Formation of management thought in Russia and early USSR from the 1800s to the 1920s

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vadim Marshev

Purpose During the first quarter of the twentieth century in Russia rapidly developed management thought, generated by many reasons, including socio-economic and political transformations, the results of scientific and practical activities of domestic and foreign experts in management. The purpose of this paper is, first, to acquaint readers with some of factors of the development of the history of Russian Management Thought in nineteenth century and at the beginning of twentieth century and, second, to present the most striking results of the formation of the History of Soviet Management Thought (SMT) in post-revolutionary Russia in the form of the movement of the so-called “The scientific organization of labor” (SOL), including “The scientific organization of managerial labor” (or SOML). Design/methodology/approach The review and causal analysis of the process of formation of the SMT and historiography of the SMT, a brief description of the institutions of SOL and SOMT and a comparative analysis of little-known works of some Russian authors on management topics of nineteenth century are chosen as research methods. Findings The paper emphasizes the action of objective historical inertia (or “non-Markoviness”) of the process of development of managerial thought, manifested, on the one hand, in the stable action of some management paradigms but, on the other hand, in identifying paradigmatic anomalies, in identifying the need for constant development of managerial thought, in the development of sought-after ideas and concepts of management, and even in the institutionalization of applied scientific research in the field of management throughout the country (in the form of SOL and SOML). Originality/value The paper attempts to attract the attention of researchers to the little-known Russian and Soviet authors and their little-known works in the field of management thought.

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Brickell

Purpose – Many scholarly disciplines are currently engaged in a turn to affect, paying close attention to emotion, feeling and sensation. The purpose of this paper is to locate affect in relation to masculinity, time and space. Design/methodology/approach – It suggests that historically, in a range of settings, men have been connected to one another and to women, and these affective linkages tells much about the relational quality and texture of historically experienced masculinities. Findings – Spatial settings, in turn, facilitate, hinder and modify expressions and experiences of affect and social connectedness. This paper will bring space and time into conversation with affect, using two examples from late nineteenth-century New Zealand. Originality/value – If masculinities scholars often focus on what divides men from women and men from each other, the paper might think about how affect connects people.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-262
Author(s):  
Mark Tadajewski ◽  
D.G. Brian Jones

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical analysis of an important early contribution to the history of marketing thought literature – the six-book series titled The Knack of Selling – which was published in 1913 and intended as an early training course for salesmanship. Design/methodology/approach This research utilized a close, systematic reading of The Knack of Selling series and places it in the professional and intellectual context of the early twentieth century. Books published about marketing are primary source materials for any study of the history of marketing thought. In this case, The Knack series constitutes significant primary source material for a study of early thinking about personal selling. Findings Echoing A.W. Shaw, Watson offers a more sophisticated interpretation of the “one best way” approach associated with Frederick Taylor. Watson’s advice did not entail the repetition of canned sales talks to each customer. His vision of practice was more complicated. Sales presentations were temporally and locationally relative. They were subject to ongoing evolution. As the marketplace changed, as customer needs and interests shifted, so did organizational and salesperson performances. To keep sales talks relevant to the consumer, personnel were encouraged to undertake rudimentary ethnographic research and interviews. Unusually, there is oscillation in the way power relations between marketer and customer were described. While relational themes are present, so are military metaphors. Originality/value This is the first systematic reading of The Knack of Selling that has been produced. It is an important contribution to the literature inasmuch as this book set is not in wide circulation. The material itself was significant as an input into scholarship subsequently hailed as seminal within sales management.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 229-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Guenther

