Biography - Chester I. Barnard 1886-1961

Barnard was the President of New Jersey Bell Telephone and the Rockefeller Foundation and not, strictly speaking, an 'academic'. Although he did not write much, he did produce "the century's seminal book on corporate leadership...",
The Functions of the Executive. That remark was made by Andrea Gabor in "Chester Barnard: The Philosopher King of American Management" in her book on 'capitalist philosophers' which is listed below. Her essay is a good place to begin learning more about Barnard and his place in the history of management thought. In addition to that book and the recent biography by William Scott, other books by and about Barnard available in the Western Libaries are provided below for your convenience.

Books by Barnard in the Western Libraries

The Functions of the Executive.
HD31.B36 1940 (several editions and copies).
The 1968 edition (the 30th anniversary edition) has a useful introduction by K.R. Andrews.

Organization and Management: Selected Papers.  [electronic resource]
HD21.B3. (1948/1952) a list of the papers is provided below.
I. "Some Principles and Basic Considerations in Personnel Relations".
II. "Dilemmas of Leadership in the Democratic Process."
III. "Riot of the Unemployed in Trenton."
IV. "The Nature of Leadership".
(This essay is also found in Human Factors in Management and in Leadership: Classical, Contemporary,
and Critical Approaches.)
V. "Concepts of Organization."
(This appeared in an earlier form in the Spring 1940 issue of the Harvard Business Review as "Comments on
the Job of the Executive". It is available in the Business Library.)
VI. "On Planning for World Government."
VII. "A Review of Barbara Wootton's Freedom Under Planning".
VIII. " Education for Executives."
IX. "Functions and Pathology of Status Systems in Formal Organizations."

Conversations With Chester I. Barnard. by William B. Wolf.
HD38.W58 1972
These conversations took place in the Spring of 1961. Barnard died in June of that year. For an obituary, see The New York Times, June 8, 1961 (available in the D.B.Weldon Library).

Books in the Western Libraries Containing Material About Barnard

(This is not an exhaustive list. Barnard is often mentioned in books on management theory. See, for example, The Nature of Managerial Work, by Mintzberg and In Search of Excellence by Peters & Waterman.)

Gabor, Andrea. The Capitalist Philosophers: The Geniuses of Modern Business - Their Lives, Times, and Ideas.
HD70.U5G33 2000.

Wren, Daniel A. Management Innovators: The People and Ideas That Have Shaped Modern Business.   [electronic resource]
HC102.5.A2W73 1998.

Sheldrake, John. Management Theory: From Taylorism to Japanization.
HD31.S442 1997.

Williamson, Oliver E. The Mechanisms of Governance.  [electronic resource]
HD2326.W494 1996.

Billsberry, John ed. The Effective Manager: Perspectives and Illustrations.
HD31.E443 1996.

Pugh, Derek Salman. Great Writers on Organizations.
HM131.P74 1993.

Terry, John V. International Management Handbook.
HD62.4.T47 1992.

Williamson, Oliver E.ed. Organization Theory: From Chester Bernard to the Present and Beyond.  [electronic resource]
HD31.O753 1990.

Scott, William G. Chester I. Barnard and the Guardians of the Managerial State.
HD31.B363S37 1992.
For reviews of this book see:
Academy of Management Review, Vol.19, No.4, Oct. 1994,p823
Behavioral Science Vol.39, No.2, April 1994, p.172.
Business History Review, Vol.68, No.4, Winter 1994, p.587.

Wolf, William B. The Basic Barnard: An Introduction to Chester I. Barnard and his Theories of Organization and Management.
HD38.B247W64.
Apart from selections from Barnard's writing, this book also contains a brief biography and a list of Barnard's writings and talks.

Reeder, William O. Variations on a Theme by Barnard; Restatements, Adaptations and Quotations of Material from The Functions of the Executives, by Chester I. Barnard.
HD31.B363R44 1959
Reeder argues that The Functions of the Executive "is not for the hoi polloi" and he attempts to explain and simplify some of the concepts developed by Barnard.

For more material about Barnard, see Scott's useful bibliography or search databases such as ProQuest. Additional references to Barnard in other disciplines are easily found by searching JSTOR. For search assistance or other suggestions simply consult with the staff in the Business Library.

