1. The evolution of management thought has followed societal trends of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The nineteenth century works of Charles Babbage and Robert Owen were concerned with the early factory system as well making social progress. The classical school and bureaucratic school of the early twentieth century were the first efforts to generate a comprehensive theory of management. This school included Max Weber and Henri Fayol. Fayol was the father of the administrative management school. He had a profound affect on much of administrative theory during the early part of the twentieth century.
Frederick Taylor, the engineer, established the scientific method of management.
The behavioral school made a profound influence on management theory. It is a revolutionary period of management theory. It includes the Nobel prize winning critic of the early proverbs of administration, Herbert Simon, as well as the landmark Hawthorne Experiment ushering in the human relations branch of the bureaucratic method. The behavioral school also includes the first female organizational theorist, Mary Parker Follet. A major result of the behavioral school is the demise and repudiation of the classical school of management.
The human relations school of management is extremely important in dealing with the concept of employee motivation. Herbert Maslow developed the hierarchy of needs theory while Douglas McGregor developed Theory X and Y. The behavioral research school applies much of the needs theory developed by Maslow in actual organizational settings.
The contemporary management school brings a more interdisciplinary approach to the field of management. The very important writings of W. Edwards Deming in the area of productivity improvement and those of Peter Drucker on MBO and management innovation have a major impact on the way today's organizations are managed.