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
corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...
. He was also a leader in the development of management education, he invented the concept known as
management by objectives Management by objectives (MBO), also known as management by planning (MBP), was first popularized by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book ''The Practice of Management''.Drucker, P., ''The Practice of Management'', Harper, New York, 1954; Heinemann, London ...
and
self-control
Self-control, an aspect of inhibitory control, is the ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior in the face of temptations and impulses. As an executive function, it is a cognitive process that is necessary for regulating one' ...
, and he has been described as "the founder of modern management".
Drucker's books and articles, both scholarly and popular, explored how humans are organized across the business, government, and
nonprofit sectors of society.
[Why Drucker Now?](_blank)
, Drucker Institute. He is one of the best-known and most widely influential thinkers and writers on the subject of management theory and practice. His writings have predicted many of the major developments of the late twentieth century, including privatization and decentralization; the rise of Japan to economic world power; the decisive importance of marketing; and the emergence of the information society with its necessity of lifelong learning.
In 1959, Drucker coined the term "
knowledge worker
Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge. Examples include programmers, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, scientists, design thinkers, public accountants, lawyers, editors, and academics, whose job is ...
", and later in his life considered knowledge-worker productivity to be the next frontier of management.
Biography
Drucker grew up in what he referred to as a "liberal"
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
Protestant household in
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
. Both of his parents were of
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
origin. His mother Caroline Bondi had studied medicine and his father Adolf Drucker was a lawyer and high-level civil servant.
[Drucker, Peter F. ''Adventures of a Bystander'', 1979.] Drucker was born in Vienna, Austria, in the 19th district of
Vienna-Döbling.
[Peter F. Drucker: A Biography in Progress](_blank)
p. 1, at his website He grew up in a home where intellectuals, high government officials, and scientists would meet to discuss new ideas. These included
Joseph Schumpeter
Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at H ...
,
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...
and
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (; 29 September 1881 – 10 October 1973) was an Austrian School economist, historian, logician, and Sociology, sociologist. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the societal contributions of classical liberali ...
.
Hans Kelsen
Hans Kelsen (; ; October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He was the author of the 1920 Austrian Constitution, which to a very large degree is still valid today. Due to the rise ...
was his uncle.
After graduating from Döbling
Gymnasium in 1927,
[ Drucker found few opportunities for employment in post-]World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
Vienna, so he moved to Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
, Germany, first working as an apprentice at an established cotton trading company, then as a journalist, writing for ''Der Österreichische Volkswirt
''Der Österreichische Volkswirt'' (also known as ''ÖVW''; German: ''The Austrian Economist'') was an economics and political magazine published between 1908 and 1998 with an interruption from 1939 to 1945 in Vienna, Austria. It was the first b ...
'' (''The Austrian Economist''). Drucker then moved to Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
, where he took a job at the Daily ''Frankfurter General-Anzeiger''. While in Frankfurt, he also earned a doctorate in international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
and public law from the Goethe University Frankfurt in 1931.
In 1933, Drucker left Germany for England. In London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, he worked for an insurance company, then as the chief economist at a private bank.[Peter F. Drucker: A Biography in Progress](_blank)
p. 6, at this website He also reconnected with Doris Schmitz, an acquaintance from the University of Frankfurt, and they married in 1934.[Certified copy of Peter and Doris Drucker’s marriage certificate](_blank)
The Drucker Institute Archives, Box 39, Folder 11, Claremont, California. The couple permanently relocated to the United States, where he became a university professor as well as a freelance writer and business consultant.
In 1943, Drucker became a naturalized citizen
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
of the United States. He then had a distinguished career as a teacher, first as a professor of politics and philosophy at Bennington College
Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...
from 1942 to 1949, then twenty-two years at New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
as a Professor of Management from 1950 to 1971.
Drucker went to California in 1971, where he developed one of the country's first executive MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
programs for working professionals at Claremont Graduate University (then known as Claremont Graduate School). From 1971 until his death, he was the Clarke Professor of Social Science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...
and Management at Claremont.[''The Essential Drucker'' (2001)] Claremont Graduate University's management school was named the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management in his honor in 1987 (later renamed the ). He established the Drucker Archives at Claremont Graduate University in 1999; the Archives became the Drucker Institute in 2006. Drucker taught his last class in 2002 at age 92. He continued to act as a consultant to businesses and nonprofit organizations well into his nineties.
