From Library Journal
Ask any CEO and/or business professor to name the "father of modern management," and the answer will probably be Peter Drucker. Flaherty (Peter Drucker: Contributions to Business Enterprise) focuses on Drucker's management principles; his intent is not to update his earlier work but instead to present Drucker's influence on the shaping of modern management. Flaherty's 40-year friendship with Drucker proves invaluable to readers interested in learning how Drucker's early political thinking shaped his managerial mind and how the emergence of modern management converged with his own thinking. Topics covered in this fascinating story include Drucker's quest for a theory in his early years, views on strategy and entrepreneurship, and ideas on executive effectiveness. While this is not the definitive biography of Drucker (yet to be written), it nicely complements Jack Beatty's The World According to Peter Drucker (LJ 1/98) and is essential for academic libraries.ADale Farris, Groves, TX
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Booklist
Drucker, perhaps the world's greatest management philosopher, turns 90 this fall, and Flaherty's homage celebrates that event. Flaherty is a professor at New York's Pace University and a 40-year friend of Drucker's. Thirty years ago he coedited Peter Drucker: Contributions to Business Enterprise, a collection of essays by academic scholars and business leaders. Originally, Flaherty had wanted to update that work but decided for the sake of "consistency and coherence" to complete his own portrait. Flaherty emphasizes Drucker's works over his personal life, focusing on his management philosophy. To trace the development of this philosophy, Flaherty considers Drucker's works chronologically up through the seminal Practice of Management (1954). He then analyzes Drucker's contributions to thinking on strategy and entrepreneurship and on executive effectiveness from various perspectives. David Rouse
