A business guru is a

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

that can be defined as 'a person with influential ideas or theories about business'. The earliest use of the term business guru can be tracked back to the 1960s being used in ''

Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

''. There are no existing qualifications that make someone a business guru. Anyone can become a business guru by making impact in a particular

industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

. It's also possible to claim to be a business guru at any time. It's not a title. The lists of people who have been accepted as business gurus have constantly changed over time. However, there are some people who have been accepted by a great majority as a business guru and also some organizations which have created their own lists of gurus. One English writer has described management gurus as "overwhelmingly a US phenomenon."

Examples and lists

There is no definitive list of business gurus, but some writers have proposed "personal" lists. These lists are mostly created by organizations such as business magazines or management writers. There have been many business guru lists created through history. A list consisting of people who are included in almost all of the lists created, collectively known as the "Famous Five", are:

Frederick Winslow Taylor Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 – March 21, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer. He was widely known for his methods to improve industrial efficiency. He was one of the first management consultants. In 1909, Taylor summed up hi ...

Michael Porter Michael Eugene Porter (born May 23, 1947) is an American academic known for his theories on economics, business strategy, and social causes. He is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, and he was one of t ...

Alfred Sloan Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. ( ; May 23, 1875February 17, 1966) was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time president, chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation. Sloan, first as a senior executive and lat ...

Peter Drucker Peter Ferdinand Drucker (; ; November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business co ...

, and

Douglas McGregor Douglas Murray McGregor (September 6, 1906 – October 1, 1964) was an American management professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and president of Antioch College from 1948 to 1954. He also taught at the Indian Institute of Management Ca ...

. In 2001, ''Harvard Business Review'' asked the gurus to name their favorite gurus. The people named were Peter Drucker, James March and Herbert Simon. Another list includes Peter Drucker, Michael Porter, and

Tom Peters Thomas J. Peters (born November 7, 1942) is an American writer on business management practices, best known for ''In Search of Excellence'' (co-authored with Robert H. Waterman Jr.) Life and education Peters was born in Baltimore, Maryland. ...

as the three leading gurus of our time. There are also many gurus who have emerged and disappeared through history. For example, the Japanese were known for making improvements to the business world and bringing out gurus in the 1980s, which included Keniche Ohmae and Akio Morita. Then European gurus emerged, which included Yves Doz, Geert Hofstede, Manfred Kets De Vries and Charles Handy.

Criticisms of "guru" status

One management expert,

Gary Hamel Gary P. Hamel (born 1954) is an American management consultant. He is a founder of Strategos, an international management consulting firm based in Chicago. Biography Hamel graduated from Andrews University in 1975, and from Ross School of Bus ...

, says there have been "few genuine breakthroughs" since the work of Taylor and

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...

. In his book, Hamel says that management is "stuck in a time warp." Similarly, even one of the authors of a book about management gurus warns that

management theory Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...

is "not served well by fads," citing

Enron Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional companies. ...

as a "

management fad Management fad is a term used to characterize a change in philosophy or operations implemented by a business or institution. The term is subjective and tends to be used in a pejorative sense, as it implies that such a change is being implemented ...

for its supposed culture of

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity ...

References

{{Reflist Management consulting

Examples and lists

Criticisms of "guru" status

See also

References