40 Years Ago

700 Words2 Pages

Today’s business world is drastically different from the business world of the 1970s, though there are some ways in which they are similar. During the 1970s the contemporary approaches to management such as quantitative management, organizational behavior, system theory, and contingency perspective were in use. According to Bateman and Snell (2013), “The contemporary approaches have developed at various times since World War II, and they continue to represent the cornerstones of modern management” (p. 41). For example, the contingency perspective approach to management was developed in the 1970s and addressed deficiencies of previous management systems that did not take into account internal and external factors that affected performance. The contingency perspective introduced the idea of identifying situational circumstances to determine what managerial action needs to be taken. The contingency perspective, along with its predecessors are still used today in various ways and combinations.
The 1970s was a period of great innovation for technology. Mary Bellis (n.d) created a timeline documenting personal computer history showing that even though the first commercial computer had been introduced in 1951, the development of the first microprocessor in 1971 was a large step towards making computers smaller and cheaper. This led the way to the personal computer, which made technology and computation power accessible to the general public as well as to small businesses. During this time of technological advances, managers had to adapt to rapid changes in the tools used in the workplace. Some of those changes included the recent development of the floppy disk as well as data and word processors. Productivity was increased by t...

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