What is it about?

Management’s origins are conventionally traced to Frederick Winslow Taylor, a man whose single-minded obsession with efficiency led to the original management theory of note: Scientific Management, but whose mechanistic thinking has now been superseded by a greater concern for people and the environment. We rethink this conventional historical view. Our examination of the politico-economic context of early 20th century United States highlights the crucial role played by Gifford Pinchot’s conservation movement, which burned briefly but brightly under U.S President Theodore Roosevelt as a Progressive response to the rampant capitalism of the Gilded Age. Scientific Management only gained currency after it was repackaged by Progressive lawyer Louis D. Brandeis (who saw it as a path to conservation as well as a more prosperous and just society) to win a legal case against the special interests of ‘big business’.

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Why is it important?

If these origins of management are recognized, the recent interest in sustainability can be understood as a return to rather than a break with the past and we might think differently about the purposes that management practice and theory might serve, today and into the future.

Perspectives

This paper won 'Best Critical Paper' for the Critical Management Studies division of the Academy of Management.

Associate Professor Todd Bridgman
Victoria University of Wellington

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This page is a summary of: The Origin of Management is Sustainability: Recovering an Alternative Foundation for Management, Academy of Management Proceedings, January 2014, The Academy of Management,
DOI: 10.5465/ambpp.2014.25.
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