Points to cover:

- Read biographic details, development which are attributed to operations management.

- What implication they have produced has on the field of OM
- Name, tools, insight
- Study the contributor of every indiv

A. Industrial Revolution: Adam Smith

B. Scientific Management- Henry Gantt
C. Human Relations- Elton Mayo
D. Operations Research- George Dertzig
E. Quality Revolution- Taichi Ohno (Toyota)

ADAM SMITH

- Adam Smith was born in 1723 in Kirkcaldy on the east coast of Scotland. His father, also
Adam, was a lawyer, but he died six months before the son Adam was born.
- Smith's first biographer, who knew him and was able to gain additional information from
contemporaries, remarks that Adam was a (p. 2) sickly child who received the ‘tender
solicitude of his surviving parent’ but he was ‘able to repay her affection, by every attention
that filial gratitude could dictate during the long period of sixty years’ (Life I.2: 269).
- Smith entered Glasgow University (founded 1451) in 1737 at the early—but for the time not
unusual—age of fourteen. His schoolgained proficiency in the classics was such that he was
effectively able to by-pass the early years in the curriculum devoted to Latin and Greek.
- At Glasgow, Smith studied under some of the leading scholars of the day. He was taught
mathematics by Robert Simson, who was (or became) a leading authority on Euclid (Smith
owned a copy of the second edition of his Sectionum Conicarum). Much later Smith called
him one of the two greatest mathematicians of his time (TMS III.2.20: 124). On what we
might loosely call the ‘scientific front’, Smith was taught experimental philosophy by Robert
Dick, using instruments that been bought as part of a self-conscious ‘modernizing’ drive on
Glasgow's part to elucidate the ‘doctrine of bodies’ and explicitly as that ‘science (natural
philosophy) is improved by Sir Isaac Newton’ (Emerson 1995: 29). However, the most
important teacher was the Professor of Moral Philosophy, Francis Hutcheson. In a letter
towards the end of his life, Smith pays eloquent tribute to his abilities and virtues as the
professor of moral philosophy (Corr 274: 301) and this, despite the fact that in his Theory of
Moral Sentiments (TMS) Smith openly disagreed with his teacher's views of benevolence and
moral sense.
- In 1740 Smith was awarded a Snell Scholarship to study at Balliol College, Oxford (this is still
in existence today and Tom Campbell the author of Chapter 27 held the same scholarship).
The purpose of this scholarship, according to the original bequest, was to enable its holders
to prepare for ordination in the Church of England and join the Episcopal Church in Scotland
but even before Smith took it up this provision had been nullified (Phillipson 2010: 58) 1.
Smith stayed at Oxford until 1746. This was not because he was enthralled by the education
on offer; indeed in a frequently quoted passage from The Wealth of Nations (WN) he made

1
Phillipson, N. (1973) ‘Towards a Definition of the Scottish Enlightenment’, in P. Fritz and D. Williams (eds), City
and Society, Toronto: Hakkert, 125–47.
 the scathing remark that at Oxford ‘the greater part of the publick professors have, for these
many years, given up altogether the pretence of teaching’ (WN V.i.f: 761).
- Smith professed on a wide variety of subjects. Beyond courses in philosophy and
jurisprudence he also discoursed on history, literature, and language and a series of notes of
his lectures, on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres, have been discovered and published (see the
discussions below by Michael Amrozowicz, Jan Swearingen, and Catherine Labio)
- In 1762 the University awarded him a LL.D in virtue of his ‘universally acknowledged
Reputation in letters and particularly that he has taught Jurisprudence these many years in
this University with great applause’ (quoted in Scott 1937: 187). 2
- https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199605064.001.0001/oxf
ordhb-9780199605064-e-1?print=pdf

-  He has become famous by his influential book The Wealth of

Nations (1776).

- Shortly before his death Smith had nearly all his manuscripts destroyed.
In his last years he seems to have been planning two major treatises, one
on the theory and history of law and one on the sciences and arts. The
posthumously published Essays on Philosophical Subjects (1795) probably
contain parts of what would have been the latter treatise.

- The Wealth of Nations has become so influential since it did so much to

create the subject of political economy and develop it into an autonomous
systematic discipline. In the western world, it is the most influential book
on the subject ever published. When the book, which has become a classic
manifesto against mercantalism, appeared in 1776, there was a strong
sentiment for free trade in both Britain and America. This new feeling had
been born out of the economic hardships and poverty caused by the war.
However, at the time of publication, not everybody was convinced of the
advantages of free trade right away: the British public and Parliament still
clung to mercantilism for many years to come (Tindall and Shi). However,
controversial views have been expressed as to the extent of Smith's
originality in The Wealth of Nations. Smith has been blamed for relying
too much on the ideas of great thinkers such as David Hume and
Montesquieu. Nevertheless, The Wealth of Nations was the first and
remains the most important book on the subject of political ecomomy until
this present day.

- http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/adam-smith/

- Economic Theories Adam Smith described a number of new economic ideas in the Wealth of
Nations. Here are a few of the most influential: Division of Labor - Smith describes the
importance of the division of labor to produce goods. By dividing up the labor, people can

2
Scott, W.R. (1937) Adam Smith as Student and Professor, Glasgow: Jackson
 work more efficiently and focus on specific tasks. This produces more goods and faster
advancement of technology. Gross Domestic Product - In the book Smith presents a new
idea for how the wealth of a nation should be measured. He explains that the wealth of a
country isn't in how much gold and silver it owns, but in the goods and services that the
nation creates. This stream of goods and services is the "gross domestic product" (GDP) of a
nation. Today, the GDP is widely used to determine the success of a nation's economy.
Invisible Hand - Smith presents the concept of the "invisible hand" in his book. This invisible
hand will help to regulate the economy without the need for government regulation. The
forces of the invisible hand, such as supply and demand, will help to maximize the efficiency
of the economy to produce the most wealth. Adam Smith died in Edinburgh, Scotland in
1790. Today, he is known as the father of modern economics. The Wealth of Nations is one
of the most influential books in history. Most countries throughout the world today operate
a mixed economy that combines the free market described by Adam Smith with some
government intervention.
- https://www.ducksters.com/money/adam_smith.php

- https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?
docId=ft287004zv&chunk.id=d0e4185&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e4185&brand=ucpress
- https://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20131216085611/http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/S
mith.html#
- https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/220-
2015_o_grada.pdf
- file:///C:/Users/AKANKSHA/Downloads/69-Article%20Text-154-1-10-20150819.pdf
- https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2591461
Koebner, R. (1959). Adam Smith and the Industrial Revolution. The Economic History Review,
11(3), 381. doi:10.2307/2591461
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sci-hub.se/10.2307/2591461
- https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/2121882
The Preindustrial Economics of Adam Smith
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