Drucker died November 11, 2005, in Claremont, California, of natural causes aged 95. He had four children. Drucker's wife Doris died in October 2014 at the age of 103.
Work and philosophy
Early influences
Among Drucker's early influences was the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter
Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at H ...
, a friend of his father's, who impressed upon Drucker the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship. Drucker was also influenced, in a much different way, by John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...
, whom he heard lecture in 1934 in Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
. "I suddenly realized that Keynes and all the brilliant economic students in the room were interested in the behavior of commodities", Drucker wrote, "while I was interested in the behavior of people".
Over the next 70 years, Drucker's writings would be marked by a focus on relationships among human beings, as opposed to the crunching of numbers. His books were filled with lessons on how organizations can bring out the best in people, and how workers can find a sense of community and dignity in a modern society organized around large institutions. As a business consultant, Drucker disliked the term "guru", though it was often applied to him; "I have been saying for many years", Drucker once remarked, "that we are using the word 'guru' only because 'charlatan
A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, power, fame, or other advantages through pretense or deception. Synonyms for ''charlatan'' include '' ...
' is too long to fit into a headline."
As a young writer, Drucker wrote two pieces – one on the conservative German philosopher Friedrich Julius Stahl
Friedrich Julius Stahl (16 January 1802 – 10 August 1861), German constitutional lawyer, political philosopher and politician.
Biography
Born at Würzburg, of Jewish parentage, as Julius Jolson, he was brought up strictly in the Jewish religi ...
and another called "
The Jewish Question in Germany
'" – that were burned and banned by the Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
. In 1939 he published a contemporary analysis of the rise of fascism called "The End of Economic Man". This was his first book, published in New York, in English. In the introduction he refers to " The Jewish Question in Germany" saying "An early excerpt f this bookwas published as a pamphlet by an Austrian Catholic and Anti-Nazi in ... 1936".
The "business thinker"
Drucker's career as a business thinker took off in 1942, when his initial writings on politics and society won him access to the internal workings of General Motors (GM), 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
Frank Donaldson Brown (February 1, 1885 – October 2, 1965) was a financial executive and corporate director with both DuPont and General Motors Corporation. He is the originator of DuPont analysis, a widely used technique in finance.
He ...
, the mastermind behind the administrative controls at GM. In 1943 Brown invited him in to conduct what might be called a "political audit": a two-year social-scientific analysis of the corporation. Drucker attended every board meeting, interviewed employees, and analyzed production and decision-making processes.
The resulting book, ''Concept of the Corporation
''Concept of the Corporation'' (1946) is a book by management professor and sociologist Peter Drucker.
Overview
The book is an examination of General Motors' operations, delving into how large corporations impact society on a broad level. Druck ...
'', popularized GM's multidivisional structure and led to numerous articles, consulting engagements, and additional books. GM, however, was hardly thrilled with the final product. Drucker had suggested that the auto giant might want to re-examine a host of long-standing policies on customer relations, dealer relations, employee relations and more. Inside the corporation, Drucker's counsel was viewed as hypercritical. GM's revered chairman, 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 l ...
, was so upset about the book that he "simply treated it as if it did not exist," Drucker later recalled, "never mentioning it and never allowing it to be mentioned in his presence."
Drucker taught that management is "a liberal art", and he infused his management advice with interdisciplinary lessons from history, sociology, psychology, philosophy, culture and religion. He also believed strongly that all institutions, including those in the private sector, have a responsibility to the whole of society. "The fact is," Drucker wrote in his 1973 ''Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices'', "that in modern society there is no other leadership group but managers. If the managers of our major institutions, and especially of business, do not take responsibility for the common good
In philosophy, economics, and political science, the common good (also commonwealth, general welfare, or public benefit) is either what is shared and beneficial for all or most members of a given community, or alternatively, what is achieved by c ...
, no one else can or will."
Drucker was interested in the growing effect 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. Rather than simply glorify the phenomenon as the epitome of human progress, Drucker analyzed it, and explained how it challenged the common thinking about how organizations should be run.