Selected Articles About Barnard

Chester Barnard: Modern Man of his Time
Anonymous. Business Strategy Review. Oxford: Summer 2003. Vol. 14, Iss. 2; p. 73
A profile a Chester Barnard (1886-1961) is presented. Chester Barnard was a rarity: a management theorist who was also a successful practitioner. Much of what Barnard argued strikes a chord with contemporary management thinking. For example, he highlighted the need for communication so that every single person could be tied into the organization's objectives. He also advocated lines of communication that were short and direct. For all his contemporary sounding ideas, Barnard was a man of his times - advocating corporate domination of the individual and regarding loyalty to the organization as paramount.

Chester Barnard: Member of the "Elite"?
Steven M Dunphy, James Hoopes. Management Decision. London: 2002. Vol. 40, Iss. 10; p. 1024 (5 pages)
This paper asks whether or not Chester Barnard was a member of an intellectual or managerial elite. While it is clear that Barnard provides great insight regarding leadership and social responsibility, it is also apparent that his views regarding, for example, race relations were, at least by our contemporary standards, unenlightened and may have conformed more with the "elite" of that time. With the stronger democratic sensibilities of our time, represented by affirmative action, etc., Barnard has to be read historically and understood in the light of his own time in order to get out of him what is still useful today. The paper does not propose to resolve the issue of whether or not he was an elitist. The conclusion is reached, however, that the continuation of the debate regarding Barnard's membership of an intellectual or managerial elite may have implications for the ongoing reading of Barnard's work by the management students of today.

Chester Barnard's "Executive" and the Knowledge-Based Firm
R Ray Gehani. Management Decision. London: 2002. Vol. 40, Iss. 10; p. 980 (12 pages)
Chester Barnard's 1938 book The Functions of the Executive is re-examined in the context of the emerging knowledge-based dynamic theory of the firm. The key constructs and the underlying principles for Barnard's functions of the "executive" and organization as a cooperative open-system are reassessed for the evolving knowledge-driven firm competing in the twenty-first century global economy. Surprisingly, after more than six decades, Barnard's cooperative "executive," well-versed in the logical-rational and the non-logical-intuitive decision-making processes, still seems quite competent to effectively lead the knowledge-driven e-business enterprise evolving in the twenty-first century. The Barnardian "executive," however, must evolve by acquiring and integrating the newly available knowledge-related technologies and other adaptive competencies to help develop new drivers of global competitiveness.

"Playing by Ear"..."In an Incessant Din of Reasons": Chester Barnard and the History of Intuition in Management Thought
Milorad M Novicevic, Thomas J Hench, Daniel A Wren. Management Decision. London: 2002. Vol. 40, Iss. 10; p. 992 (11 pages)
In the closing decades of the twentieth, and at the start of the twenty-first, centuries, attention has again turned to the critical role of intuition in effective managerial decision making. This paper examines the history of intuition in management thought by tracing its origins to Chester I. Barnard. This paper reveals not only the intellectual roots linking Barnard's conceptualization of intuition in management thought to, among others, the influential works of the economist and sociologist, Vilfredo Pareto; Lawrence Henderson's influence on Barnard through Henderson's leadership and direction of the Harvard Pareto Circle; the works of the early pragmatist John Dewey; Humphrey's The Nature of Learning; and Koffka's Principles of Gestalt Psychology, but further, Barnard's conceptualization of intuition foreshadowed by nearly two decades nearly all of Polanyi's thinking and elaboration of tacit knowledge. This paper also examines Barnard's and Simon's differing views on intuition and provides a brief overview of contemporary research on intuition in managerial decision making.

Managing a Riot: Chester Barnard and Socialunrest
James Hoopes. Management Decision. London: 2002. Vol. 40, Iss. 10; p. 1013 (11 pages)
This paper examines a key event in the life of Chester Barnard, a "riot of the unemployed" in Trenton, New Jersey in 1935 when Barnard was director of the state Emergency Relief Administration. In a later influential lecture at Harvard, Barnard used the incident to support the ideas of the Harvard human relations group that recognition and dignity were more powerful motivators than money and fear. Contemporary newspaper accounts show that the rioters were motivated more strongly by monetary concerns than Barnard admitted. Barnard was misled by the ideology of the Harvard human relations group to underestimate the importance of power and money, an underestimation that may still be important today, given his continuing influence. That a man of Barnard's integrity was misled by his ideology is grounds for us in our time to maintain some humility as to the extent of our managerial knowledge.

