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Peter Drucker: Writer and Management Consultant

Peter Drucker is thought of around the world as the seminal thinker, writer, and lecturer on the contemporary organization.

We regret that Peter Drucker has died - however, his work is still highly influential, and for that reason the webpage and the radio programme about him have been left in their original format.

Peter Drucker's first great contribution was to focus on management as a discipline in its own right.

In 'The Concept of the Corporation', Drucker explained, for the first time, how and why decentralization worked. Drucker said decentralization was good because it created small groups where people felt that their contribution was important.

In 'The Effective Executive'  Drucker says the purpose of a business is to create a customer and a manager's main tasks are:

- to set objectives
- to organize
- to motivate and communicate
- to measure results
- to develop people

What Drucker wanted was a workplace where workers were trusted to get on with the job without too much supervision, where they knew what they needed to do and were clear about how it would be measured and how they would be rewarded. It was management by results rather than management by supervision.

In the 'Age of Discontinuity' Drucker focused on the changes in society and how the role of the manager would change too. The main changes he examined were:

- the arrival of 'knowledge industries' employing specialised workers
- the move to a global economy
- the move towards privatization.

Finally, Drucker started examining non-profit organizations which he called the 'social sector'. These organizations, says Drucker, are better than government in solving the social problems of competitive capitalism.

Peter Drucker is thought of around the world as the seminal thinker, writer, and lecturer on the contemporary organization.

Biography:

Drucker was born in 1909 in Vienna, Austria and was educated there and in England. He took his doctorate in public and international law while working as a newspaper reporter in Frankfurt, Germany.

He then worked as an economist for an international bank in London.

Drucker went to the United States in 1937. He began his teaching career as professor of politics and philosophy at Bennington College and for more than twenty years he was professor of management at the Graduate Business School of New York University.

The recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, Peter Drucker has, since 1971, been Clarke Professor of Social Sciences at Claremont Graduate University. Its Graduate Management School was named after him in 1984.

He is Honorary Chairman of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management.

Drucker is the author of more than thirty books which deal with society, economics, politics and management. He has also written a novel, an autobiography and a book on Japanese painting.

He is married and has four children and six grandchildren.

His main works are:

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