A History of Management Thought, by M.

Witzel, NewYork and London, Routledge,

2012, 318 pp., ISBN 978-0-415-60058-3

There are a number of reasons to produce a text on the history of management thought,
according to Morgen Witzel, but they all centre on the need to contextualise the
development of ideas. This allows an appreciation of the complex intellectual chains
from which the reader can observe the evolution of management thinking from its roots
in Eastern militarism and Western philosophy. With this knowledge we are armed with
the necessary insight to assess and categorise ideas that are either continuous (recycled)
or creative (genuinely new). Additionally, by viewing the history of management thought
as a series of responses to the challenges of shifting social and political forces as well as
changing technologies we will be able to appreciate why some ideas have gained
acceptance while others have failed. Within this schema, management thought is
conceptualised as either coherent theories or systems of management, or simply the
historical expression of thinking about management. To explore the emergence of
management thought over an extended timeframe, from antiquity through commercial
expansion, enlightenment and scientific management to the current fracturing of
management into sub-disciplines and research specialisms, a narrative chronological
approach has been adopted to provide a general survey. The focus of the text is on
thinking rather than practice and significantly, for readers of this journal, accounting
history is not specifically discussed as it is held to be effectively addressed elsewhere.
Despite this last assertion the opening of the book, with chapters exploring
management thought from antiquity through the enlightenment, provides much that is
familiar to the historian of accounting. This is arguably because the relative paucity of
sources brings substantial overlap, but it is perhaps also because it is harder to separate
management and accounting discourse, especially in the pre-modern period.
Nevertheless, an attempt to focus on leadership brings some interesting insights and helps
to provide a different perspective from that normally seen in the writings of accounting
researchers. Additionally, the exploration of management texts from countries that are
little or entirely unexplored by accountants generate points of interest. These chapters set
the scene for the explosion of management thought that was to come around the turn of
the twentieth century.
The central part of the book is formed by chapters five, six and seven on the
emergence of scientific management in the US, the European developments
contemporary with it and the response of the human relations school. Witzel
unquestionably acknowledges Taylor’s importance to scientific management, but is keen
to emphasise that Taylor’s system was neither unique nor necessarily the most effective
on offer. Its strength (and appeal), he argues, lay in its task orientation that provided
detailed instructions on how to run the organisation from the workshop up. This process
was relatively straightforward to implement, but tended to downplay the human
dimensions of the organisation - a fact not missed by proponents of alternative systems of
scientific management such as that offered by Harrington Emerson. Although Taylor’s
ideas had greater endurance, particularly in the US, it was the perception that successful
organisations needed to work for both the cooperation and the benefit of their employees
that motivated his opponents.
 In Europe alternative systems had grown around this theme as Quaker
businessmen and thinkers such as Cadbury and Rowntree in Britain drew upon the earlier
ideas of Owen to build companies with the worker at their heart. Elsewhere, in Poland,
France and Germany, other alternatives were developed and, particularly in France and
Germany, began to find their way into commercial education programmes, borrowing
and adapting techniques from Taylor along the way. But where the scientific
management movement began an enduring tradition of great American thinking about
business, it was not to be mirrored in Europe. Doubtless the political turmoil of twentieth
century Europe played a part in this, but Witzel also argues that the promise of the
institutes of commercial education in France and Germany seems to have failed through a
lack of continued fresh thought and that, conversely, British thinkers lacked effective
institutions for the dissemination of their thinking.
A coherent response to scientific management emerged in the form of the human
relations school, which argued against a narrow technicist conception of the organisation
as an aggregation of atomised parts. Seeking to bring the human element to the fore of
management theorisation, this movement drew upon research that showed substantial
gains in productivity were to be had by paying attention to social and psychological
factors in the workforce. Although the human relations school did not reject all aspects of
scientific management, they created a counter-discourse of the social versus the technical;
a tension, it is argued, which has lain at the heart of management thinking ever since, as
periodically each gains ascendency over the other in the theories of the day.
Chapter eight changes tack slightly as it documents the growth of separate
management disciplines, picking up along the way those areas of management thinking
that are not neatly captured by the debates between the scientific management and human
relations schools. In particular, marketing and corporate finance are seen as areas of
activity that developed independently of mainstream management thought, with
marketing cohering around the 4Ps of product, place, price and promotion and corporate
finance emerging from the debates over ownership and control. The growth of
theorisation about business strategy is said to have arrived somewhat later in the 1950s,
as previously managers had found adequate approaches by drawing on military
conceptions of organisation. These areas are seen as gradually merging into the wider
