EVOLUTION OF MANAGEMENT THOUGHT

Management as a systematic body of knowledge and a distinct discipline id the product of the twentieth century. However, the history of management practice is as old as human civilization, when the men started living in groups. For every human group requires management.

The real development of management thought has begun with the scientific management approach given by F.W.Taylor. Though some of the concepts have been developed by thinkers earlier to Taylor. Early management thoughts have come from Roman Catholic Church, military organizations, the Cameralists, a group of German and Austrian public administrators and intellectuals during sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Their concepts of management were mostly related to specialization, selection of subordinates and their training, simplification of administration procedures, unity of doctrine etc.

In the later period, Charles Babbage, James Watt, and Robert Owen made contributions. Their contributions were limited mostly to the field of developing the concept to make resources more effective at the shop-floor level. These contributions were made bit by bit and in haphazard manned that could not stimulate management as a distinct discipline for further study. however, the various ideas stated by them have created awareness about managerial problems. By the end of the nineteenth century, a stage was set for the systematic study of management. F.W.Taylor made a beginning in this direction in the early part of the 20Th century. During five decades there has been enormous development of management thought.

Koontz was the first academician to classify the various approaches into the schools of management theory. The evolution of management thoughts can be classified into ''Six (school of) Management Theories''.

(1) The classical Theory
(2) The Human Relations and Behavioral Science Theory
(3) The Decision Theory
(4) The Management Science Theory
(5) The Systems Theory, and
(6) The Contingency Theory