The History of Progress Functions as a Managerial Technology
- 1 January 1984
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Business History Review
- Vol. 58 (2) , 204-233
- https://doi.org/10.2307/3115048
Abstract
In this article, Professors Dutton, Thomas, and Butler trace the sixty-year history of a major managerial technology—the progress function—from its discovery in post-World War I airplane manufacture to its post-World War II popularity among management consultants. By statistically analyzing the large number of progress function studies, they demonstrate that its investigation has become balkanized by academic discipline, and that applied researchers have frequently ignored the contingencies stressed in the leading theoretical studies. Their article is thus a revealing example of how social scientific concepts get translated into business practice.Keywords
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