A view of MBO in today's management environment

The evolution of management practice would appear to have been conditioned by the successive embraces of a whole range of management movements--starting with the scientific management movement of F W Taylor through to the social science movement which is prominent today. In the 1960's the one that caught the imagination of many managers was the management by objectives movement. A characteristic of all of these movements is that they rarely seem able to sustain the promise of their initial impact because they are essentially bosses' movements rather than popular movements. The ideology of MBO does however come close to that of a genuine social movement if only it is interpreted and applied correctly. The convergence of MBO and the Organisation Development movement gives promise that together they will be seen as an acceptable response to the changing expectations and values of the participants in today's large and complex businesses.