A featured presentation at the Ninth Annual International Meeting of The Institute of Management Sciences, jointly with the Econometric Society, at Ann Arbor, Michigan, September 11, 1962. “A unified science of management.” Is it a matter of faith or of enterprise? A unified science of management conceals the self-reflective paradox. Science is an organized activity. Hence it operates according to some managerial principles. A unified science of management implies a management of science: a science of science, a self-reflective science.

The article discusses the evolution of management science through 1963. Classic management principles have been outlined as functions including planning which emphasizes that management is a rational process of problem solving, staffing which recognizes that management is a human process, and directing which emphasizes the importance of leadership in the management process. A major contribution to management theory has come from the human relations school. Another major component of management science is decision theory.

The article discusses research related to staff utilization and development in 1963. One trend in staffing is the development of strategic business units. The primary mission of a unit is distinguished from a single line or staff function. There is an increasing need for management practices devoted to complex organizations. This is expressed in literature which refers to the ?law of functional growth.? The functions of an organization increase in scope and complexity as the volume of business grows.

The article discusses the impact of automation on U.S. business enterprises in 1963. There are two divergent schools of thought in the U.S. regarding automation. One group believes that automation ...

C. E. Ferguson, Cross-Section Production Functions and the Elasticity of Substitution in American Manufacturing Industry, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Aug., 1963), pp. 305-313

SPECULATIVE activity may contribute to the stability of price, or it may promote and feed on instability. But how may one determine, for a specific market over a specific period of time, whether on balance the activities of speculators have been stabilizing or destabilizing? It has been maintained by Milton Friedman that destabilizing speculation must be unprofitable since it involves selling at low prices and buying at high prices.' If this proposition were valid, and if it were also true that stabilizing speculation is always profitable (because it involves buying at low prices and selling at high), the question would take a more tractable form. For then the empirical investigators need only identify the sign of speculative profits: if they were positive, the speculators must have contributed to price stability; if profits were negative, speculators must have added to instability. Unfortunately, neither proposition is generally true; counter examples will be produced in sections 2 and 3. They may be untrue, however, only under conditions which in practice are most unlikely to be satisfied. If this were so, speculators' profits might yet serve as a useful, if not infallible, guide to the stabilizing or destabilizing effects of speculators' activities. This possibility is examined in Section 3. In Section 4 there is outlined an alternative, more direct approach to the problem of determining the effects of speculation on stability. It possesses the incidental but substantial advantage of not requiring the direct measurement of speculative profits and losses.