ABSTRACT
The historical processes of human evolution through natural selection and creative adaptation have generated the necessary conditions for basic survivalist patterns of thinking to emerge, be developed, preserved and passed on. Humans have, as a consequence, become ingeniously adaptive in coping with the vagaries of life. The elemental responses which have precipitated this adaptive pattern of thinking have become internalised to such an extent that they almost form a part of what we call human nature. Thus, the almost instinctive predisposition to observe, classify, typologise and thereby to create an inventory of categories of experience from which we are able to draw causal inferences is part of what McArthur calls our primordial ‘taxonomic urge’ (1986: 32). This basic human impulse to impose some systematic order on our lived experiences fuels the almost insatiable need for further clarification, the search for causal explanations and the accompanying attempt to predict future courses of events so as to be able to act advantageously therefrom. These cerebral predispositions have become the defining characteristics of the prevalent mode of thought especially dominant in the developed West. It is by now a well-documented fact that the ability to ask questions relating to these three key domains of concern is what accounts for the impressive artefacts of modern civilisation and underpins almost all of its outstanding discoveries and achievements. What is less well understood is the fact that the basic principles of modern organisation and management, formulated and developed within the context of contemporary preoccupations, are inextricably linked to these wider-ranging survivalist patterns of thought, which have continued to be adapted and refined to accommodate ever newer local experiences. Managing and organising are, therefore, fundamentally realityconstituting and world-ordering activities intrinsic to the survivalist instincts of
the human species and not just techniques applicable to economic activities designed to achieve profits, growth, market share or global dominance.
