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The History of Management |
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History of Management |
Pre-Industrial "Management"- In its broadest possible usage the idea of "management" is as old as human society, certainly "governance" or "rule" of people in ancient tribes, kingdoms, and empires engages the notion of "managing". In ancient Egypt the rise of the state and its bureaucracy to create pyramids and canals rested on a state monopoly of wealth and power administered through delegated authorities. State planning that included predictions in the rise of the Nile waters, forecasts of crops, and forecasts of state income tax revenues illustrate what are modern management techniques. Similarly, in China the emergence of the state governed by a large civil service administering uniform and formal policies over remote territories established "managerial" practices characteristic of today's global companies. The later rise of the Roman Empire and the rule of Roman order and law backed by a state hierarchy established principles for the management of modern constitutional governments. Nicollo Machiavelli's The Prince written near the turn of the 16th century as a treatise on governance of Italian principalities by the Medici family is today a recommended reading for every student of management, as it vividly portrays a managerial style in which the "ends justifies the means."
Moreover, warfare and the role of the general in the management and strategies of troops and armies convey many of the concepts adapted to modern use in the management of a corporation. Students of management strategy today often study the Art of War by Sun Tsu, the 13th century Chinese military genus, or On War by Carl Von Clausewitz, the Prussian general and military strategist of the ninetieth century.
However insightful pre-industrial history and literature is about "management", we do not trace the founding of modern management to these sources. Modern management is business management, and pre-industrial state craft and war strategy simply provide a narrow view of the management function as something worthy of kings, princes, and emperors or, in the case of war, generals. This viewpoint is in part due to the low value that pre-industrial society placed on commerce and business. There were, of course, trading establishments, merchants, and even bankers before the Industrial Revolution - these, however, were not significant aspects of societies to merit much attention and, in the main, represented distrusted elements of society. Perhaps this distrust was rooted in the notion that even early business competed with the wealth and power of the state; more likely, early civilizations simply valued aristocratic wealth based on land and inheritance. The early Greeks disdained trade and commerce. Manual workers and merchants were excluded from citizenship and were often foreigners or slaves. This attitude towards commerce was adopted by the Romans who developed small factories to produce armaments and pottery, but as in Greece these trades were dominated by foreigners, Greeks and Oriental freedmen. The Romans did establish state joint stock companies ( state corporations ) to raise money for state projects by selling stocks, but expressed prohibited joint stock companies for private enterprise. The early Church also prohibited usury, or interest on borrowed money. So, as the Roman Empire gave way to the domination of the Roman Church in the West, the avenues for raising capital, either through selling stocks or through borrowing, were simply not available to create large private or public companies. For most of our history, across all continents, mankind has lived in societies more dependent upon agricultural production than upon manufactured goods. As land has been owned by an aristocratic and chieftain class who governed in traditional fashion the notion of "business" management simply did not emerge as an important concept. |
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