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 problems, or internal misunderstandings.
Drucker developed an extensive consulting business built around his personal relationship with top management. He became legendary among many of post-war Japan's new business leaders trying to rebuild their war-torn homeland. He advised the heads of General Motors, Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
, General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...
, W.R. Grace
William Russell Grace (May 10, 1832 – March 21, 1904) was an Irish-American politician, the first Roman Catholic mayor of New York City, and the founder of W. R. Grace and Company.
Early life
Grace was born in Ireland in Riverstown near the ...
and IBM, among many others. Over time he offered his management advice to nonprofits like the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. His advice was eagerly sought by the senior executives of the Adela Investment Company
The Adela Investment Company was a private investment corporation created by multinational companies to promote economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Adela operated from 1965 to 1980 and was dissolved in 1994. During ...
, a private initiative of the world's multinational corporations to promote investment in the developing countries of Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
.
Writings
Drucker's 39 books have been translated into more than thirty-six languages. Two are novels, and one – ''Adventures of a Bystander'' (1978) – is an autobiography. He is the co-author of a book on Japanese painting
is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competitio ...
, and made eight series of educational films on management topics. He also penned a regular column in the ''Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' for 10 years and contributed frequently to the ''Harvard Business Review
''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Ma ...
'', ''The Atlantic Monthly
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', and ''The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
''.
His work is especially popular in Japan, even more so after the publication of " What If the Female Manager of a High-School Baseball Team Read Drucker's ''Management"'', a novel that features the main character using one of his books to great effect, which was also adapted into an anime and a live action film. His popularity in Japan may be compared with that of his contemporary W. Edwards Deming
William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant. Educated initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical ...
.
Key ideas
* Decentralization
Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group.
Conce ...
and simplification. Drucker discounted the command and control
Command and control (abbr. C2) is a "set of organizational and technical attributes and processes ... hatemploys human, physical, and information resources to solve problems and accomplish missions" to achieve the goals of an organization or en ...
model and asserted that companies work best when they are decentralized. According to Drucker, corporations tend to produce too many products, hire employees they don't need (when a better solution would be outsourcing), and expand into economic sectors that they should avoid.
* The prediction of the decline and marginalization of the "blue collar
A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and power ...
" worker.
* The concept of what eventually came to be known as " outsourcing". He used the example of "front room" and "back room" of each business: a company should be engaged in only the front room activities that are critical to supporting its core business
The core business of an organization is an idealized construct intended to express that organization's "main" or "essential" activity.
Core business process means that a business's success depends not only on how well each department performs its ...
. Back room activities should be handed over to other companies, for whom these tasks are the front room activities.
* The importance of the nonprofit sector, which he calls the third sector (the private and government sectors being the first two). Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play crucial roles in the economies of countries around the world.
* A profound skepticism of macroeconomic
Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix ''makro-'' meaning "large" + ''economics'') is a branch of economics dealing with performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole.
For example, using interest rates, taxes, and ...
theory. Drucker contended that economists of all schools fail to explain significant aspects of modern economies.
* A lament that the sole focus of microeconomics is price
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the ...
. Drucker noted that microeconomics fails to show what products actually do for us, thereby stimulating commercial interest in how to calculate what products actually do for us from their price.
*Economic chain costing: the idea that a competitive company needs to know the costs of its entire economic chain, not simply the costs for which it is responsible as an individual business within that chain. "What matters ... is the economic reality, the costs of the entire roductionprocess, regardless of who owns what."
* Respect for the worker: Drucker believed that employees are assets not liabilities. He taught that knowledgeable workers are the essential ingredients of the modern economy, and that a hybrid management model is the sole method of demonstrating an employee's value to the organization. Central to this philosophy is the view that people are an organization's most valuable resource, and that a manager's job is both to prepare people to perform and to give them freedom to do so.
* A belief in what he called "the sickness of government". Drucker made nonpartisan claims that government is often unable or unwilling to provide new services that people need and/or want, though he believed that this condition is not intrinsic to the form of government. The chapter "The Sickness of Government", in his book ''The Age of Discontinuity'', formed the basis of New Public Management
New Public Management (NPM) is an approach to running public service organizations that is used in government and public service institutions and agencies, at both sub-national and national levels. The term was first introduced by academics in the ...
