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The History of Progress Functions as a Managerial Technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

John M. Dutton ,
Annie Thomas  and
John E. Butler
John M. Dutton
Affiliation:
John M. Dutton is professor of management at New York University.
Annie Thomas
Affiliation:
Annie Thomas is assistant professor of management at New York University.
John E. Butler
Affiliation:
John E. Butler is instructor of management at New York University.
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , Summer 1984 , pp. 204 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1984

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