Journal of Marketing and Consumer Research www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8451 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.6, 2015 17 Management Controvercies: The Divergence and Convergence SAKA, R.O Department of Business Administration and Management Tech. Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria E-mail:sakarahmon@yahoo.com Abstract The paper examines the different perspectives in which contributions were made into the development of management thought. The objective is to examine the similarities and differences on existing contributions and how it has impacted on the development of management thought. The paper also highlights newly introduced concepts and asserts that these concepts will form the basis for current and future management controvercies as academic, practising and retire managers will continue to discuss them from different perspectives.The paper concludes that the state of management thought will continue to be controvercial since the contributors to the development of management are from different academic background and their views about organizations largely depends on the area of their disposition and also because management is all about human attitude and perception about the emerging situation in their immediate environment. Introduction The historical development of management is as old as mankind. The knowledge, idea and skill to manage man and materials in organisations, socieities and nation’s have been around since times immemorial. Many writers have used the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China as an evidence of managing projects of great importance with the mobilisation of huge human and material resources for its execution (George, 1968; Rao and Narayana 1989). The magnitude of these projects require proper planning, organising, and controlling without which such monemental projects would not have been satisfactorily completed. Awareness of the importance of management functions, practices and techniques indicate that organisations, societies and nations on how to manage have been around since antiquity. However, there was lack of management books and publications, this led to the search for a rational and systematic sciences of management that brought about the gathering of American Engineers in 1886 led by Henry Towne. This group, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) stressed the importance of management as a field of independent study (encyclopedia of Professional Management Vol 1 and 2). Recommendations were made for the development of writing and publication in area of management because of almost complete absense of managment literatures, absence of a medium for the exchange of administrative ideas and experiences and total lack of management associations. The above observations necesitated the need for revolution in the area of management. Consequently, there were deluge of research on the field of management, this has attracted the attention of psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, mathematicians, political scientists, economists and so on. Unfortunately, the approaches developed by these scholars have created chaos and resulted in a confused and destructive warforce (Rao, Narayana, 1989). As a result of these controversies a writer referred to management at its present state as theory of jungle (Koontz, 1961). Consequent upon the categorisation and the need to study management thereby influence further the need to prose into the existing writers in order to look at the differences and similarities of knowledge and idea and further concluded on the state of management thoughts. Emergence of Management Literature The collections of management literature will be analysed under the following; Classical theory; Neo classical theory; Modern theories. Classical theory Classical theorists were classified to be the early writers of management thought. Classical theory was developed in three streams; Sciencific management approach; Administrative approach; Bureaucratic approach Sciencific management approach This paper examines scientific management approach from three angles; Firstly, the paper considers the scientific management before Fredrick Taylor, secondly, scienctific management by Taylor and lastly, other views on scientific management. This is important in order to find out the differences or similarities in literature and contribution to knowledge. Scientific management before Fredrick Taylor There were discussions in the area of scientific management before Taylor. Writers like Charles Babbage, Henry Towne , Henry Metcalfe, e.tc had one way or the other mentioned in their respective work the scientific way of managing department or an organization. For example Charles Babbage (1792-1871), after proper observation of most factories in UK and France, found that most of the employees and business owners are guided purely by CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE): E-Journals