Fifty Key Figures in Management

Citation

Cromb, D. (2004), "Fifty Key Figures in Management", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 237-238. https://doi.org/10.1108/1437730410521895

This book is part of the Routledge Key Guides series and provides a snapshot of 50 people whose lives and ideas have helped define the way we think about management.

There are two Contents – one alphabetical, the other chronological. The author has also included a table of nine themes within management, cross‐referring the individuals to these themes. The author explains that the 50 figures have been included based on their contribution to management understanding and practice as a whole. This excludes discipline specialists such as Kotter (leadership and organisational change) and Ansoff (strategic planning). There is an international flavour to the chosen figures. A total of 25 of the figures are from North America, nine from the UK and Ireland, eight from Europe, six from Japan and two from China.

The format of the information presented is simple. The life, careers, contribution and writings of each person is summarised, generally in six to eight pages. Within each summary, there is generous cross‐referencing to the related or contradictory views of others in the book. Each summary concludes with a list of that person's major works and suggested further reading.

The chosen figures are not confined exclusively to those who have written. Included are those who have through their actions (such as industrialists) shaped management thinking: people such as Heinz, du Pont and Lever. The people included border on the eclectic: for example, Laozi (sixth century BCE), Richard Arkwright (1732‐1792) and Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835‐1901) are not figures whose names would be commonly mentioned in conversations between practitioners today, but all have their place.

Witzel's love of and respect for the field of management comes through in this book, both with his choice of figures and his presentation of information. Before this work, he has been a contributor to an encyclopaedia of business and management and an editor of a biographical dictionary of management. In the list of each figure's major works, a brief summary often appears: the list of suggested further reading is often accompanied by a few words about each suggestion.

Interestingly, although 21 figures are recorded as having entries that discuss “strategy and planning”, there are only two entries for “planning” in the index and one of these is to a 22nd figure. Something similar occurs with the entry for “strategy”. However, this is not a shortcoming of the book; it is more a reflection of the influential rather than directly contributing nature that thinking and practice has on the field of management.

An advantage of a book of this type is that conceptual ideas developed by an individual over decades becomes neatly summarised in a few pages. Henry Mintzberg and Michael Porter, for example, originally advanced ideas in the 1970s and 1980s but gradually refined the ideas over the next 20 or so years. Reading their work from those early years will not give the full flavour of their current conception, but reading this book does.

There are already several books which summarise contributors to the field of management. Why then choose this one? The essential reason is that this book is not a “guru” guide, that distinctly modern and mostly American phenomenon of pop management. Witzel has chosen his key figures based on their life's contribution to the field of management, irrespective of whether that contribution was recognised during their life or even if that contribution could only be assessed from an historical standpoint. As such, this book is an invitation to us to explore further – to understand the rich, diverse and lengthy history that the field of management has.

I think that it would be a waste to read this book from cover to cover and then to put it back on the shelf. The easy‐to‐read style of writing somewhat tends to hide the fact that this reference work will be as valuable and relevant in 20 years as it is today. The invitation to explore further should be accepted. Choose one of the 50 figures or perhaps one of the nine management themes and embark on a voyage of self‐education.