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Heiko Gebauer, Christian Kowalkowski, (2012),"Customer-focused and service-focused orientation in organizational structures",
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Abstract
Purpose – The paper aims to consider the underlying premises of Peter Drucker’s managerial writing and focuses on three main aspects: humans and
relations, an evolutionary perspective and a pragmatic perspective. These ontological views are taken to a new level and applied to explore the world of
networked firms.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a conceptual contribution based on a literature study by the author.
Findings – An examination of Drucker’s ontology shows how his world perspective led him to an understanding of managers and organisations. The
three elements of his ontology discussed are applied to research in business networks.
Research limitations/implications – The paper argues for research on human perspectives of business relationships and networks, particularly of
issues such as time, timing, partner integration, relational and network embeddedness, network sensing, network horizons, and network identity.
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Practical implications – Drucker’s ontological view enabled him to make pronouncements that cut through to the truth of reality in our
organisationally shaped world. Understanding Drucker’s ontology provides managers with ways to deepen their understanding of an individual’s role at
every level within an organisation.
Originality/value – The linking of Drucker’s ontology to research on new ways to organise and manage networked firms opens areas of future
research.
Keywords Business network, Time, Evolutionary management, Network management, Philosophy, Organizational structures,
Organizational processes
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Peter Drucker’s ontology: understanding business relationships and networks Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Christopher J. Medlin Volume 27 · Number 7 · 2012 · 513 –520
514
Peter Drucker’s ontology: understanding business relationships and networks Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Christopher J. Medlin Volume 27 · Number 7 · 2012 · 513 –520
of enterprises by even simple adjustments in activity or re- present is regarding the future (see Buber in Smith, 1958;
alignment of resources. Luhmann, 1979; Medlin, 2004). The parallel to Martin
The two-fold nature of relationships, where neither party Buber’s (1923) ontology is unmistakable. Drucker (1985, p.
can attain full mutuality, is shown in the counterpoint of ideas xii) directly compares the role of manager with that of teacher,
throughout Drucker’s writing. For example, in noting how who must know both present and future to achieve their role.
wages are a cost to an enterprise and an income to an According to Buber, a teacher must know the student “in his
employee Drucker (1954, p. 312) shows his understanding potentiality and his actuality” (Smith, 1958, p. 164) to fulfil
that manager and employee will always have a two-fold view; the teaching role, that is, in his future and his present.
which is not to say an opposing relationship. Rather, the two Evidently, a human understanding of time was an element of
views complement each other and rely on each other for their both Buber and Drucker’s ontology.
existence. The relationship and the component interactions Drucker applies the double context of present and future in
rely for meaning on each other. many ways to develop his understanding of manager’s roles.
When we add these ideas to the simple truth that firms act We see this concept of change in Drucker’s “management by
through the life of humans we gain a great insight into the way objectives” and within his idea that “profits” are ephemeral
organisations must be managed in Drucker’s eyes. Managers phenomena within the flow of time (Drucker, 1954). Drucker
are humans, dealing with human workers, and how these also applies this forward method in time when he comments
people interact builds every aspect of an organisation and on the effect of an aging population on the structure of future
eventually explains how managers and executives create organisations (Drucker, 1996).
profits. However, to explain these matters requires the By contrast and in the second time sense, for the firm and
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extension of organising, by extending organising across time the manager, the success of activity and resource use becomes
and so we must elaborate Drucker’s use of evolutionary apparent as time passes, and the manager can look back at
heuristics. what was achieved. In the second sense, the unfolding of time
removes the ambiguity of social action, as two or more
2.2 Evolutionary perspective competing perspectives settle to a socially condoned, or
One cannot place human nature at the centre of management imposed, meaning (Luhmann, 1979). Action simplifies
and organisation without also accepting change over time; ambiguity. Drucker often applies this understanding of
growth and decay. Peter Drucker saw the world, our social reality, with constant use of examples that extend
enterprises and their managers, as living processes. across time periods. For example, Drucker (1996) describes
Production was a result of cooperation between all functions how the Prussian Army overcame greater forces by
of an enterprise (Drucker, 1954) and humans managed the application of a control and command organisation, which
required coordination processes in an on-going fashion. The was then adopted by business. The understanding of a
management activities of today prepared the coordination of command organisation is apparent when the managers’ past
future production processes (Drucker, 1985). For Drucker activities are viewed with their consequences, so that meaning
the present created the future in part, with the future a is able to be clearly attributed.
