Chapter 58: Organizational Theory Early Developments: Locating the Seeds of Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM)

Using an organization theory historic approach, the purpose of this chapter is to provide evidence that the seeds of the Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) were laid as early as the seminal work on motivation at the workplace of the Human Relations School in the 1920’s. The main objective of this chapter is to show that SEAM contributes to tackle the reconciliation problem of the social and economic sides of business management which the Human Relations School failed to address properly and was subsequently criticized for.