, a theory of public administration that dominated the discipline in the 1980s and 1990s.
* The need for "planned abandonment". Businesses and governments have a natural human tendency to cling to "yesterday's successes" rather than seeing when they are no longer useful.
* A belief that taking action without thinking is the cause of every failure.
* The need for community. Early in his career, Drucker predicted the "end of economic man" and advocated the creation of a "plant community", where an individual's social needs could be met. He later acknowledged that the plant community never materialized, and by the 1980s, suggested that volunteering in the nonprofit sector was the key to fostering a healthy society where people found a sense of belonging and civic pride.
* The need to manage business by balancing a variety of needs and goals, rather than subordinating an institution to a single value. This concept of management by objectives Management by objectives (MBO), also known as management by planning (MBP), was first popularized by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book ''The Practice of Management''.Drucker, P., ''The Practice of Management'', Harper, New York, 1954; Heinemann, London ...
and self-control forms the keynote of his 1954 landmark ''The Practice of Management''.
* A company's primary responsibility is to serve its customers. Profit is not the primary goal, but rather an essential condition for the company's continued existence and sustainability.
* A belief in the notion that great companies could stand among mankind's noblest inventions.
* "Do what you do best and outsource the rest" is a business tagline first "coined and developed" in the 1990s by Drucker. The slogan was used primarily to advocate outsourcing as a viable business strategy. Drucker began explaining the concept of outsourcing as early as 1989 in his Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article entitled "Sell the Mailroom."
Criticism
''The Wall Street Journal'' researched several of his lectures in 1987 and reported that he was sometimes loose with the facts. Drucker was off the mark, for example, when he told an audience that the English language was the official language for all employees at Japan's Mitsui
is one of the largest ''keiretsu'' in Japan and one of the largest corporate groups in the world.
The major companies of the group include Mitsui & Co. ( general trading company), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Nippon Paper Industries ...
trading company. Drucker defended himself: "I use anecdotes to make a point, not to write history."
Also, while Drucker was known for his prescience, he was not always correct in his forecasts. He predicted, for instance, that the United States' financial center would shift from New York to Washington.
Others maintain that one of Drucker's core concepts, "management by objectives Management by objectives (MBO), also known as management by planning (MBP), was first popularized by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book ''The Practice of Management''.Drucker, P., ''The Practice of Management'', Harper, New York, 1954; Heinemann, London ...
," is flawed and has never really been proven to work effectively. Critic Dale Krueger said that the system is difficult to implement and that companies often wind up overemphasizing control, as opposed to fostering creativity, to meet their goals.
Drucker's classic work, ''Concept of the Corporation
''Concept of the Corporation'' (1946) is a book by management professor and sociologist Peter Drucker.
Overview
The book is an examination of General Motors' operations, delving into how large corporations impact society on a broad level. Druck ...
'', criticized General Motors while it was considered the most successful corporation in the world. Many of GM's executives considered Drucker persona non grata for a long time afterward. Although Alfred P. Sloan refrained from personal hostility toward Drucker, he considered Drucker's critiques of GM's management to be "dead wrong".[Drucker, Peter. Introduction, pp. v–vi, in Sloan, Alfred P. (1964), McDonald, John, ed., ''My Years with General Motors'', Garden City, New York: Doubleday, , . ]
Awards and honors
Drucker was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
by US President George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
on July 9, 2002. He also received honors from the government of Austria, including the Grand Silver Medal for Services to the Republic of Austria
The Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (german: Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria. It is divided into 15 classes and is the highest award in the A ...
in 1974, the Grand Gold Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria in 1991 and the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class
The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (german: Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Austrian national honours system.
History
The "Austrian D ...
in 1999 and the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 3rd class; June 24, 1966, from the government of Japan.
Drucker was the Honorary Chairman of the ''Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management'', now th
''Leader to Leader Institute''
from 1990 through 2002. In 1969 he was awarded New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
's highest honor, its Presidential Citation. For his article, "What Makes an Effective Executive", ''Harvard Business Review
''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Ma ...
