Manažerská odysea
A Managerial Odyssey

Theory of management in Czechoslovakia between the 1950s and 1980s

Summary/Abstract: The study examines the revival of the management science in Czechoslovakia after 1956 and its activities in the context of political reforms of the 1968. The second part of the article monitors changes of the theory of management since 1968, focusing on the introduction of social planning and its relation to corporate management. The theory of management is presented as an expert activity which was influencing then existing concepts and ideas of the organization of economic life, from the development of complex planning and management systems to efforts aimed at establishing the profession of a socialist manager. The author’s goal is to describe the scope of the expert activity referred to above and also to analyze its political functions in different stages of the development of state socialism. He claims the attempt to create a management science consistent with specific feature of socialist economy led to different concepts and perceptions of methods and objectives of economic management, including different concepts of socialist managership. The reform policy of the 1960s permitted a vast reception of Western management science, development of an institutional base, and creation of an expert culture drawing from a number of different professional disciplines, from psychology to system engineering. The reform management science was promoting socialist entrepreneurship; the idea required economic decentralization and the creation of a system based on an interaction between the plan and the market. The “consolidated” management science of the 1970s responded to a departure from the market socialism and a return to a central planning system by producing a different concept of socialist managership. The manager’s mission was to ensure a level of economic and organizational efficiency comparable to that of a capitalist enterprise and, at the same time, implement socio-political strategies of the socialist regime through social planning.

• Details
• Contents