Revisiting the past Lijo John FPM 06/10-Q The sociological evolution of the human civilization can be traced

back to the times when hunting and gathering was the only economic activity carried out. As the civilization evolved into an agrarian society the thoughts started developing beyond the basic physiological needs and the need for better organization of the available resources became the next important economic activity (Massey, 2002). The culture we follow today is the summation of our past, knit into the fabric of social, economical and political norms of behavior. The management thought has always evolved in the social context of the culture of the society which needs it the most. Bedeain (2004) advocates the importance of learning the management thought in the context which it was developed. The understanding of the management thoughts and its evolution requires appreciation of the elements of our culture which are social, economic and political. The economic facet helps us to evaluate the market and its forces which existed long back in the history right from the agrarian era. The social facet sheds light on the relationship the men had with each other in a group and how these groups interacted with each other. The political facet describes the relation of the individual and the state where state was concept developed to protect and preserve the larger group of men. The political facet is perhaps the most important owing to the fact that the greater good was the factor which was used for the decisions and probably this was the concept which got corrupted (Wren and Bedeian, 2009). Surprisingly, the management thinkers of the ancient world, may it be in India, China or far west as in Europe or even Egypt, have developed some of the basic management thoughts like division of labour, span of control, basic principles of accountancy, product branding etc (Witzel, 2009), even when they were separated from each other not just geographically but they even belonged to different times in the history. This fact should prompt us to ask the very basic question that what could have been the common reason that similar thoughts were originating from different thinkers? The only reason that seems logical is chaos. The nature itself has a tendency to get back to it natural sate of calmness whenever its natural course is being disturbed. Whenever there is chaos, it tends to find a new equilibrium. Evidently due to increase in the economic activities when the management became chaotic the new equilibrium was achieved by the nature inform of different management thoughts. Massey (2002) compares the neo-classical economic thought and modern marketing philosophies and finds them contradicting. The economists argue that the evolution of the human thought through the history affects our consumer behavior in the sense of their preference taste and motivation, where as the marketing thinkers believe that consumers can be influenced to change their taste and motivation.

Webber (1967) advocates the Protestantism, which is essentially the capitalism in a religious framework. The Protestantism has essentially divided the society into class, by calling it the division of labour, for the economic growth of the society. The division of labour comes with the work culture which strongly advocated with the Christianity. Wright (2002) argues that this is pure exploitation of the working class where they are used for the profit maximization and their share of pie is not being given to them. The study of the historical development of the management thought is not just to understand the way they evolved but it is to develop a historical perspective of the evolution process itself. The knowledge of past is never obsolete but rather it becomes very important for us to analyze the ancient knowledge and to find the practical implication of the knowledge. The answers lies within, its just needs to be identified. References 1. Bedeain, A.G. (2004). The gift of professional maturity. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 3(1): 92-98 2. Massey, S.D. (2002), A brief history of human society: The origin and role of emotions in social life, American Sociological Review, 67(1): 1-29 3. Weber, Max, [1967](1997), Class counts, Cambridge M.A.: Cambridge University Press 4. Witzel, M. (2009). Why management history matter. EFMD Global Focus, 3(3): 20-23. 5. Wren, D.A. and Bedeian, A.G. (2009), The Evolution of Management Thought, 6th Ed.: John Wiley & Sons. 6. Wright, E.O.(2002), The shadow of exploitation in Weber class analysis, American Sociological Review, 67(6): 833-853