THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY 4F1335 COPYRIGHT 1921 BY All Rights Reserved Published June 1921 Composed and Printed By EDITOR'S PREFACE Collegiate training for business management is now so widely attempted that the time has arrived when experiments should be conducted looking toward the organization of the business curriculum into a coherent whole. Training in scattered "business subjects" was defensible enough in the earlier days of collegiate business training, but such a method cannot be permanent. It must yield to a more comprehensive organization. There can be no doubt that many experiments will be conducted looking toward this goal; they are, indeed, already under way. This series, "Materials for the Study of Business," marks one stage in such an experiment in the School of Commerce and Administration of the University of Chicago. It is appropriate that the hypotheses on which this experiment is being conducted be set forth. In general terms the reasoning back of the experiment runs as follows: The business manager administers his business under conditions imposed by his environment, both physical and social. The student should accordingly have an understanding of the physical environment. This justifies attention to the earth sciences. He should also have an understanding of the social environment and must accordingly give attention to civics, law, economics, social psychology, and other branches of the social sciences. His knowledge of environment should not be too abstract in character. It should be given practical content, and should be closely related to his knowledge of the internal problems of management. This may be accomplished through a range of courses dealing with business management wherein the student may become acquainted with such matters as the measuring aids of control, the communicating aids of control, organization policies and methods; the manager's relation to production, to labor, to finance, to technology, to risk-bearing, to the market, to social control, etc. Business is, after all, a pecuniarily organized scheme of gratifying human wants, and, properly understood, falls little, if any, short of being as broad, as inclusive, as life itself in its motives, aspirations, and social obligations. It falls little short of being as broad as all science in its technique. Training 483385 for the task of the business manager must have breadth and depth comparable with those of the task. Stating the matter in another way, the modern business manager is essentially a solver of business problems-problems of business policy, of organization, and of operation. These problems, great in number and broad in scope, divide themselves into certain type groups, and in each type group there are certain types of obstacles to be overcome, as well as certain aids, or materials of solution. If these problems are grouped (1) to show the significance of the organizing and administrative, or control, activities of the modern responsible manager, and (2) to indicate appropriate fields of training, the diagram on the opposite page (which disregards much overlapping and interacting) results. It sets forth the present hypothesis of the School of Commerce and Administration concerning the basic elements of the business curriculum. These volumes on Law and Business in the series are designed to acquaint the student with the business man's problems of adjustment to his social environment. L. C. MARSHALL |