REVIEW - Conclusion

Management has evolved over many centuries in response to the needs of groups of people to achieve objectives that could not be attained by individuals alone. The study of management has usually been concentrated on specific subject areas or topics that happened to appear relevant at a particular period of time. Subjects have ranged from manufacturing methods to mathematical financial models to racial and gender discrimination. Almost any topic from pet cats to rocket science has seemed to be a suitable subject to which the word management might be attached. In order to justify the absence of a sound theoretical basis for management the argument has often been used that management is as much an art as a science. Such an argument may be applicable to fishing and origami, but is hardly a rational justification for failing to seek a basic management theory. To use existing management texts as the basis for any general theory is therefore impracticable and unwise. In contrast, this present study has attempted to define clearly and unambiguously, from first principles, the essential components and their characteristics of a universe in which management is a fundamental requirement. It has also attempted to demonstrate concepts that can be used generally throughout the Management Universe, rather than within restricted areas or applications.

Management in Britain and America at the beginning of the Twenty-first Century revealed abysmal weaknesses in both the practice and performance of management. Losses of billions of pounds of shareholders’ money, the redundancy of thousands of workers, and the collapse of industries were not merely due to economic forces. These failures were due frequently to the incompetence of executives and to bad management. Similar examples of disastrous corporate performances occurred elsewhere. Clearly such management practices were not based on sound principles or any sort of valid theoretical framework. It is irrelevant to suggest that globalisation and large scale management have generated huge benefits compared to the relatively few failures. Such an argument would justify allowing bridges to collapse as long as the majority of them were sound. The many thousands of texts and vast body of knowledge on the subject of management appear to have been of little value in preventing catastrophic management blunders and their continuing occurrence.

The logic on which the analysis and synthesis of this General Theory is based is that of the English Language. Words do not exist in splendid isolation, but represent concepts that have clear relationships to other words and their meanings. Politicians, diplomats, public relations experts, and many managers consciously or unconsciously use combinations of words that are ambiguous, misleading, obscure, or even meaningless. In contrast logic and the precise definition of words depend on the use of other words, — all of which are defined in dictionaries. The careful choice of single words to describe unique concepts is an essential starting point. The precise relationship between these words and the concepts they define, and the other words to which they relate are the fundamental basis for this General Theory.

PART 7

Conclusion