The Canadian academic, Henry Mintzberg who had trained as a mechanical engineer, wrote his PhD thesis at the MIT Sloan School of Management analysing the actual work habits and time management of chief executive officers (CEOs). In 1973, Mintzberg's thesis on the nature of managerial work was adopted as a study and published for a wider audience. Mintzberg's...

By the late 1960's, the American academic, James Thompson, overcame a major limitation of Woodward's earlier technology typology by including both manufacturing and service organisations. Technology, an important factor in contingency theory, assumed that the type of technology determined an organisation's most effective internal structure. Thompson based...

Michael Porter published the Value Chain Analysis in 1985 as a response to criticism that his Five Forces framework lacked an implementation methodology that bridged the gap between internal capabilities and opportunities in the competitive landscape. This framework focused on industry attractiveness as a determinant of the profit potential of all companies...

Henri Fayol, the father of the school of Systematic Management, realised that organisations were becoming more complex and required their managers to work more professionally. His motivation was to create a theoretical foundation for an educational program for managers who lacked formal training in those days. Basing his work on his experience as a successful...