What Management Says and What Managers Do

Of the existing literature on management, 95 percent is American, and most of the rest is paraphrased or lifted from the American literature. Leading the field in prestige and circulation (160,000) is Harvard Business Review. Like the school from which it issues, H. B. R. is a major fount of MANAGEMENT, as distinguished from management. Management is what managers do. MANAGEMENT is a view of what managers do at major corporations—a view shared by business schools, management consultants, and many business and management journals.

Accordingly, the appearance of On Management (Harper & Row, $17.95), articles selected from twenty-five years of H. B. R., is an event of some importance. The book should be considered not only in terms of its contents (which are undated to emphasize their timelessness), but also in terms of the opportunity it affords us to examine MANAGEMENT, its relevance to real-life management, and its profound influence upon the way we work and live.