5 Beginnings
Early Writings on Management History
Introduction
The practice of management, as understood today, is widely seen to have originated with the first and, more importantly, the second industrial revolutions in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, respectively (see, e.g. Engwall, Kipping and Üsdiken 2016: Ch. 2)—which has not prevented some of those studying its history to search for and locate the “idea” of management in much earlier times, as will be discussed in this and the following chapter. A sustained effort to trace and structure the history of management practice and to write a “history of management thought”, as it came to be called, had to wait until after World War II—when (a) management practice had become more ...
