Abstract
The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention. One might add that the greatest invention of the first half of the twentieth century has been the invention of the method of institutionalizing the rapid over-laying and interfusing with society of the applications of invention. And it may well be that, if one is to avoid the degenerative and oftentimes apocalyptic outcomes envisioned by many of the disaffected, one of the greatest inventions of the latter half of the twentieth century had better be the invention of the method of managing the development of management knowledge-both empirically and theoretically-so that the institutions will prove capable of functioning in and, still more, enriching the modern, postindustrial society that dominates one's anticipations of the future. Unfortunately, the "management" view of the processes by which management knowledge comes into being is profoundly strange to the management community, which has long conceived of the matter as something that, at least in any larger sense, did not need explicitly to be managed.