, slow, expensive,
  and with limited applicability. This was the EDP
  stage of computer evolution.
• Computer technology evolved rapidly from vacuum
  tubes to microcircuitry.

20
Computer Age to the Information Age

• JoAnne Yates noted that technological adoption,
  such as computers, comes not with the invention
  or advancement but when managers see an
  application for the new technology.
• Computers have benefited production/operations
  management, such as Computer-Assisted-Design
  (CAD).
• Management Information Systems replaced EDP for
  providing information to management enabling
  computer-assisted decision making technologies.

JoAnne Yates Courtesy of Dr. Yates
21
Summary

• The chapter traced the search for order through
  science and systems in management.
• Operations research was viewed as a modern
  version of early scientific approaches to problem
  solving.
• Others outstripped U.S. industrial productivity
  gains as they learned production lessons
  overlooked in the U.S.
• The development of computers and microcircuitry
  led to new methods to assist managerial decision
  making.

22
Internet Resources

• Academy of Management Management History
  Division Websitehttp//www.aomhistory.baker.edu/d
  epartments/leadership/mgthistory/links.html
• List of Internet Resources compiled by Charles
  Booth http//www.jiscmail.ac.uk/files/MANAGEMENT-H
  ISTORY/links.htm
• Western Libraries Business Library Biographies
  of Gurus
• http//www.lib.uwo.ca/business/gurus.html
• Henry Mintzberg
• http//www.henrymintzberg.com/
• Thought Leaders Forum Mintzberg
• http//www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/mintzberg/
• Rensis Likert http//www.accel-team.com/human_rel
  ations/hrels_04_likert.html
• David C. McClelland http//www.accel-team.com/hum
  an_relations/hrels_06_mcclelland.html
• Peter Drucker Interview http//www.cio.com/archiv
  e/091597_interview_content.html

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Internet Resources

• Drucker - Leader to Leader Institute
  http//www.leadertoleader.org/
• Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901--1972)
• http//www.isss.org/lumLVB.htm
• Chris Argyris http//www.accel-team.com/motivatio
  n/chris_argyris_00.html
• Douglas McGregor http//www.accel-team.com/human_
  relations/hrels_03_mcgregor.html
• Frederick Herzberg
• http//www.accel-team.com/human_relations/hrels_05
  _herzberg.html
• Victor Vroom http//www.som.yale.edu/Faculty/vhv1
  /
• Edwin A. Locke http//www.edwinlocke.com/
  http//www.rhsmith.umd.edu/mao/faculty/elocke/
• Fred Fiedler http//www.thoemmes.com/dictionaries
  /bdm_fiedler.htm
• Joan Woodward http//www.lib.uwo.ca/business/WOOD
  WARD.html

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Internet Resources

• Joan Woodward http//www.lib.uwo.ca/business/WOOD
  WARD.html
• P.M.S. Blackett http//www.nobel.se/physics/laure
  ates/1948/blackett-bio.html
• Deming Institute
• http//www.deming.org/
• Ludwig von Bertalanffy http//www.isss.org/lumLVB
  .htm
• Norbert Wiener http//www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk
  /history/Mathematicians/Wiener_Norbert.html
• What are Cybernetics? http//pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CY
  BSWHAT.html
• Death of the Slide Rule http//www.xnumber.com/xn
  umber/hp.htm
• John Vincent Atanasoff http//www.cs.iastate.edu/
  jva/jva-archive.shtml
• David Ricardo http//socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/
  econ/ugcm/3ll3/ricardo/

25
Internet Resources

• Geert Hofstede
• http//spitswww.uvt.nl/web/iric/hofstede/
• Managing Oneself by Peter F. Drucker
  http//www.pfdf.org/conferences/drucker99.html
• Ansoff Matrix http//www.quickmba.com/strategy/ma
  trix/ansoff/