The Contributions of Chester Barnard to Strategic Management Theory
Dave McMahon, Jon C. Carr. Journal of Management History. Bradford: 1999. Vol. 5, Iss. 5; p. 228
A problem in the study of management is the increasing distance between the students and scholars of today and the early writers in the development of management thought. As a result of this distance, 2 problems are beginning to emerge: 1. The current generation of students are reading less of the actual writings of the early scholars and more of what those writing current texts are attributing to these early scholars. 2. This distance contributes to the phenomenon of repeating foundational principles under a different name with a new vernacular hidden in a morass of obfuscatory language. An initial step to thwart this development may be a return to emphasizing the original writings in the early stages of the educational process in business with a movement forward to the current literature. This paper re-examines Chester Barnard's Functions of the Executive as it may relate to the current developments in strategic management.

Incorporating the Contrary The Politics of Dichotomy in Chester Barnard's Organization Sociology
Feldman, Steven P.. Journal of Management History. Bradford: 1996. Vol. 2, Iss. 2; p. 26
Every writer, Nietzsche once commented, has an intellectual idiosyncrasy that, once grasped, can be used as a key to interpret their work. In Chester Barnhard's classic text on management theory, The Functions of the Executive, the use of dichotomy is such a key. Barnard uses dichotomy in all his major conceptual frameworks. This article analyzes his 3 central sociological concepts: society, organization purpose, and organization authority. It shows that the purpose behind Barnard's use of dichotomy is political: he is attempting to legitimate the dominance of formal organization in society. His main means to accomplish this is by defining dichotomies in such a way that they either assume the dominance or demonstrate the superiority of formal organization. The result is that Barnard's use of dichotomy is misleading and contradictory.

The Functions of the Executive and The Republic: Exploring the Platonic roots of Chester Barnard
Godfrey, Paul C. International Journal of Public Administration. New York: May 1994. Vol. 17, Iss. 6; p. 1071 (21 pages)
Similarities between Plato's Republic and Chester I. Barnard's Functions of the Executive are examined. It is argued that comparisons between Barnard and Plato are not overstated in form or substance. Three major areas of each work are compared: 1. the ethical foundations, 2. the political foundations, and 3. the role of education in achieving those political means. The ethics of Barnard's Functions parallels Plato's Republic. Goodness exists at the organizational level (effectiveness) and the individual level (efficiency). Like Plato's ethic, Barnard's ethic is grounded in ethical naturalism, with objectives defined by moral agents. Plato's Republic evolves as a class-stratified society with 3 fundamental groups: 1. the Philosopher-Kings, 2. the Guardians, and 3. the Producers. Barnard distinguishes 3 classes of workers: 1. the Executives, 2. the Managers, and 3. the workers.

Walking and Talking Chester I. Barnard
Pye, Annie. International Journal of Public Administration. New York: May 1994. Vol. 17, Iss. 6; p. 1125 (32 pages)
Chester Barnard's influence in contemporary management and organization theorizing is substantial, but frequently barely acknowledged. The research data reported in a study were not generated to test Barnard's work, but in the process of analysis it emerged that his views closely resembled the comments of the senior executives involved. On further reflection, it was found that his work embraces a breadth and depth of conceptual thought that remains unequalled in the literature. Barnard had a keen interest in gestalt psychology and its influence is apparent in his work. Barnard did not construct boundaries between concepts, but integrated opposites. The idea of the feeling mind sums up the kind of quality that was common to the respondents - sensing among the welter of competing interests and special pleadings the net balance. Barnard was not arguing for the balance, but rather what is now called multiple realities and shared meanings that need the corrective of the feeling mind.

The Disinheritance of Management Ethics: Rational Individualism in Barnard's The Functions of the Executive
Feldman, Steven P.. Journal of Management History. Bradford: 1996. Vol. 2, Iss. 4; p. 34
This article refers to Chester Barnard's classic work in management theory, The Functions of the Executive, which includes one of the first systematic discussions of management ethics, and is an attempt to create a new justification for executive control and organization freedom. The literature reviewing Barnard's effort has focused on the various arguments he uses to justify these ends. This article contends that the key fact in understanding Barnard's work on management ethics is that he broke with any historical continuity of (traditional) moral belief. Barnard attempts to replace traditional moral beliefs with a rational process of moral conflict resolution controlled by the executive. He develops a complex system of dichotomies, assumptions, and concepts in order to incorporate the individual into the organization and demonstrate the moral superiority of the individual executive.