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This guide is based on Human Resource Management in a Business Context,
and includes links to extra articles, notes, tips and exercises.
Professional managers
(...) By 1900 the USA had undergone several decades of rapid, large-scale industrialization.
Large American companies such as Heinz and Singer Sewing Machines had the characteristics of
modern, highly structured organizations. They produced standardized consumer durables for the mass
market. These organizations required a supply of trained managers. Notionally selected on the basis of
ability and expertise - rather than family connections - they needed to know how to organize,
reward and motivate their staff. In the USA, state and private universities were opened to cater
for this new professional need.
The first companies of equivalent size and organization did not arise in Britain
and the Commonwealth until the 1920s and management education was similarly late in developing. Like
most European or Asian companies they still tended to employ relatives or to promote long-standing
workers to management roles. (...)
Pages 9-13 of Human Resource Management in a Business Context 2/e discuss the continued influence of F.W. Taylor ('Scientific' Management). the Gilbreths,
and Henry Ford and the doctrine of 'Fordism'.
Tips for students using the book
Activity 1:3 You could compare the three on dimensions such as
'hard-soft', 'authoritarian-liberal', 'subjective-objective', etc.
Human Resources
