Organizing for Effective Management in the Post Industrial Age

Management organizations have evolved over hundreds of years. The industrial revolution became the driving force towards segmentation of management and administrative functions into smaller or distinct responsibilities that led to increased delegation of decisions under some unified overall control. As industrial companies grew so did their management organizations which soon developed into increasingly hierarchical structures in which delegation became the principal function. As industries grew, firms developed to provide the financial, transportation, and other services required by industries and the individual employed by them.

Service firms similarly found management decision requirements to be too complex for individuals to handle and also developed organizational structures based on decision segmentation and delegation. Since then, management organizations have often evolved into self-effacing entities that consider themselves the industrial or service entity with other parts of the firm, such as manufacturing or serving, simple adjuncts. In other words, management organizations designed to improve facilitation and control of productive activities of a firm or entity now often consider themselves the entity.