Adam Smith’s Influence on Contemporary Management

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Recommended: Adam Smiths main views on nature of wealth of nation

Dr. George Crowley’s publication, “Adam Smith: Managerial Insights from the Father of Economics,” reaffirms the belief that Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations continues to remain influential in modern management practices. By allowing economies to be fluid, Dr. Crowley argues societies are better off when businesses and consumers are free to pursue the opportunities in the free market without boundaries or restrictive government interference. Contemporary businesses are more complex and globally intertwined than they were at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Fundamentally managers face similar challenges as their eighteenth century counterparts, but there are more dynamics taking place in the twenty-first century economy. Academic scholars continue to debate over Adam Smith’s theories, but as Dr. Crowley correctly establishes, Smith’s economic principles provide a blue print in today’s managerial decisions.
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, coincidently the same year as the Declaration of Independence, is considered by many economic scholars to be the early framework of capitalism. Smith’s “invisible hand” metaphor explains how the motivation of the individual, a strong workforce and a decentralized market are the driving forces for economic prosperity. According to Dr. Crowley:
The invisible hand succeeds at aligning individual incentives with societal prosperity. An important consideration in determining whether incentives will be aligned, then, is the extent to which the ‘hand’ is able to freely operate. …When the institutions allow the invisible hand to align interests, wealth is created; when the rules of the game get in the way, however, less desirable outcomes are created.
Contemporary manager...

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