History

History of Administration

When inquiring into the history of the administration we must go back to the very needs of men to perform tasks in society. Although some historians try to trace the origin of the administration to the development of the first commercial activities on the part of the Sumerians and Egyptians, it should be noted that planning, organizing, and directing workgroup activities were already present from much more remote times, such as the case of the Paleolithic hunters.

The first vestiges of a stable social organization and therefore the first traces in the history of the administration date from the Paleolithic age, specifically in activities such as intensive hunting, which brings with it the collaboration of a social group, it is assumed formed by the “big family”; a sufficiently relevant and complex activity that required a direction and organization of resources. Since then, the hunter gradually evolved into a shepherd and a farmer, with the Neolithic revolution being a turning point

in the origin and development of some concepts typical of the area of administrative knowledge, since the transition from predator man to producer man implied a massive introduction of work as a daily activity, as well as the establishment of a structured social system.

Throughout time the farmer became a worker, first as a craftsman developing manual work, and then as a controller of machinery; since the industrial revolution and as productive activities intensified, in the same way, the difficulties between workers and employers increased, both due to incentives and the management of material resources, symptoms that gave way to what is known as the «scientific school of administration» Founded in 1895 by the contributions of Frederick Taylor, whose first objective was to face the problems of workshop management through scientific management, with contributions such as Taylor’s mental revolution, the development of the study of movements of the Gilbreth spouses, philosophy of direction of Henry Gantt, Emerson’s efficiency primes.

It was around these times that the history of administration was interwoven with the history of industrial engineering. As a result of the scientific school, the first five general principles of administration were considered:

Organized knowledge: Substitution of arbitrary rules for science. Work synergy: Harmony within the workgroups.
Achieve cooperation between human beings.
Work in search of maximum and efficient production.
Comprehensive development of workers

Already in the 20th century, what is known as the tertiary sector, also called office work, rapidly developed, which led to a change of approach from the hitherto developed administrative theory. In 1916, Henri Fayol divided business and industrial operations into six groups: technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting, and administration. This division is considered the starting point of classical management school.

For Fayol, the administrative function should only be aimed at the social body, while the other functions affect raw materials and machinery, the administrative function only works on the company’s personnel. Thus then the 14 principles of the classical management school were considered: