ABSTRACT
The working definition of globalisation used in this volume is the integration of previously self-sufficient economies through the development of global markets for commodities, capital, labour, knowledge and other factors of production. Management expertise, which is the focus of this chapter, falls into the knowledge category. This chapter assesses the extent to which the First World War promoted the international diffusion of US management practices across the Atlantic to Britain and France. Determining the degree to which management techniques and other business know-how diffuses across borders is, therefore, one way of determining whether globalisation is taking place. It is undoubtedly true that, since the end of the nineteenth century, management thought and practice in all countries has undergone a process of scientification, though the precise nature of such development has varied due to cultural, amongst other, factors. Within Europe it was not simply a case of accepting, without questioning, the American ‘scientific management’ of Taylor.1 Moreover, as a global phenomenon, although the scientification of management began before the First World War, it was undoubtedly influenced by the war, and continued on its inexorable path thereafter. Examining the path of this process, however, is complicated by two factors: first, the loose use by writers of the term ‘scientific management’ and, second, the limited survival of evidence relating to managerial practice.