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain the discrepancy between ethnohistorical accounts on north-western Kalahari San of the nineteenth to early twentieth century and recent ethnographic accounts, the former depicting the San as intensely warlike, the latter as basically peaceable. Design/methodology/approach – Review of historical, ethnohistorical and ethnographic source material (reports, journal articles, monographs). Findings – The warlike ways of the nineteenth-century Kalahari San were reactions to settler intrusion, domination and encapsulation. This was met with resistance, a process that led to the rapid politicization and militarization, socially and ideationally, of San groups in the orbit of the intruders (especially the “tribal zone” they created). It culminated in internecine warfare, specifically raiding and feuding, amongst San bands and tribal groupings. Research limitations/implications – While the nineteenth-century Kalahari San were indeed warlike and aggressive, toward both intruders and one another, this fact does not warrant the conclusion that these “simple” hunter-gatherer people have an agonistic predisposition. Instead, of being integral to their sociality, bellicosity is historically contingent. In the absence of the historical circumstances that fuel San aggression and warfare, as was the case after and before the people's exposure and resistance to hegemonic intruders, San society and ethos, in conformity with the social structure and value orientation of simple, egalitarian band societies, is basically peaceful. Originality/value – A setting-the-record-straight corrective on current misunderstandings and misinformation on hunter-gatherer warfare.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Hawkins

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the development of marketing practice in Britain from the ancient to the early twentieth century. It builds upon the author’s chapter in the 2016 Routledge Companion to the History of Marketing. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a review of secondary history and archaeology literature supplemented by digitised historic newspaper and magazine advertising. The literature is frameworked using a modified version of Fullerton’s 1988 periodization which has been extended to include the medieval and Roman eras. Findings One of the significant findings of this paper is the key role the state has played in the development of marketing practice in Britain, the construction of pavements being a good example. Originality/value Apart from Nevett’s 1982 history of British advertising and the author’s Routledge Companion to the History of Marketing chapter, this is the first survey of the historical development of British marketing practice. It assembles and presents in a useful way important information. This paper will be of interest to marketing historians, especially students and researchers new to the subject.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 486-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Tadajewski

Purpose – This paper aims to provide a history of relational perspectives in marketing practice from the nineteenth through to the twentieth century. Design/methodology/approach – This paper engages in a systematic reading of published histories of retailing practice using the key attributes of transaction and relationship marketing as a conceptual framework to interrogate whether earlier practitioners were committed to either approach. Findings – This paper supplements the studies conducted in other domains that undermine the idea that relational practices were rejected in favor of transaction-type approaches during the industrialization of the USA and Canada. Practical implications – The content of this paper provides textbook authors with a means to fundamentally revise the way they discuss relationship marketing. It has a similar pedagogic utility. Originality/value – This paper studies the writings of practitioners known to be pioneers of retailing to unravel their business philosophies, comparing and contrasting these to known attributes of relationship marketing. It deals with an historical period that has not previously been studied in this level of detail by marketing historians.


2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Weckenmann ◽  
Goekhan Akkasoglu ◽  
Teresa Werner

Purpose – The continuous development of quality management in organizations was driven on the one hand by competition and on the other hand by growing requirements of the customers. Mass production with a pure push strategy changed to a more and more pull strategy with higher customer and market orientation. To satisfy the requirements of the triangle quality, cost and time the field of view of quality management has continuously been widened from considering “what” is done to “how” it is done. Nowadays the complexity and interrelations inside and outside of organizations increased with their global orientation. To face these global challenges, the purpose of this paper is to do a detailed analysis of the history of quality management that can support the initial position in development of specific tools and methods for quality improvement in organizations. Design/methodology/approach – For the historic analysis a well-founded literature review has been performed. After presenting the historical development of quality management, the current situation described. Finally an outlook for upcoming trends in quality management is provided by extrapolating current developments. Findings – Four different paradigm shifts in quality management are up to now identified and described, accompanied by a high number of smaller development steps. Current efforts for the further development of quality management encompass “perceived quality”, “human-focused quality management” and “intelligent quality management”. Originality/value – The paper gives a survey on the development of quality management and delivers a forecast on future requirements and trends in structuring the quality management in technical enterprises.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Philip O'Connor

