Early Management
Management has been practiced a long time. Organized endeavors directed by people responsible for planning, organizing, leading, and controlling activities have existed for thousands of years. Let’s look at some of the most interesting examples.
Another example of early management can be found in the city of Venice, which was a major economic and trade center in the 1400s. The Venetians developed an early form of business enterprise and engaged in many activities common to today’s organizations. For instance, at the arsenal of Venice, warships were floated along the canals, and at each stop, materials and riggings were added to the ship. Sounds a lot like a car “floating” along an assembly line, doesn’t it? In addition, the Venetians used warehouse and inventory systems to keep track of materials, human resource management functions to manage the labor force (including wine breaks), and an accounting system to keep track of revenues and costs.In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, in which he argued the economic advantages that organizations and society would gain from the division of labor (or job specialization)—that is, breaking down jobs into narrow and repetitive tasks. Using the pin industry as an example, Smith claimed that 10 individuals, each doing a specialized task, could produce about 48,000 pins a day among them. However, if each person worked alone performing each task separately, it would be quite an accomplishment to produce even 10 pins a day! Smith concluded that division of labor increased productivity by increasing each worker’s skill and dexterity, saving time lost in changing tasks, and creating laborsaving inventions and machinery. Job specialization continues to be popular. For example, think of the specialized tasks performed by members of a hospital surgery team, meal preparation tasks done by workers in restaurant kitchens, or positions played by players on a football team.
Starting in the late eighteenth century when machine power was substituted for human power, a point in history known as the industrial revolution, it became more economical to manufacture goods in factories rather than at home. These large efficient factories needed someone to forecast demand, ensure that enough material was on hand to make products, assign tasks to people, direct daily activities, and so forth. That “someone” was a manager: These managers would need formal theories to guide them in running these large organizations. It wasn’t until the early 1900s, however, that the first steps toward developing such theories were taken.