Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-05-18
Source: The Conversation – France (in French)– By Régis Martineau, PhD in Management, ICN Business School
How to manage well? This question is regularly brought back to the agenda following a cycle, where social concerns are eclipsed and then brought back to the center of attention. A look back at more than a century of management.
This article is published as part of a partnership with the Revue française de gestion, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025.
It has been known since Schumpeter that capitalism, under the impact of various technological revolutions, continually adapts and evolves. But there is less focus on how organizations have changed their management methods to support these transformations.
It is therefore interesting, at a time when algorithmic management is sweeping through organizations, to look back at this evolution and to notice that these methods do not follow a linear progression (from the simplest to the most sophisticated), as one might have thought, but rather oscillate between closure and openness.
Emergence of the organizational chart
Even if a sophisticated managerial thought existed as early as the 16th centuryeCentury in pre-modern organizations (double-entry bookkeeping, for example, dates back to the 15th centuryeIn the century), traditional management was quite informal. Formalized and widely disseminated management systems appeared with the advent of steam power and railways. Indeed, to cope with the difficulty of managing their size and complexity, large geographically dispersed organizations relied on hierarchical lines, represented in organizational charts (1850-1870).
In contrast to the traditional enterprise that prevailed before, the organization becomes professionalized, with clear delegations of responsibilities, and tight monitoring systems that show little concern for the living conditions of the workers. In response, strikes and social movements then shake the Western world. A form of paternalism heavily influenced by religious charity emerges (1870-1900).
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Some industrial captains indeed take on the mission of educating the “common people” who, left to themselves, have a troublesome tendency to indulge in drunkenness (or, worse, to lend an ear to socialist agitators). In the Anglo-Saxon world, for example, the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) develop; and in France, the emergence offamilistères, like the one in Guise, which can still be visited today, created by the industrialist Godin.
An eternal repetition
A pattern emerges that will repeat in subsequent cycles: initially, managerial methods, in response to technological changes, seek to find an efficient organization without truly paying attention to the workers, who are seen only as cogs in a machine; then, secondarily, under pressure from social movements and recurring dysfunctions, new managerial methods take better account of the needs of individuals at work and give more importance to their initiatives.
From 1860 onwards, steel and electricity came to revolutionize the ways of constructing railways, and then the entire industry. Organizations learned to organize increasingly complex production processes in a more rational manner. It was then that Taylor experimented with and developed scientific management (1900-1925), which subjected the worker to the pace of the machine.
Then, the story is well known: in reaction to the dysfunctions and alienating consequences of scientific management, psychosociologists such as Elton Mayo or Kurt Lewin focused on the working conditions of employees. These theorists of the human relations movement (1925-1955) demonstrated that employees are above all social beings guided by a need for belonging and recognition. Systems of compensation, participative decision-making methods andjob enrichmentappear.
The organization as a computer program
This closure/opening pattern continues with the following technological revolution: that of the automobile and gasoline. In response to the diversification and increasing complexity of markets and customers, the multi-decision-making organization develops, allowing differentiation strategies to be pursued; and, at the same time, the metaphor of the organization as a computer program (that is, a system to be rationalized) dominates this period (1955-1975). Employees are largely absent from these arrangements.
In reaction (and because of competition from Japanese companies), a new approach, Total Quality Management, developed (1975-1990). Here, the role of work is central: employees are seen as resources and are encouraged to express themselves and to participate in the organization of the production process. Similarly, in the 1980s, the importance of organizational culture to channel employee involvement, motivation, and loyalty was recognized.
Back to the work groups
But then, computer advances increasingly allow for the standardization and rationalization of interfaces between services in order to facilitate the flow of information within and between firms (1990-2000). Systems like those of the company SAP are widely and standardly disseminated, but these devices are criticized for their tendency to be implemented in a mannertop down. Since then, different trends have emerged, all aiming to pay more attention to work collectives and tacit knowledge: Knowledge Management, communities of practice, agile methods, liberated companies, and alsocoworking spaces.
Each time, in reaction to overly standardized management models presented as ‘ready-made’ solutions, or even miracle solutions, less rationalistic and more human-centered approaches have appeared. Today, with the arrival of artificial intelligence, algorithmic management is developing.
And, once again, an initial movement of closure is observed: employee monitoring becomes tighter, more intrusive, and more opaque. But already, more and more calls for a more open AI are being heard, perhaps heralding a new cycle where innovative managerial methods would restore, once again, a central place for individuals at work.
Régis Martineau does not work for, advise, hold shares in, or receive funding from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliations than his research organization.
–ref. A brief history of management methods –https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-managerial-methods-282795