changed development from the present. Drucker applied time in both senses throughout his writing,
To Drucker the word “organisation” denotes an ever- although we most often see only the more obvious reference
changing collection of individuals, like the word “river” to the balance between “present” and “future” (Drucker,
describes moving water. As a result Drucker often resorted to 1954, p. 15; 1985, p. 43). If we can say one thing about
medical analogies to portray this active sense of firms. For Drucker, it is that he focuses more on the present and the
example, Drucker (1995) equates cash-flow and liquidity future than the past. As Drucker comments, an “action is
projections to the “measurements a doctor takes at a routine always aimed at results in the future” (Drucker, 1954, p. 15).
physical”. In these analogies the unit of analysis is clearly a The past offers explanation, but to Drucker the present is
changing entity. most important. The present is where decisions and actions
Drucker’s viewpoint of managers and organisations relied are undertaken to shape the future (Mead, 1932).
upon time flow in two senses. First, time flow provides This forward-looking perspective is why Drucker
context and meaning to a human concerning future action considered customers as the purpose of firms. Production,
(i.e. purpose and intention), and secondly humans require the according to Drucker, is only meaningful because it allows
flow of time to look back and establish meaning. In the first future consumption. The forward focus leads Drucker to his
sense the flow of time provides the economic environment conclusion that the purpose of organisations is the creation of
that managers must bring to a new problem. end-consumers (Drucker, 1954, pp. 37, 50).
Managers, in Drucker’s view, must balance the “present” There are two more important distinctions to be made
and the “long-range future” (Drucker, 1954, p. 14) to fulfil about the past/present/future of time flow in Peter Drucker’s
their responsibilities. Drucker (1954, p. 15) sees the present ontology. The first is to note that Drucker recognises that the
as the time for building an organisation, while the future is the future in one industry can be as soon as five days away, while
time for achieving the goals of the organisation. To Drucker, in other industries the future is five years away (Drucker,
“time”, represented as present and future, provides two 1954, p. 84). Likewise, by implication, the “time-squeeze”
connected contexts that give purpose and meaning to the required on actions in the present (Drucker, 1954, p. 16), to
processes of management. achieve a future, changes according to industry and/or
Interesting in this twin contextual view is the idea that management circumstance (Drucker, 1954, p. 45). Time
management “almost alone – has to live always in both has a subjective quality within a human perspective.
present and future” (Drucker, 1954, p. 15). Of course a A second distinction is the way managers live and act in the
person does not “live in the future”; rather, cognition in the present (Medlin, 2004), with intention for the future, but act
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Peter Drucker’s ontology: understanding business relationships and networks Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Christopher J. Medlin Volume 27 · Number 7 · 2012 · 513 –520
on the basis of present knowledge and skills derived from past never achieving a complete system; rather, he saw only new
experience. One cannot place humans at the centre of waves of emergence as one individual, or one firm, interacted
management and organisation without also approaching an with another individual or firm, or customer. In this
understanding of the distinctions between living and knowing worldview change is directed by managers, but not
(i.e. knowledge). Drucker (1985, p. xii) draws a line between controlled. Evolution is open-ended, with local goals, but
“skill” and “performance”, and fully appreciates that without system or environmental goals. In Drucker’s mind no
managers are concerned with action. Drucker (1979, p. 17) end goal, or rational thought, exists for the whole human
saw management as “not knowledge, but performance. [. . .] enterprise, only goals for the single individual, organisation or
[However], its practice is based both on knowledge and on entity.
responsibility”. These distinctions are very similar to the We see now why Drucker saw himself always as an
ontology of Martin Buber (Smith, 1958) and George Mead “observer”, a “writer” and a “teacher” (Drucker, 1979), for
(1932), where cognition and interaction are continuous and each new “present” brought for him something interesting to
switching in time. For Drucker, the human element of examine, scrutinise and wonder about. When we bring
organisations meant a living process, where action in the together the natural aspect of emergence in human
present is directed at future goals. This one idea embraces all relationships and Drucker’s evolutionary and pragmatic
of Drucker’s propositions on management and organisations. perspectives we see the thinking tools that allowed him to
be the seer.
2.3 Pragmatic perspective
Drucker was pragmatic and saw that new theory always
3. The future of organisations
follows action. Drucker applied the concept of principles, or
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theories, to his analysis of the interaction between customers In this section the future of networked organisations is
and firms and saw that change in the environment required examined by applying the three themes evident in the
application of new theories of business (Drucker, 1994). Here ontology of Drucker. The firm is now seen as an element of a
we see that Drucker accepts the dominance of action and network of firms (Johanson and Mattsson, 1987; Perrow,
change. Drucker’s pragmatism and evolutionary thinking 1981; Thorelli, 1986) and competition occurs between
tools cut between theory and action. To Drucker, theory was networks of firms (Miles and Snow, 1986), or collaboration
always incomplete (Drucker, 1954, p. 56) – a work in occurs between competitors (Powell, 1987; Young and
progress – and the rational mind was always trapped by past Wilkinson, 1997). The change is conceptual, with firms no
experience. longer seen to operate alone (Håkansson and Snehota, 1989),
The specific view of the world and enterprises as living but together, with conjoined self and collective interests
human organisms in the continuous flow of the present leads (Medlin, 2006). How do we understand and manage these
Drucker to a conclusion that efficient production “is a matter new organisations of firms? While Drucker did not extend his
of principles rather than of machines or gadgets” (Drucker, thinking to business relationships and networks of firms, or to
1954, p. 108). This idea is a sensible and pragmatic result of a network view of the world, the three themes applied above
seeing production as a human endeavour. With humans as the provide a cogent way of interpreting business research in these
key, “production is not the application of tools to materials. It fields.
