Lyndall Urwick

Lyndall Urwick

Lyndall Fownes Urwick , OBE (born March 3, 1891 in Malvern , Worcestershire , † December 5, 1983 in Longueville , Sydney ) was a British entrepreneur, economist and business consultant.

biography

Lyndall Fownes Urwick was the only child of Sir Henry Urwick and his wife Annis Urwick (née Whitby). He started school in Malvern and attended the Boxgrove School in Guildford from 1900 to 1905 . From 1905 to 1910 he attended the Repton School , from which he received a scholarship to New College at the University of Oxford . He studied history there and graduated in 1913 with a "Second Class Degree" in modern history. Urwick was a member of the “Hanover Club” in Oxford , a German-British debating club that existed from 1911 to 1913 under the leadership of Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff , which was supposed to promote mutual understanding. After completing his studies, he joined the family-owned company "Fownes Brothers and Company" (founded in 1777), in which his father was a partner. In August 1914 he was drafted into the 3rd Worcestershire Regiment as a "Second Lieutenant". During the First World War he was used from 1914 in Mons, Le Cateau, Marne and Aisne. From 1916 he served in the Battle of Arras and on the Somme Front, among others . In 1917 he received the Military Cross for his services . In 1918 he was dismissed with the rank of major. In January 1919 he was awarded the "Order of the British Empire" in the officer level.

After his discharge from the army, he returned to his parents' company "Fownes Brothers", in which he had been a partner since 1917. Disagreements with the other partners meant that he left the company at the end of 1920. After a period of reorientation, he joined the “Benjamn Seebohm Rowntree” company in the spring of 1922. He moved to York and was responsible for developing a loose-leaf collection of standard instructions on business processes, etc. In late 1926, together with Seebohm and CF Merriam (Chairman of British Sylonite), he founded the Management Research Group , which brought together companies working on the new Development in management and organization were interested.

In September 1928 Urwick moved to Geneva and became director of the International Management Institute (IMI), an offshoot of the International Labor Organization (ILO). He kept this position until the institute had to close its doors in December 1933, as the (US) Twentieth Century Fund stopped its financial support.

During the Second World War he joined the Office Research Section of the British Treasury. He headed the first team of specialists there between 1940 and 1942.

meaning

Urwick was one of the most influential British and European management thinkers in the first half of the 20th century. He is considered to be one of the key advocates of the Scientific Management movement. Urwick tried, more than any of his contemporaries (with the possible exception of Henri Fayol ), to build management theory through a number of management principles, be it for commercial or non-profit organizations .

literature

• Elly Countess Reventlow (ed.): Albrecht Bernstorff in memory. Self-published, Düsseldorf 1952, DNB 450042065 .

Web links

• Article about Urwick at findarticles.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Harald Mandt : In: Elly Countess Reventlow (ed.): Albrecht Bernstorff to memory. 1952, p. 26.
2. ^ Karsten Plöger: The Hanover Club, Oxford (1911-13): Student Paradiplomacy and the Coming of the Great War. In: German History. Volume 27, No. 2, pp. 196-214.