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine how the “colleen” archetype was used in the creation of a successful brand personality for a range of soap manufactured in Ireland during the early twentieth century. It reveals the commercial and political agendas behind this move and the colleen's later application to Ulster unionist graphic propaganda against Home Rule between 1914 and 1916. Design/methodology/approach – This case study is based on an analysis of primary and secondary sources; the former encompassing both graphic advertising material and ephemera. Findings – This paper demonstrates how contemporary pictorial advertising for colleen soap was suffused with text and imagery propounding Ulster's preservation within the UK. It also suggests that the popularity of this brand personality may have been a factor in the colleen's appropriation for propaganda purposes by certain strands within Ulster unionism. Originality/value – This paper is based on original research that expands the historical corpus of Irish visual representation, while also adding notably to discourses within the History of Marketing and Women's History.


Author(s):  
Gavin Flood

On the one hand, we have the development of science from the seventeenth to nineteenth century, while on the other, we have a focus on life in philosophy at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Here, life is understood in terms of nature as a dynamic process linked to impulse or drive. Partly stemming from a mystical discourse in the seventeenth century, the concern for life comes to be disseminated through the history of both Romantic poetry and Romantic philosophy. This vitalist spirit can be traced through to the twentieth century. Life itself comes to be articulated through a mystical theological discourse that ends in Romantic poetry and through a philosophical discourse that ends in phenomenology.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chinmay Tumbe ◽  
Shashank Krishnakumar

Purpose This paper aims to understand the factors affecting the evolution of retailing in India since the mid-nineteenth century. Design/methodology/approach This paper compares the trajectories of four distinct retail stores in India – Spencer’s pan-Indian retailing empire since 1863, Akbarallys’ department store chain in Mumbai since 1897, Apna Bazar’s consumer cooperative chain in Mumbai since 1948 and the Future Group’s pan-Indian retailing chain since the 1980s. Historical sources include firm biographies and newspaper archives. Findings This paper proposes a systems theory linking environmental influences and service innovation, to explain the evolution of retailing in India since the mid-nineteenth century. The key environmental influence on retailing has been state patronage – colonialism and high-end department stores until the 1940s, socialism and cooperative stores until the 1980s and liberalisation with restricted foreign direct investment in retailing until 2015 associated with indigenous corporate large retail format stores. Service innovation in terms of home delivery and recreation of the bazaar atmosphere due to norms on gender and community have also interacted to shape individual success in modern retailing and the dominance of small shop retailing over the long run. Research limitations/implications This paper questions standard accounts of retailing history in India that began with the late-twentieth century by showing the scale of a pan-Indian retailing chain in the early-twentieth century. It also provides an account of retailers that is missing in the current literature on the history of consumption in India. Practical implications Findings of this study will be useful to marketing professionals and teachers who wish to learn more about the history of retailing in India. It also shows how retailers navigated changes in the regulatory and business environment. Originality/value Through a comparative study, this paper outlines the environmental influences on retail formats and service innovation strategies that are required to serve the Indian market. It also brings to fore the significance of retailing chains in colonial India.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Zhang

PurposeExpanding the research on traditional history of economic ideology into the research on the history of economics composed of three elements – history of ideology, history of policies and events – is a new idea for researching the history of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics. The start of the history of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics is consistent with that of the Sinicization of Marxist political economy and can be dated from at least 1917.Design/methodology/approachThe key point of the research on the history of ideologies of the socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics is to treat the relationship between theory and people properly, i.e. we should not neglect the effect brought out by the economists on theory construction while we attach importance to the theoretical contribution of the leaders and leading group of the Communist Party of China (CPC).FindingsFor the research on the history of economic policies of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics, on the one hand, we should clarify the relationship among ideologies, strategies and policies; on the other hand, we should not evade the summarization of lessons from history.Originality/valueBesides presenting the development route of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics under competition, the research on the events in the history of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics should also help develop the socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.


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