Evolution of Management: Introductory Reflections Lijo John Fellow Scholar Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

In the present world where the management jargons are being injected in to the life blood of all the aspiring management students giving them a perception that management as a science has been never so refined ever in the history of management. This could prove not to be a very good sign as the students are taught what to think rather than how to think which could lead to a situation of intellectual stagnation and where new ideas will be a scarce commodity. The stagnation of thought can be very evident by examining the basic understanding of a management student about what really a manger does. The very stereotypic answer that can be expected is planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling. This is not a product of recent times but rather been the case since the industrialist Henry Fayol introduced these words in 1916, but a closer observation on the activities carried out by any manger at any echelon of the organizational hierarchy is not exactly the same1. So being the case what is management and why is it important to study the evolution? Management is a set of activities carried out by a person called a manager who carries out certain roles associated with the formal authority and responsibility entrusted on him. These roles can be broadly grouped into interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles. The interpersonal role is more or less the role of a head of a family where the manger acts as a figurehead, a leader and a monitor. The informational role of a manager is to act as a channel of information flow from outside the organization to inside and vice versa along with within the organization information flow moderator. The decisional role of a manager is associated with the authority and the responsibility associated with the position1. Having said that, understanding the importance of the history of the management by the management students becomes all the more important in the present day. Some of the major breakthrough developments in management philosophy in last 150 years can be traced back to far back in history. Let it be the branding concept for quality assurance which was practice in China in 11th century A.D. or be it the delegation of power and job description which could be traced back to the 6th century A.D. when the roles of Benedietine Order of Monks was written by St. Benedict. The marketing concept evolved in 1950s where the customer is centre2 too happens to be just a borrowed idea form a theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century A.D.3 Evidently we have either conveniently overlooked these great pearls of wisdom lying in our backyard or it just took us another few centuries to re-identify the truth. The knowledge of history of management becomes extremely valuable for researchers in management since the present is a product of past and future will be a product of present. The researchers pursuit of wisdom should be driven by the understanding drawn from the great minds of the past. The importance of management theory can be appreciated only when the social, economic and political context for the evolution of a management theory is understood. So the knowledge of the history of the management is essential to study the

theory in its entirety and not just the from the academic point of view. The most often observed occupational hazard in research is that the researchers tend to be blindfolded to the truth and they argue that nothing of significance has been discovered for decades until then. Historical illiteracy leads to accepting the widely accepted facts which might be wrong in all its probability4. The understanding of history trains us to look critically to all the management theories that we practice religiously today. It motivates us to question the very evolution and existence of these theories in its present day form. Questions need to be raised and the answers are to be found for them. These questions will prove to be a new direction of investigation for the truth and its implications on social, economic and political fabric of the world we live in today. Reference 1. Mintzberg, H. (1990). The Managers Job: Folklore and Fact, HBR 2. Fatterman, M. and ODonell, J. (2006). Just Browsing at the Mall? Thats What You Think, USA Today. 3. Witzel, M. (2009). Why management history matter. EFMD Global Focus, 3(3): 2023. 4. Bedeain, A.G. (2004). The gift of professional maturity. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 3(1): 92-98