Edwin F. Gay, Arch W. Shaw, and the uses of history in early graduate business education

Abstract

Notes that the collaboration between Edwin F. Gay, founding dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and Arch W. Shaw, a Chicago publisher, exemplifies the significance of historical sensibility on the origins of US management studies. Points out that the attention they gave to historical methods and data as tools of inquiry reflected Gay’s professional training in economic history, but it also reflected the sense both men had of the significance of institutions and institutional patterns in business life. Both men also urged more attention to distribution as a serious topic for academic research and teaching, and also recognized co‐ordinating activity as a central function of modern management. Adds that the potential gains from scale economies depended on how well general managers filled this function, and that for this task managers required an outlook that transcended technical expertise. Suggests that they had to understand the broader institutional setting in which they managed and that historical awareness could illuminate that context.

Citation

Cuff, R. (1996), "Edwin F. Gay, Arch W. Shaw, and the uses of history in early graduate business education", Journal of Management History (Archive), Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 9-25. https://doi.org/10.1108/13552529610127687