Conceptualizing human nature in a knowledge-driven economy: A management history perspective

Abstract

Although the evolution of management thought is often associated with various concepts that management philosophers confer on human nature, the root source of these concepts has never been traced by previous research in management history. However, throughout human civilization, dating from pre-industrial to post-industrial times, the conceptual transitions that have befallen human nature were predicated on the occurrence of certain chronological events or phenomena in the global economy that reverberated around the minds of management scholars. Therefore, with the recent transformation of the post-industrial economy into a knowledge economy, a new man has emerged. This new man, which is now referred to as the knowledgeable man and whose precursor was the complex man, will be the hub of future managerial philosophizing. Furthermore, as long as the knowledge economy persists, this new man will be the last man to show up in management history. Consequently, this article is devoted to highlighting his innate characteristics and the fundamental assumptions about his nature that contemporary managers must espouse in order to effectively manage him at work.