is the application of logic to work” (Drucker, 1954. p. 96;
original italics). And Drucker was not only writing about 3.1 Human and relation
managers, he saw that any individual can take action and so Networks of firms have been conceptualised by the Industrial
change the nature and output of work and production. Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group (cf. Gemünden et al.,
Drucker applied this pragmatism to every idea concerning 1997; Håkansson, 1982; Naudé and Turnbull, 1998) to be
management and so found that old skills and knowledge were composed as layers of resources, activities and actors;
often left wanting. For example, Drucker derides the theory of according to the level of analysis (i.e. firm, relationship and
markets and competition. Drucker (1954, p. 53) simply raises network levels) (Håkansson and Snehota, 1995). However,
the question “What does the customer buy?”, and these within the IMP Group there has been a degree of ambiguity
concepts do not answer. To Drucker the “value” purchased concerning whether the firm or the individual person is the
by a customer was more than price, was different for every actor (Medlin and Törnroos, 2007). Indeed, within business
customer, and included the future use of a product. To research generally, one can see the same issues, where some
Drucker the living use of a product through time could never authors are clear that the firm is the actor and humans play a
be fully captured in a theory. very important role (cf. Geser, 1992; Perry et al., 2002).
Theory and reality were always separate in Drucker’s Others, who would be considered more akin to Drucker,
worldview and action took precedence. Theory represented would argue for a more balanced view where humans would
forms of knowledge acquired from past experience, but the negotiate the interactions between firms (Emirbayer and
manager was responsible for action “now” in the present, with Goodwin, 1994; Medlin and Törnroos, 2007; Zafirovski,
“one set of demands [. . .] not necessarily ‘higher’ than 1999). This later approach makes available to managers
another, [. . .]. But each [. . .] different” (Drucker, 1954, p. 96). conceptual tools for creating a future within business
The key, for Drucker, was a “balance” between action relationships and networks.
directed at having an effect in the present or the future The human ontological perspective has informed a
(Drucker, 1954, p. 96). considerable body of business research, especially regarding
An important aspect of a pragmatic and conjoined trust and commitment (cf. Gundlach et al., 1995; Morgan
evolutionary perspective is the forever incomplete future and Hunt, 1994), relational norms in exchange (cf. Heide and
(Drucker, 1954, p. 92). Drucker saw the world as ongoing, John, 1992; Ivens, 2006; Tuusjärvi and Möller, 2009) and the
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Peter Drucker’s ontology: understanding business relationships and networks Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Christopher J. Medlin Volume 27 · Number 7 · 2012 · 513 –520
coordination mechanisms between firms (Alajoutsijärvi et al., perspective (cf. Halinen, 1998). Relationship stages are
1999; Medlin, 2003; Ritter, 2007). Evidently attitudinal present in the work of many researchers (cf. Dwyer et al.,
aspects figure strongly in the formation of business networks, 1987; Eggerta et al., 2006). Equally other researchers seek a
when a human perspective is taken of firms organising. Still more dynamic perspective (cf. Easton and Araujo, 1994;
the issue of the actor, whether firm, business unit, manager or Murray and Kitchen, 2004). Each theoretical perspective has
individual requires further research. something to offer, but the lesson from Drucker is that we
The two-fold nature of relationships, evident in a human seek to explain an ever changing process, one were the future
ontological perspective, has a number of implications for grows from the present, not in stages but by degrees of
business relationships and networks. First, that business change. Researchers should apply more complex evolutionary
relationships are composed of at least two points of view (cf. models where relationship classes exist, but no pre-ordained
Halinen, 1998; John and Reve, 1982; Malhotra, 2004) leads ordering of growth of a relationship occurs (cf. Batonda and
to interesting questions about the ability of managers to Perry, 2003). The stage model of business relationships
“manage”. How is management achieved when the other remains a teaching tool, but is neither theoretically or
party is free to also manage? Drucker’s answer is the empirically sound.
