Some observations concerning Sayles' Managerial Behavior

"What does a manager do?" This question interested a few researchers on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1950s and 1960s, starting with Sune Carlson (1951) in Sweden in the early 1950s. They, like some other social scientists at the time, thought it important to explore what actually happened, whether in organizations, or in managerial activities, rather than to rely on the current theories about the principles of good organization or the nature of managerial functions. Joan Woodward (1965) and Tom Burns and George Stalker (1961) were the pioneers in exploring how organizations actually worked. Leonard Sayles was one of the early researchers to adopt a similar approach to managerial behavior.