Abstract
An article by Dr. W. H. Coates in the January number of the Journal of Careers reviews the developments in industry which have led to the creation of specialised posts in industrial management. These developments are the outcome of the changed conditions of industry and the heavier demands upon human qualities in management which are made by the growth of the scale of industrial enterprise and organisation. Where formerly several men filled one function in several small businesses, there are now several men each specialising in one function in large-scale business. These specialised activities can be broadly classified as they are concerned with production, sales or administration. We thus have the new key positions such as planning and production manager, transport manager, sales manager, secretary, personnel manager, labour officer, purchasing officer, etc. Specialisation in this way, concentration of research, thought, and practice within a limited field, is steadily leading to more efficient management, to fuller knowledge and to new ideas, and affords also a way of applying the scientific method to an increasing extent to the problems of administrative and executive control. Dr. Coates visualises alike a large field in which scientific methods have to be applied with an accuracy, patience and persistence comparable with those applied in the fields of physical science, and a field of human co-operation which makes large demands upon team work if the problems of large-scale industrial management are to be solved. Given such conditions, Dr. Coates sees no limits to successful management implicit in the size of the undertaking, and is confident that there is no lack of young men who are capable of tackling the present and future problems of large-scale management.
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Specialist Posts in Industrial Management. Nature 131, 268 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131268b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131268b0