application of agreed objectives and respect for the other In a similar manner the question of time intervals requires
party. This answer has parallels in the concepts of relational further research. Drucker already saw that time compression
norms and relational governance, and points to problems and is an issue by industry. In a relationship and network
issues with business relationship governance mechanisms perspective the role of variations in time and timing may lead
based on power and hierarchy (Eliashberg and Michie, 1984). to entirely new managerial concerns and different managerial
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A second, and related, implication is the importance of planning tools (cf. Möller and Svahn, 2003).
communication (Andersen, 2001; Mohr and Nevin, 1990),
dialogue (Ballantyne, 2004), alignment of goals (Stephen and 3.3 Pragmatic perspective
Coote, 2007) and incentives (Ahuja, 2000) across a Managers in business relationships and in networks of
relationship. These issues are all of paramount theoretical multiple relationships will always need to balance many
and practical importance for “management” of business different goals, with complementary and competing objectives
relationships. With regard to multiple relationships and laid out across time (cf. Ehret, 2004; Geersbro and Ritter,
networks the degree of open communication and alignment 2010). Drucker recognised the basic issue of management
of goals and incentives must have an influence on the concerning competing needs and took the only solution, be
tightness of linkages across a network of firms. pragmatic, achieve the needs of the firm and respect your
The two-fold nature of business relationships is evidently an people. In a networked world this advice stands.
important matter for future research in business networks, Conceptually all the activities undertaken by a firm are
given its role in emergence; in creating the new. Emergence linked across firms to create an activity pattern for a network
occurs between firms in the processes of interaction (cf. (Håkansson and Snehota, 1995). Also all the resources in a
Emirbayer, 1997; Emirbayer and Mische, 1998), between firm “tie” across firms to create a resource constellation for a
different and complementary perspectives that are part of the network (Håkansson and Snehota, 1995). Finally, the actors
larger whole of a network. In this theoretical setting the goals are bonded across firms to create an actor web for a network
of each relationship, the levels of communication and the (Håkansson and Snehota, 1995). However, individual
alignment of incentives are necessarily important elements for managers cannot see the whole network in which their firm
future academic research. The two-fold nature is at the heart is embedded (Holmen and Pedersen, 2003). For managers,
of the flexible nature of networks, that strength recognised by this means taking a bounded view, building enough
Cravens et al. (1996), which makes them a suitable form of complexity into their understanding to allow action, to be
organising in a changing environment. able to prioritise objectives across time.
Research on bounded understandings of networks, so that
3.2 Evolutionary perspective managers are capable of “managing” with other managers,
The evolutionary perspective is a powerful analytic tool for has begun. The work of Möller and Svahn (2003) and Möller
understanding business relationships and networks as these et al. (2005) develops the concept of strategic nets, bounded
phenomena exist through time (Medlin, 2004). We see many by the activity sequence directed to a single class of customer.
elements of an evolutionary perspective in relationship and This approach offers important ways of conceptualising the
network research. The simple joining of two firms in a strategic and tactical importance of different value nets,
business relationship relies strongly on the right opportunities allowing managers to discuss and make decisions about
in the future (i.e. goals), and the right resource resource priorities on the basis of competing objectives across
complementarity in the present. The nature of the situation, different value nets. Drucker would agree with the
of the resource heterogeneity in the present, is important in pragmatism of this conceptual approach.
creating opportunities for joined resources (Ahuja, 2000). In a similar fashion a number of researchers have been
The pathways of technological change and their expected examining the role of managers in networks and so developing
outcomes all lead to types of path dependence that link firms useful concepts for managers. Jarrat (2004) proposes a
together in networks that flow through time (Araujo and relationship management process based on an infrastructure
Harrison, 2002). Time and timing become important in this capability, a relationship learning capability and a behavioural
changed theoretical view of the business world (Hedaa and capability for working in a relationship. Uzzi and Gillespie
Törnroos, 2002). (2002) show that firms with strong social ties to a partner firm
Considerable research remains to be undertaken on are better able to manage their performance. Westerlund and
conceptualising time in a relationship and network Rajala (2010) show that explorative, rather than exploitative,
517
Peter Drucker’s ontology: understanding business relationships and networks Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Christopher J. Medlin Volume 27 · Number 7 · 2012 · 513 –520
learning processes within business relationships promote Alajoutsijärvi, K., Möller, K. and Rosenbröijer, C.-J. (1999),
network development. Holmen and Pedersen (2003) discuss “Relevance of focal nets in understanding the dynamics of
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understanding of the network and appropriate strategies. marketing communication: an integrative model”, Journal
Mouzas and Naudé (2007) even suggest the idea of managers of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 16 No. 3,
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The concept of network competency, developed by Ritter Strategic Management, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 5-19.
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