About Management: in the context of wise thoughts

In modern society, management is a subject which both scientists and practitioners pay close attention to, and this is not by accident. After all, management allows us to understand how to effectively control the actions of personnel, increase production efficiency, and successfully complete socio-economic tasks. In literature management is examined from two basic aspects: firstly, it is the science of managing people in specific organisational systems, and secondly, it is the art of administration, which includes a set of principles, methods, techniques and means of administration, in which a professional manager or entrepreneur has become proficient. O.S. Vikhansky and A.I. Naumov, leading specialists in management, affirm that there cannot be a singular definition of management, as it is multifaceted, but, undoubtedly, it is a specific type of action which supports the vital functioning of an organisation. In management, the worker occupies the central position; it is he who brings innovation to a company and makes it attractive for investment. That is why a market economy specifies strict requirements for the personnel's professional knowledge, skills, abilities, and business activity. The term "management" in scientific literature appeared relatively recently at the turn of the 20th century, and was introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915). The father of "scientific management", he was the first to use the terms "management" and "manager" in their modern-day meaning. The birth of management theory is connected with both Henri Fayol (1841-1925), who was the head of a large mining and smelting company in France for 40 years, and Walther Rathenau (1867-1992) in Germany, who, for the first time, addressed labour organisation and organisational structure in business. Further research showed that organisational structure is not an end in itself, but a tool to increase joint labour productivity. Each organisational structure is necessary in order to complete particular tasks under specified conditions and in a specified amount time. Thus, management is focused on the organisation of any form of ownership that achieves the planned results, which appear only in an external environment. The greatest and the most unique achievement of management in the 20 century was higher labour productivity in manufacturing. The most valuable parts of any organisation in the 21 century are its intellectual capital, knowledge workers, and their productivity, which is measured by the quality of their results. The term "knowledge worker" was introduced by Peter Drucker in the late 1960s. International experience in management is indisputable, but at the same time we should remember the important contribution made by Russian scientists and experts to the scientific organization of labour and production management. The period of 1920-1930 was the most productive for Russian administrative ideas. Even the simple enumeration of names shows the invaluable contribution to the advancement of science in organisation (A.A. Bogdanov), social engineering (A.K. Gastev), scientific organisation of labour and administration (O.A. Yermansky), management activity (P.M. Kerzhent-sev), social and labour concepts of production management (N.A. Vitke), and the theory of administrative capacity (F.R. Dunayevsky). In this work an attempt was made to examine the positions stated by scientists, philosophers, political figures, economists, writers, and businessmen in various epochs and time periods. As a matter of fact, these wise thoughts are the principles of practical management today. They should not be forgotten and it is necessary for us to consider and refer to them periodically. Considering that administrative thought has a long history, the material is arranged in chronological order alphabetically, from antiquity until the present day. There are no comments; the right to think is reserved for the reader. Our goal has predetermined the work's structure. It is composed of an introduction, nine sections, an afterword, tasks for evaluation and discussion, and a list of references. The foreword and tasks have been written by E.V. Nekhoda, a professor in the Department of Economics at Tomsk State University. This work is an illustrative example of the productive cooperation by the Department of Economics, the Biological Institute, and the Department of Foreign Languages at Tomsk State University. It is presented in both Russian and English. This anthology is dedicated to students, graduate students, lecturers, and everyone who is interested in the problems of effective management.

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