section_path: History
section_name: History
paragraph_text: History
  
  Some see management as a late-modern (in the sense of late modernity) conceptualization. On those terms it cannot have a pre-modern history – only harbingers (such as stewards). Others, however, detect management-like thought among ancient Sumerian traders and the builders of the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Slave owners through the centuries faced the problems of exploiting and motivating a dependent but sometimes unenthusiastic or recalcitrant workforce, but many pre-industrial enterprises, given their small scale, did not feel compelled to face the issues of management systematically. However, innovations such as the spread of Arabic numerals (5th to 15th centuries) and the codification of double-entry book-keeping (1494) provided tools for management assessment, planning and control.
  
  With the changing workplaces of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, military theory and practice contributed approaches to managing the newly popular factories.
  
  Given the scale of most commercial operations and the lack of mechanized record-keeping and recording before the Industrial Revolution, it made sense for most owners of enterprises in those times to carry out management functions by and for themselves. But with the growing size and complexity of organizations, a distinction between owners (individuals, industrial dynasties, or groups of shareholders) and day-to-day managers (independent specialists in planning and control) gradually became more common.