Alfred Chandler and connected management

The writings of US business historian Alfred Chandler offer greater insights into the information economy, the evolution of the web and innovation than those of digital gurus such as Nicholas Negroponte, Kevin Kelly or Don Tapscott.

Chandler's research has centred on business organisation, ranging from legal structures such as the corporation to the use of electronic communications and information technology. He's questioned much of the hype about the information society and the new economy, noting that any industrial economy is dependent on the systematic collection, storage and manipulation of information.

In The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 77) he suggested that modern business emerged when administrative coordination did better than market mechanisms in enhancing productivity and lowering costs. A managerial hierarchy was a prerequisite for realising the advantages of coordinating multiple units within a single enterprise. The growing volume of economic activities that made administrative coordination more efficient than market coordination.

In line with comments by Weber, Veblen and Merton, Chandler commented that an effective managerial hierarchy becomes its own source of permanence, power, and continued growth. Such hierarchies tend to become increasingly technical, professional and independent of ownership. Major enterprises grew to dominate branches and sectors of the economy, and so doing, altered their structure and that of the economy as a whole.

In later works he suggested that the true revolution in information processing occurred during the fifty years from 1880 onwards, with the percentage of the workforce engaged in information-handling increasing from 6.5% to 24.5%. (As a point of reference 35% of the US workforce and 38% of the Australian in 1930 were employed in industry.)

For him the major information-processing innovations concern procedures rather than devices: standardisation, printed forms, consistent data collection and record-keeping. Adoption of IT was based on supersession of existing data-processing tools: punch-card tabulators, typewriters, adding machines.

Applications of his suggestions about communications include James Beninger's Control Revolution: Technological & Economic Origins of the Information Society (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 89), James McKenney's Waves of Change: Business Evolution Through Information Technology (Boston: Harvard Business School Press 95), Margaret Levenstein's Accounting for Growth: Information Systems and the Creation of the Large Corporation (Stanford: Stanford Uni Press 98), JoAnne Yates' Control Through Communication: The Rise of System In American Management (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni Press 93) and The European Corporation Strategy, Structure, and Social Science (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 02) by Richard Whittinton & Michael Mayer.

A perspective on application by managers and other theorists is provided by Henry Mintzberg's Henry Mintzberg's Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through The Wilds of Strategic Management (New York: Simon & Schuster 98), co-authored with Bruce Ahlstrand & Joseph Lampel.

     life 

Alfred duPont Chandler was born in Delaware in 1918, gaining a AB from Harvard in 1940 before spending five years in the US Navy, an AM in 1947 and a doctorate in 1952.

He was a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during 1950 and 51, becoming an MIT professor in 1960. He was professor of history at Johns Hopkins University during 1963-71 and Director of the Center for Study of Recent American History, 1964 to 71.

Chandler became Straus Professor of Business History at Harvard Business School in 1971 (Emeritus from 1989). He was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford in 1975.

Official appointments included service as consultant to the US Naval War College in 1954 and chairing the Advisory History Committee of the US Atomic Energy Commission 1969 to 77. He was a member of the editorial team for the 11 volume Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower and four volume Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. Chandler was a Guggenheim Fellow for 1958-59.

     biographies 

There's no major study of Chandler.

A helpful concise biography is found in The Essential Alfred Chandler: Essays Toward a Historical Theory of Big Business (Boston: Harvard Business School Press 88), edited by Thomas McCraw. The book includes a complete bibliography up to 1987.

     writings 

Chandler's works include -

Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics & Computer Industries (New York: Free Press 01)

A Nation Transformed By Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States From Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Oxford Uni Press 00) coedited with James Cortada - incisive essays about publishing, telecommunications, management structures, productivity and economic growth

The Dynamic Firm - The Role of Technology, Strategy, Organization and Regions (New York: Oxford Uni Press 98) coedited with Peter Hagström & Örjan Sölvell

Big Business & the Wealth of Nations (New York: Cambridge Uni Press 97) coedited with Franco Amatori & Takashi Hikino - a collection of papers on corporate organisation, markets and government - notable for international comparisons and skepticism about dogma such as the Wiener thesis

Scale & Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 94) - a continuation of Strategy & Structure, including UK and German enterprises

Managerial Hierarchies: Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of the Modern Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 80) coedited with Herman Daems

The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 77) - the landmark study of communications, management processes and institutional structures

Pierre S. Du Pont and The Making of the Modern Corporation (New York: Harper & Row 71) with Stephen Salsbury - a deservedly influential study of corporate organisation and management styles

The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni Press 70-80) coedited with Stephen Ambrose, Louis Galambos and others - the 11 volume official edition of the papers of the US President

Strategy & Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge: MIT Press 62)

Henry Varnum Poor - Business Editor, Analyst & Reformer (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 56) - the definitive biography of the early US business analyst, progenitor of Standard & Poor's rating service

The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 51-54) coedited with Elting Morison & John Morton Blum - the four volume authorised edition of the correspondence of the big game hunter, conservationist and President.

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