Items21The creator’s order
  1. 1Frederick Winslow TaylorFrederick Winslow TaylorEfficiency and best practice. Taylor, a Philadelphia engineer, timed workers with a stopwatch and published The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911, arguing that every task had one best way that managers should design and workers should follow. Efficiency, standard procedures and…0i
  2. 2Mary Parker FollettMary Parker FollettBorn 3 Sept 1868Power with, not power over. Follett, a Boston social worker and political theorist, argued in the 1920s that conflict could be integrated rather than compromised and that authority should come from the situation, not the hierarchy. Her phrases about power with people and the law of the situation…0i
  3. 3Elton MayoElton MayoBorn 26 Dec 1880Human relations and the Hawthorne effect. Mayo, an Australian at Harvard, interpreted the Hawthorne studies at a Western Electric factory near Chicago from the late 1920s as showing that attention and social belonging mattered more to output than lighting or pay. That gave managers the language of…0i
  4. 4Peter DruckerPeter DruckerObjectives and knowledge workers. Drucker, an Austrian-born writer, studied General Motors from the inside for Concept of the Corporation and in 1954 introduced management by objectives in The Practice of Management. He coined the term knowledge worker and insisted the purpose of a business is to…0i
  5. 5W. Edwards DemingW. Edwards DemingBorn 14 Oct 1900Quality and systems. Deming, an American statistician, taught Japanese engineers statistical quality control from 1950, and in Out of the Crisis set out 14 points, including ending quotas, driving out fear and improving the system rather than blaming workers. Plan-do-check-act and continuous…0i
  6. 6Theodore LevittTheodore LevittMarketing myopia and globalisation. Levitt, a Harvard professor, argued in his 1960 essay Marketing Myopia that railways declined because they thought they were in the railway business rather than transport, giving managers the question of what business they are really in. His 1983 article helped…0
  7. 7Douglas McGregorDouglas McGregorTheory X and Theory Y. McGregor, an MIT professor, argued in The Human Side of Enterprise in 1960 that managers' assumptions shape their methods: Theory X assumes people avoid work and must be controlled, Theory Y that they seek responsibility when conditions allow. The labels became a standard…0
  8. 8Michael PorterMichael PorterBorn 23 May 1947Competitive advantage and five forces. Porter, a Harvard economist, gave strategy its standard vocabulary in Competitive Strategy in 1980: the five forces that shape an industry's profits, the choice between cost leadership and differentiation, and later the value chain. Every MBA student meets his…0i
  9. 9Tom PetersTom PetersBorn 7 Nov 1942Excellence and walking about. Peters, with Robert Waterman, wrote In Search of Excellence in 1982, drawn from McKinsey research on admired American companies, and popularised phrases such as a bias for action, sticking to the knitting and management by walking around. It became the first business…0
  10. 10Henry MintzbergHenry MintzbergBorn 2 Sept 1939Emergent strategy. Mintzberg, a professor at McGill in Montreal, followed real managers through their days and found they worked in brief, interrupted bursts rather than planning calmly. He argued that much strategy emerges from actions rather than formal plans, and in The Rise and Fall of…0i