Peter Ferdinand Drucker (1909 – 2005)
Peter Drucker was an author of management-related literature. He made famous
the term knowledge worker and is thought to have unknowingly ushered in the
knowledge economy, which effectively challenges Karl Marx's world-view of the
political economy. Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I, there
were few opportunities for employment in Vienna so after finishing school he
went to Germany, first working in banking and then in journalism. While in
Germany, he earned a doctorate in International Law. The rise of Nazism forced
him to leave Germany in 1933. After spending four years in London, in 1937 he
moved permanently to the United States, where he became a university professor
as well as a freelance writer and business guru. In 1943 he became a naturalized
citizen of the United States. He taught at New York University as a Professor of
Management from 1950 to 1971. From 1971 to his death he was the Clarke Professor
of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University.
His career as a business thinker took off in 1945, when his initial writings on
politics and society won him access to the internal workings of General Motors,
one of the largest companies in the world at that time. His experiences in
Europe had left him fascinated with the problem of authority. He shared his
fascination with Donaldson Brown, the mastermind behind the administrative
controls at GM. Brown invited him in to conduct what might be called a political
audit. The resulting Concept of the Corporation popularized GM's multidivisional
structure and led to numerous articles, consulting engagements, and additional
books.
Drucker was interested in the growing impact of people who worked with their
minds rather than their hands. He was intrigued by employees who knew more about
certain subjects than their bosses or colleagues and yet had to cooperate with
others in a large organization. His approach worked well in the increasingly
mature business world of the second half of the twentieth century. By that time,
large corporations had developed the basic manufacturing efficiencies and
managerial hierarchies of mass production. Executives thought they knew how to
run companies, and Drucker took it upon himself to poke holes in their beliefs,
lest organizations become stale. But he did so in a sympathetic way. He assumed
that his readers were intelligent, rational, hardworking people of good will. If
their organizations struggled, he believed it was usually because of outdated
ideas, a narrow conception of problem, or internal misunderstandings.
Drucker is the author of thirty-nine books. Two of his books are novels, one an
autobiography. He is the co-author of a book on Japanese painting, and has made
four series of educational films on management topics. From 1975 to 1995 was an
editorial columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and was a frequent contributor
to the Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Economist.
Drucker died in 2005 in Claremont, California of natural causes.
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