'' honored Drucker in the June 2004 with his seventh McKinsey Award – the most awarded to an individual. Drucker was inducted into the Junior Achievement
JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide is a global non-profit youth organization founded in 1919 by Horace A. Moses, Theodore Vail, and Winthrop M. Crane. JA works with local businesses, schools, and organizations to deliver experiential learning ...
US Business Hall of Fame in 1996. He received 25 honorary doctorates from American, Belgian, Czech, English, Spanish and Swiss universities. His 1954 book ''The Practice of Management'' was voted the third most influential management book of the 20th century in a poll of the Fellows of the Academy of Management
The Academy of Management is a professional association for scholars of management and organizations that was established in 1936. It publishes several academic journals, organizes conferences, and provides others forums for management professors ...
. In Claremont, California, Eleventh Street between College Avenue and Dartmouth Avenue was renamed "Drucker Way" in October 2009 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Drucker's birth.
Drucker was posthumously honored when he was inducted into the Outsourcing Hall of Fame in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field. In 2018, Drucker was named the world's most influential business thinker on the Thinkers50.com list.
Legacy
At Claremont Graduate University, the Peter F. Drucker Graduate Management Center – now the – was established in 1987 and continues to be guided by Drucker's principles.
The annual Global Peter Drucker Forum was first held in 2009, the centenary of Drucker's birth.
Bibliography
* 1939: ''The End of Economic Man'' (New York: The John Day Company)
* 1942: ''The Future of Industrial Man'' (New York: The John Day Company)
* 1946: ''Concept of the Corporation
''Concept of the Corporation'' (1946) is a book by management professor and sociologist Peter Drucker.
Overview
The book is an examination of General Motors' operations, delving into how large corporations impact society on a broad level. Druck ...
'' (New York: The John Day Company)
* 1950: ''The New Society'' (New York: Harper & Brothers)
* 1954: ''The Practice of Management'' (New York: Harper & Brothers)
* 1957: ''America's Next Twenty Years'' (New York: Harper & Brothers)
* 1959: '' The Landmarks of Tomorrow'' (New York: Harper & Brothers)
* 1964: ''Managing for Results'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1967: ''The Effective Executive'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1969: ''The Age of Discontinuity'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1970: ''Technology, Management and Society'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1971: ''The New Markets and Other Essays'' (London: William Heinemann Ltd.)
* 1971: ''Men, Ideas and Politics'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1971: ''Drucker on Management'' (London: Management Publications Limited)
* 1973: ''Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1976: ''The Unseen Revolution: How Pension Fund Socialism Came to America'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1977: ''People and Performance: The Best of Peter Drucker on Management'' (New York: Harper's College Press)
* 1978: ''Adventures of a Bystander'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1980: ''Managing in Turbulent Times'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1981: ''Toward the next economics, and other essays'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1982: ''The Changing World of Executive'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1982: ''The Last of All Possible Worlds'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1984: ''The Temptation to Do Good'' (London: William Heinemann Ltd.)
* 1985: ''Innovation and Entrepreneurship'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1986: ''The Frontiers of Management: Where Tomorrow's Decisions are Being Shaped Today'' (New York: Truman Talley Books/E.D. Dutton)
* 1989: ''The New Realities: in Government and Politics, in Economics and Business, in Society and World View'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 1990: ''Managing the Nonprofit Organization: Practices and Principles'' (New York: Harper Collins)
* 1992: ''Managing for the Future'' (New York: Harper Collins)
* 1993: ''The Ecological Vision'' (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers)
* 1993: ''Post-Capitalist Society
The Post-Capitalist Society (1993) is a book by management professor and sociologist Peter Drucker.
Overview
The book states that the " First World Nations" and in particular the United States have entered a post-capitalism
Post-capitalism is ...
'' (New York: HarperCollins)
* 1995: ''Managing in a Time of Great Change'' (New York: Truman Talley Books/Dutton)
* 1997: ''Drucker on Asia: A Dialogue between Peter Drucker and Isao Nakauchi
was the founder of Daiei.
