The coronavirus pandemic of 2019-20 and its associated global economic collapse has bluntly revealed that decision makers everywhere are ill-equipped to identify the innovative capacities of modern societies and, in particular, deploy managers to harness such capabilities. Getting the problem of management right is a voyage to the heart of human experience. Indeed, the perennial questions that haunt our existence almost invariably prompt answers that invoke conceptions of work, transformative effort and realisation of ideas. One way or another, all such endeavour requires management. It is often overlooked that more than any other discipline, management history brings into focus humanity's most pressing questions. At the time of writing, these queries come with a disquieting urgency. What is management? How do its modern methods differ from those in pre-industrial societies? How does the management that emerged in Western Europe and North America in the nineteenth century differ from forms practiced in the twentieth? In what ways do Asian, African and South American societies have distinctive managerial philosophies? Perhaps most importantly, what don't we know or don't do very well? It is to these fundamental questions that the Palgrave Handbook of Management History speaks. The work's 63 chapters - authored by 27 of the world's leading management and business thinkers - explore virtually every aspect of management globally as well as across millennia. The series explores the theoretical contributions of classical Western business and management scholars (Adam Smith, Frederick Taylor, Elton Mayo, Peter Drucker, Alfred Chandler, etc.) as well as commentaries from critical theorists such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Hayden White. The Handbook is also practical. For example, its content addresses the day to day experience of management in ancient Greece and Rome as well as the contemporary approaches of China, France, South Africa, India, Denmark, Australia, South America, New Zealand and the Middle East. In short, the Palgrave Handbook provides students of economics, management, business theory and practice, and critical studies with a single comprehensive and in-depth point of reference.

Professor Bradley Bowden is an Australian academic and management historian. He is currently Editor-inChief of the Journal of Management History and Co-Editor in the Palgrave Macmillan Debates in Business History Series. He has twice won the Academy of Management's John F Mee Award for Outstanding Contribution to Management History. Between 2016 and 2017, he also served as Chair of the Management History Division of the Academy of Management. Professor Jeffrey Muldoon is Associate Professor and Baehr Distinguished Professor at Emporia State University. His research interests include management history (with special emphasis on the Hawthorne studies and the career of George Homans), social exchange, entrepreneurship, and leadership. His research has appeared in such journals as Stress and Health, Leadership and Organization Development Journal, Personnel Review, Career Development International, and the Journal of Management History. His research in history had won the Best Student Paper at the Academy of Management in 2009 and the Most Outstanding Paper Award for the Journal of Management History in 2013 for his paper on The Hawthorne Legacy. Professor Muldoon is on numerous editorial boards, including Associate Editor of Journal of Management History. He also won the John F Mee award. Professor Anthony M. Gould is Professeur titulaire (full professor) of Employment Relations at Laval University, Canada, and Chief Editor of Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations, the oldest journal of its kind in the world. Concurrently, he is a Visiting Research Professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and sits on the International Advisory Committee of Macquarie University's Centre for Workforce Futures in Sydney, Australia, and the International Advisory Committee for the University of NSW Business School's Economic and Labour Relations Review also in Sydney. Professor Gould has served on the editorial committees of wellknown scholarly journals including the highly respected Journal of Management History, a role for which he was awarded Emerald Publishing`s Best Reviewer Prize in 2017. With aide and encouragement from talented and generous colleagues, since 2010 Professor Gould has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed articles (often with others) concerning labor and economic history, industrial sociology, management strategy, and research methods. This corpus is published mostly in elite scholarly journals (as measured by impact factor and Cite-Score, etc.) and has been cited multiple times. Professor Gould has held professional jobs in six countries while maintaining consulting and governance-based relationships with individuals and institutions in the Middle East and Asia. Prior to entering academia in 2007, he was a Senior Executive in large government agencies in Australia and the UK. Professor Adela J. McMurray has extensive research experience in public and private sectors and has published over 280 refereed publications. Her research is internationally recognized and she is the recipient of four Australian Research Council grants, two Cooperative Research Centre grants, and various other competitive grants totaling over $5 million. Professor McMurray is Associate Editor of the Journal of Management History, has chaired the USA Academy of Management's International Theme Committee, and is a member of the Management History Division and a number of editorial advisory boards. She is the recipient of national and international awards for best research papers, teaching, and supervision excellence.