Part 1.
Ancient civilizations are famous for their innovations and fast technology development, specifically, when talking about the Ancient Egypt and Rome. The base line of my dissertation concerns the required innovations in the financial industry, thus in this paper I will refer to the innovative management approaches in the Ancient Egypt. However, prior to analyzing their methods and approaches it is important to take into account the fact that religion was dominant over civil authorities in the Ancient times. Therefore, most of their laws and management decisions were also based on the religious norms or dictated by the priests.
“The Religion Of Ancient Egypt” by Flinders Petrie, is, perhaps the most extensive research on the Ancient Egyptian society. In his research, the author states that priests were second most powerful men after the emperor, or Faraon. Faraones were defined by blood, which means that the oldest son of the emperor will be the next to rule the nation. Yet, a person could become a priest after passing the necessary education. In most cases, great doctors, “managers of the inundation”, scientists, astrologists were the first to be risen to a priest’s title (Flinders Petrie, 1906, pp.73-74). This can be explained by the fact that priests were the highest authority to give advices and decide upon building new temples, schools, starting the irrigation or the harvest gathering. Furhermore, emperor consulted with them on financial questions, international affairs, political and law issues. Simply, they may be named the managers with unlimited power.
Unlike the Medieval times, when Cristian religion dominated over the Europe, Ancient Egyptians managed to mix their religious life with the technology development, necessary for their living improvements. Modern irrigation systems, medicine and engineering were developing for the common wealth. Even though there existed slavery and extensive taxes for villeins, the highest authority was highly centralized and a strict hierarchy had to be followed, they served as a good management for the constantly improving and developing nation.
Part 2.
Considering the above mentioned peculiarities of the management in the Ancient Egypt, it is worth mentioning that they used a system approach to regulate most of the issues. Systems theory is unique as it understands the whole organization or the country as a system of processes interconnected through the authority lines and dependent on each other’s performance. As any other system, the company has its “entrance”, inner “processes and transformations” and the “exit”. All companies are different, yet everyone has a structure and hierarchy as well as tolls and methods to regulate the processes inside. Besides that, every company has an impact on the external environment, as well as it is influenced by the outside factors.
Khominich et al (2016, p.97), state that decisions in the financial management are based on a number of interrelated concepts, namely: (1) time value of money; (2) inflation as the measurement of the real asset value and cash flow; (3) risk as a measurement of the profitability. The authors also believe that an effective financial management should incorporate a valid external information and analyze the results of the previously taken actions on both internal and external environment (Khominich et al, 2016, p.99). Therefore, in order to make truly effective financial decisions, the firm should adopt a Network Thinking (NT), which allows to formulate clear concepts of the business, offers instruments to realize the concepts created, and enables the managers to think and act holistically (Rosi & Mulej, 2006, p.1166).
Financial management as any other aspect of management requires systemic approach, as only viewing firm’s business as a system will allow to implement innovations in the right form and time.
References
Flinders Petrie, W.M. (1906) The Religion Of Ancient Egypt. London: Archibald Constable & Co Ltd. 1-1038. Retrieved from: https://smile.amazon.com/Religion-Ancient-Flinders-William-Matthew-ebook/dp/B0082T4ILS/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Khominich, I.P., Rybyantseva, M. S., Borodacheva, L. V., Dik, E. V, and Afanasev, E. V. (2016) Financial Management as a System of Relations of the Enterprise for Highly Efficient Management of its Finances. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, suppl. Special Issue6.8S Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.saintleo.edu/docview/1846293473/B01F11042DB44548PQ/5?accountid=4870
Rosi, B. & Mulej, M. (2006)The dialectical network thinking - a new systems theory concerned with management. Kybernetes35.7/8: 1165-1178. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.saintleo.edu/docview/213915411/532582D71A54A09PQ/62?accountid=4870
Response to William Smith
I absolutely agree that modern economy has rather different approaches in understanding what are the real assets for the business. If back in 18th century, land and capital were considered as the basis of the economic development, nowadays human resources and intellectual property are way more valuable. Therefore, innovative businesses are more focused on the quality of service and new ideas. Adam Smith was the first who mentioned human capital to be valuable per se. Many modern economists support this view, furthermore, they also support Smith’s idea of single specialization. Numerous researches were held to prove the importance of monotasking upon multitasking, so that a person could become a true specialist and a desired asset for the firm.
References
Little, A. W. (2003, December). Motivating Learning and the Development of Human Capital.Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education, 33(4), 437. Retrieved January 4, 2017, from Academic Search Complete.
Marimuthu, M., Arokiasamy, L., & Ismail, M. (2009). HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS IMPACT ON FIRM PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM DEVELOPMENTAL ECONOMICS. The Journal of International Social Research, 2(8), 265-272. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
Oslington, Paul. (Jul 2012). God and the Market: Adam Smith's Invisible Hand, Journal of Business Ethics: JBE; Dordrecht108.4 : 429-438
Wren, D. A. (022009). The Evolution of Management Thought, 6th Edition. [Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780470475256/
Response to Maggie Jones
I have also chosen Ancient Egypt management as a historical background for my review part. That is absolutely right that Ancient Egyptians had a well developed management and hierarchical structure within their society. Most of their projects had supervisors, deadlines and plan to be achieved. However, I would not agree about the compensation part, as most of the work was done by slaves, whose compensation was food and overnight place; besides that there existed a strict punishment system and many died while following the orders. Neveretheless, the idea I support in the management of Ancient Egypt is their innovativeness and joint systematic approach to all the tasks. Specifically, they managed to combine religious aspects with science, monarchy and slavery with structured management and delegation of the roles.
References
European Commission, (2012). Implementation checklist for diversity management. European Commission.
Saatci, E. Y. (2014). Management through the lenses of ancient people. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 4(5). DOI: 10.7763/IJSSH.2014V4377
Shen, J., Chanda, A., D’Netto, B., & Monga, M. (2009). Managing diversity through human resource management: An international perspective and conceptual framework. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20(2), 235–251. doi:10.1080/09585190802670516
Whetten, D. A. (1989). What constitutes a theoretical contribution? Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 490-495. doi: 10.5465/amr.1989.4308371