Life and career
Isao Nakauchi served in the Philippines as an infantryman during World War II. His business empire started in Osaka 1957 and it led to the creation of "American-style" supermarkets in Japan. In 1972 he ...
'' (Tokyo: Diamond Inc.)
* 1998: ''Peter Drucker on the Profession of Management'' (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing)
* 1999: ''Management Challenges for 21st Century'' (New York: Harper Business)
* 1999: ''Managing Oneself'' (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing) ublished 2008 from article in Harvard Business Review* 2001: ''The Essential Drucker'' (New York: Harper Business)
* 2002: ''Managing in the Next Society'' (New York: Truman Talley Books/St. Martin's Press)
* 2002: ''A Functioning Society'' (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers)
* 2004: ''The Daily Drucker'' (New York: Harper Business)
* 2008 (posthumous): ''The Five Most Important Questions'' (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass)
Other publications
;Early monographs in German
* 1932: ''The Justification of International Law and the Will of the State'' (doctoral dissertation)
* 1933: ''Friedrich Julius Stahl, Conservative Political Theory and Historical Development'' (Tübingen: Mohr)
* 1936: ''The Jewish Question in Germany'' (Wien: Gsur)
;Contributing writer
* 1961: ''Power and Democracy in America'' (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press Publishers)
* 1969: ''Preparing Tomorrow's Business Leaders Today'' (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall)
* 1979: ''Song of the Brush: Japanese Painting from Sanso Collection'' (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum)
* 1988: ''Handbook of Management by Objectives'' with Bill Reddin and Denis Ryan (Published by Tata McGraw-Hill in New Delhi).
* 1991: ''The Rise of NEC'' (Blackwell Business)
;Miscellaneous
* 1977: ''An Introductory View of Management'' (New York: Harper & Row
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City.
History
J. & J. Harper (1817–1833)
James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...
)
* 1977 (revised edition, 2009): ''Management Cases'' (New York: Harper & Row)
* 2006: ''The Effective Executive In Action'' with Joseph A. Maciariello (New York: HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...
)
* 2006: ''Classic Drucker'' (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press)
* 2008 (posthumous): ''Management: Revised'' with Sujog Arya (New York: HarperCollins)
References
Further reading
* Tarrant, John C. ''Drucker: The Man Who Invented the Corporate Society'', 1976.
* Beatty, Jack, ''The World According to Peter Drucker'', 1998.
* Flaherty, John E. ''Peter Drucker: Shaping the Managerial Mind'', 1999.
* Edersheim, Elizabeth. ''The Definitive Drucker'', 2007.
* Cohen, William A. ''A Class with Drucker: The lost lessons of the World's greatest management teacher'', 2008.
* Weber, Winfried W. Kulothungan, Gladius (eds.) ''Peter F. Drucker's Next Management. New Institutions, New Theories and Practices'', 2010.
* Stein, Guido. Managing People and Organisations, 2010.
* Turriago-Hoyos, A., Thoene, U., & Arjoon, S. (2016). Knowledge workers and virtues in Peter Drucker's management theory. SAGE Open, January–March 2016: 1–9,
External links
*
*
*
Drucker Archives
in the Claremont Colleges Digital Library
The Window
in the Claremont Colleges Digital Library
The Drucker Institute
Sell the Mailroom
– 1989 article by Drucker
*
Peter Drucker
(in German) from the archive of the Österreichische Mediathek
The Österreichische Mediathek ("Austrian Mediathek") is the Austrian archive for sound recordings and videos on cultural and contemporary history. It was founded in 1960 as Österreichische Phonothek (Austrian Phonothek) by the Ministry of Educat ...
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drucker, Peter
1909 births
2005 deaths
American business theorists
American business writers
American management consultants
Austrian business theorists
Austrian emigrants to the United States
Austrian Jews
Bennington College faculty
Decentralization
Goethe University Frankfurt alumni
Jewish American writers
New York University faculty
Jewish humanists
Writers from Vienna
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Radical centrist writers
Recipients of the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class
Recipients of the Grand Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria
Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 3rd class
Leadership scholars
Austrian expatriates in the United Kingdom
Henry Laurence Gantt Medal recipients
Austrian expatriates in Germany
20th-century American Jews
21st-century American Jews