Now let us talk a little about the history of management. This "
art form" didn't just appear out of nowhere; throughout ages people have devoted their lives to study psychology, politics, sociology, etc. Nowadays we don't think about history, we just apply for a BBA or a MBA degree and just get on with out lives.
The development of management can be divided into four different periods:
- Early Influences
- The Scientific movement
- Human Relations (HR) movement
- Modern Influences
To fully understand how we got to where we are right now, let us look at these periods separately. So without further ado:
Early Influences
The history of administration goes way back to ancient China and Greece. Although, not many records have been preserved, we can definitely tell that running these empires and city states took a lot of managerial planning.
The Roman Empire was also a tough nut to crack. They implemented a hierarchical system where the authority is divided between privileged individuals.
In the years of 1400 to 1500, Venice had already many holding companies, partnerships, trusts, etc. They have introduced a double-entry book-keeping system to manage their businesses.
The principles of management - which are also relevant today - were also introduced by Sir Thomas More and Niccolo Machiavelli; much later, Charles Babbage suggested using math to operate factories.
The Scientific movement
From the beginning of the 20th century, managers were forced to admit that the way they were administrating their businesses was inefficient, and tried to find a solution to this problem.
F W Taylor has pointed out that uneducated people will expect too much from the new managerial techniques and confuse them with aims. He suggested that each worker should have a clearly defined, daily task; for each completed task a worker should be properly rewarded; tools need to be provided to make the job easier.
H L Gantt has put a lot of effort to promote creating the perfect environment for the workers. In his mind, employees needed to have a goal, proper training. Also, he suggested using charts to make people understand how their work is interrelated (so that the workers always remember what and why they are doing).
There were other people who have wrote many books and papers on this topic, but in essence they all agree that:
- Discipline
- A clear defined goal
- Fairness
- Professionalism
- Rewards
were important for running a business.
Human Relations movement
During this period great strides have been made in the areas of psychology and sociology. At first it was used to tackle the problems of monotony, efficiency and fatigue in the workplace.
The studies have found out that:
- A high morale in the group played a huge role in the rise of efficiency
- Regular interview must be made with the workers to find out the cause of their dissatisfaction
- Teamwork and group spirit is vital to accomplish organizational goals.
Modern Influences
This period is about the changes that were made relatively recently . We will talk about modern influences in later articles. I'm sure that my blog posts will help you in your journey to become a BA in business administration.
Learn More about the MBA degree -
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