discipline of management. Management consultancy and business education, on the other
hand, appear more clearly linked to the success of scientific management and human
relations.
The discussion of theoretical development draws to a close in chapter nine, which
explores the debates of the 1950s and 60s. It begins with the post-world war II transfer of
operational research techniques into the business sector as management science and the
use of mathematical modelling in financial economics. These methods, drawing heavily
from physical science, once again attracted a response from social theorists seeking to
restore the human element, which manifested in various forms such as Simon’s concept
of bounded rationality, open systems theory and contingency theory. Witzel concludes
the chapter by using the popularity of Peter Drucker to observe that the writer, who
placed the manager at the centre of the problem, arguably achieved greater engagement
with practitioners than any of the organisational theorists, reflecting the increasing
disconnect between theory and practice that began at this time. This theme is then
developed in the following chapter, where he explores the work of the management
‘gurus’ who have developed thinking in areas such as quality, organisational culture,
corporate strategy, refocusing marketing onto customer needs and exploring new styles of
leadership.
The main text ends with a chapter on the analyses of the challenges of the Internet
age. This sees the modern organisation operating in an environment of constant change,
where technological change has created new forms of innovation and networks within an
overall context of globalised business. The relevance of western management thinking to
business operating outside of the first world context is considered, as is the increasing
importance of the challenge of sustainability. Witzel concludes by questioning the role of
management thinking and arguing that it grew out of the need to build and serve
civilization. In this respect he sees management thought as having lost its way. The
increasing demands upon academics to publish their work in esoteric outlets that are
inaccessible and irrelevant to practitioners is leading management thought down a path
that obviates its reason for being. The challenge for the thinker is to re-establish and re-
engage with the purpose of the thought; a purpose that for Witzel appears inextricably
connected to the needs of society.
It is notable that the book ends with a challenge, as the central premise of the text
is that new thinking emerges as a response to environmental challenge. This approach is
adopted consistently and successfully insofar as it supports a general view of the
organisation as an organic entity in a Darwinian world. Doubtless a number of other
approaches could have been adopted and those who object to an evolutionary model will
find something to critique here. However, I find that it frames the narrative comfortably
and allows the author to meaningfully develop the linkages between ideas and the
systems of thought from which they emerged; no mean feat given the scope of the text.
Given the ambition of the book, I sympathise with the author’s desire to maintain
distance from the literature on accounting history and yet there is clearly much overlap
between these two disciplines, as demonstrated by the regular references to accounting in
the text. Inevitably it is the vast scope and the attempt to contain it in a single volume
which leads to the weaknesses in the text. As he acknowledges, Witzel’s focus on theory
says relatively little about corresponding management practice and this somewhat defuses
the argument that thinkers need to reconnect with practice, especially if the practical
application of theory may have been marginal for a long time. Of course, many topics
receive relatively cursory treatment while others are developed more fully and at times
the flow of information can threaten to overwhelm the reader. One significant omission is
the relative lack of exploration of management thought outside the business sector,
particularly after the end of the nineteenth century. Perhaps this occurs because the scope
of the book was already so large, but alternatively it may just reflect a relative paucity of
literature on the subject. Undoubtedly, much more could be said about what is not
covered in the text, but that is certainly unfair and great credit should be awarded for the
engaging way in which the reader is drawn through the millennia of complex trains of
thought.
For the accounting historian the text may seem, on the face of it, to have limited
relevance, but I would disagree with any such assertion. Very few accounting historians
these days regard context as of little relevance and those that do need to re-examine that
thought. Management thinking and the systems of thought from which it is derived are
certainly a significant part of the context of both accounting practice and accounting
thought and this text provides an excellent introduction into its development. Anyone
approaching a project on a new period could do worse than read the relevant chapter of
this text as an introduction and source for further reading. Additionally, it could be used
as a source of inspiration as clear points of discontinuity of management thinking are
identified and numerous questions are brought to mind relating to the relationship of
accounting with the events recorded in the narrative. For instance, the text may provide
useful sources for the study of: management thought from areas of the world where
accounting history has yet to reach; alternative (non-Taylorist) systems of scientific
management; and the emergence of social responsibility (which is thematic in the book),
to list only a few. In this way the text has considerable potential for researchers into
accounting history, but quite apart from that A History of Management Thought is a very
enjoyable introduction to a substantial part of the management history literature and I
recommend it to prospective readers.

William J Jackson
Heriot-Watt University, UK
W.Jackson@hw.ac.uk