Universal Education for the Management Sciences

As we move toward more complex ways of controlling production and distribution of a greater variety of goods and services through ever more complicated technology, it is perhaps natural that some should entertain the illusion that automation will ultimately take the place of human effort in supplying our needs. We hear daily that this or that management group will soon be replaced by the computer.

But in truth, the evidence is that the need for managers is greater than ever and that the supply lags ever further—in quality and quantity—behind the still growing demand. As John Fischer puts it in Harper's Magazine (4): “Our inability to locate enough first rate management talent in many fields—from college president to corporate controller, from regional planner to operations analyst—may yet prove to be the breakdown point in our civilization.”

In this paper I wish to advance the idea that universal education in management sciences is as urgent—perhaps even more urgent—a need as education in the physical and biological sciences.

Management Technology, ISSN 0542-4917, was published as a separate journal from 1960 to 1964. In 1965 it was merged into Management Science.