MANAGEMENT: The INTELLECTUAL CHALLENGE

Abstract

In the past, the view taken of the job of management was essentially entrepreneurial. A man was in a position of responsibility and leadership because of natural endowment, not because of his formal education. It was a matter of personality, almost to the exclusion of other factors. Management was not a job for the intellectual and an undue exercise of the intellect in certain circumstances could be inimical to effective management. To the extent that the job might have been seen as requiring rationality, it was rationality at a mechanical level. The ‘scientific management’ movement expressed this very well. From this, it was only a short step to an anti‐intellectual view, of which there are still exponents, not only amongst managers themselves, but even, ironically, amongst those in the training field.

Citation

ASTON, B.R. and BRODIE, M.B. (1967), "MANAGEMENT: The INTELLECTUAL CHALLENGE", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 7-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb050075