ABSTRACT
The word "manager" has no exact counterpart in German, French, Spanish, Italian, or Russian; yet the words used in these languages are as imprecise and elusive as "manager" is in American. Most people, when asked what they mean by "manager," will reply "a boss," But when the sign over the shoeshine stand in an airport reads "John Smith, Manager," everybody (at least in America) knows that this means that Mr. Smith is not
Early in the history of management a manager was defined as someone who "is responsible for the work of other people." This served a useful purpose at the time. It distinguished the manager's function from that of the "owner." It made clear that managing was a specific kind of work which could be analyzed, studied, and improved systematically. The definition focused on the essentially new, large and permanent organization emerging to perform the economic tasks of society.
