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Publications
Publications
  • Summer 2021
  • Article
  • Oxford Review of Economic Policy

The Origin and Development of Firm Management

By: Michela Giorcelli
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

This paper examines the historical origin and diffusion of management practices. Despite their centrality in the modern world, the concepts of ‘management’ developed fairly recently. Only with the Industrial Revolution, due to the increased firm size, owners needed a management structure to coordinate activities across different plants. Management soon became the subject of numerous studies in economics, sociology, and psychology to maximize firm productivity. The first large-scale programme of management practices diffusion was developed in the U.S. during the Second World War: offering such training to U.S. firms involved in war production boosted their performance for at least 10 years. After the Second World War, the U.S. exported its management principles to Europe, where they have large and persistent effects on small firm productivity, and to Japan, where they interacted with the local economic conditions and originated the ‘kaizen Japanese management’, which aims at ‘continuous improvement’ in firm performance.

Keywords

Productivity; Kaizen; Management; Management Practices and Processes; History; Performance Productivity; Technology

Citation

Giorcelli, Michela. "The Origin and Development of Firm Management." Oxford Review of Economic Policy 37, no. 2 (Summer 2021): 259–275.
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More from the Author

    • May 2021
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    Evolution of the Indian LPG Industry: Exploring Conditions for Public Sector Business Model Innovation

    By: Renu Agarwal, Neeraj Mittal, Eric Patterson and Michela Giorcelli
    • Journal of Political Economy

    Copyright and Creativity: Evidence from Italian Opera in the Napoleonic Age​

    By: Michela Giorcelli and Petra Moser
    • October 2020
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    Scientific Education and Innovation: From Technical Diplomas to University Stem Degrees

    By: Nicola Bianchi and Michela Giorcelli
More from the Author
  • Evolution of the Indian LPG Industry: Exploring Conditions for Public Sector Business Model Innovation By: Renu Agarwal, Neeraj Mittal, Eric Patterson and Michela Giorcelli
  • Copyright and Creativity: Evidence from Italian Opera in the Napoleonic Age​ By: Michela Giorcelli and Petra Moser
  • Scientific Education and Innovation: From Technical Diplomas to University Stem Degrees By: Nicola Bianchi and Michela Giorcelli
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