Mary Parker Follett

Paper Summary:

Arguably the first woman to be a management philosopher, the ideas of Mary Parker Follett certainly departed from the expectations of anyone observing industrial American. This paper shows that rather than proposing the tough, no-nonsense sort of management philosophies and tactics that would have married well with the "leave your brain at the gate" method of industrial relations prevalent in factory-heavy America during her lifetime, Follett proposed a more organic, inclusive, and feminine concept of management. The paper also briefly applies her theory to the current electronics industry.

From the Paper:

"Some will get the impression from this that Follett was some sort of proto-communist. That would be erroneous; she valued the unique traits of each member of any group, and "viewed the group process as a form of collective control, with the interweaving experience of all who are performing a functional part in an activity feeding into decision-making" (Thinkers, 1999). For Follett, this organic formula ensured that decisions and thus actions--would arise inside the group concerned and not be imposed from without."

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