“I see too many academics forgetting what I think our job is in management, and that is to organize available knowledge; develop new knowledge, of course, but organize it in such a way that it can be useful to practicing managers to underpin management. I am surprised as I watch the literature, that some people are discovering what we’ve known for years. For example, some things like this: that technology affects management organization. I found that out when I was in the airline industry a few years ago and I never thought it was anything very surprising. Another, that the actual managing depends on the situation… I thought, my gosh, there must be something new there. Only to find, after spending a lot of time reading, that there wasn’t anything, and I don’t know any practicing manager who doesn’t manage in light of the situation. I think we have to agree that management theory and science should underpin practice, otherwise why develop it?”

—  Harold Koontz

Harold Koontz in: Ronald G. Greenwood. Harold Koontz: A Reminiscence Presented at the meetings of the Academy of Management, Boston, August 14, 1984; as cited in Wren & Bedeian (2009;419-420)

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Harold Koontz 17
1909–1984

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