The Psychological Transition From Management Scientist to Manager

In this paper we endeavor to show how a management scientist maintains his integrity and individuality while changing from a staff position to a consultant position and eventually to a top executive position in a large company. It is a segment of a longitudinal study and is presented in a special format, which makes it possible to present the data at all.

In the introduction we utilize an historical sketch of the management field to show at what time in the development of management science this particular person's career started and, thereby, some of the factors which helped mold his personal and character values. The vicissitudes of the problem are elaborated and background material given for the understanding of the issues involved. We hope to encourage others to present similar segments of longitudinal studies which, we feel, will help people seriously engaged in this field to develop theories based on clinically-gathered data and which will, therefore, be closer to the truth of what really happens under certain conditions in which certain human beings have an impact on large-scale organizations and vice versa.