Management began to materialize as a practice during the Industrial Revolution, as large corporations began to emerge in the late 19th century and developed and expanded into the early 20th century. Many large corporations during the early 1900s did not have any competition and thus dominated their industries. At the time, each employee was seen as a cog in a wheel - a useful yet expendable part of a business's operation. But the development of the assembly line in the 1910s and 1920s and the attendant automation of production processes drove changes in management strategy and required businesses to rethink how they managed their resources (i.e. their people, finances, capital, and tangible assets). The fundamental concepts of modern management were famously explored by Frederick Winslow Taylor, an American engineer who wrote The Principles of Scientific Management. Published in 1911 and based on research conducted by Taylor, the book's analysis aimed to couple the efficiency needs of a business with the specialized talents of its employees. Taylor's conclusion was that employees are almost always driven by the desire to earn money. Because businesses at the time had very little production capacity, the principles of management aimed toward driving sales by enticing employees with more money for increased production. As such, modern management's focus was on producing as much product as possible to meet consumer demand for goods and services. 

By the late 20th century, automation, higher educational levels, and the push for speed had changed management practices, and businesses had by and large moved away from a top-down, centralized direction style and toward leaner organization with less regimentation. Nevertheless, Taylor's theories and their lessons remain important as a foundation for understanding how to manage large projects that require a variety of skills and a large number of workers. 

This course will illustrate the ways in which the practice of management evolves as firms grow in size. Historically, middle managers have served as so-called "gatekeepers" who collect, analyze, and pass information up and down the management chain within an organization. But two recent developments at the turn of the 21st century - namely, low-cost data manipulation in computers and the emergence of widespread, real-time communication (in the forms of inexpensive, long-distance global calling, email, text messaging, and social media) - have reduced the need for these middle-manager gatekeepers, and companies have eliminated thousands of such positions. The goal? To speed the flow of information and decision-making and reduce the number of layers that separate the customer from the leadership of an organization. 

This course is based upon the idea that the essential purpose of a business is to produce products and services in order to meet the needs and wants of the marketplace. A manager marshals an organization's resources (its people, finances, facilities, and equipment) toward this fundamental goal. In this course, you will explore the tasks that today's managers perform and delve into the key knowledge areas that managers need to master in order to run successful and profitable businesses.