ABSTRACT
The expansive economic climate of the years between 1914 and 1929 forced top management to reexamine and define its relations with other groups involved in the total enterprise. Large corporations were rapidly lengthening their lists of stockholders and thus freeing many executives from close control by powerful owners. The 1920s saw the first efforts on the part of business leadership to formulate what has since come to be called the "managerial" version of capitalism. By the 1920s, of course, the competence of corporate management was seldom questioned in business circles; but those associated with the larger corporations were well aware that the relationship of management both to stockholders and to the public was changing. The counterpart of the idea of the manager as mediator was the concept of management as a profession. As higher education became increasingly important for business success, the necessity of education for business won growing recognition in American universities and colleges.
