DWD20200312

David's Time With Peter F. Drucker 2020.3.12 Management's Scope Is Legally Defined Management, both in theory and in practice, deals with the legal entity the individual enterprise——whether the business corporation, the hospital, the university and so on. The scope of management is thus legally defined. This has been——and still is——the almost universal assumption. Almost a hundred years ago it first became clear that the legal definition was not adequate to manage a major enterprise. This was clearly realized in the 1920s and 1930s by the builder of the next Keiretsu, Sears Roebuck. As Sears became America's largest retailer, especially of appliances and hardware, it too realized the necessity to bring together into one group its main suppliers so as to make possible joint planning, joint product development and product design, and cost control across the entire economic chain. But instead of buying these suppliers, Sears bought small minority stakes in them——more as a token of its commitment than as an investment——and based the relationship otherwise on contract. And the next Keiretsu builder——and probably the most successful one so far(even more successful than the Japanese)——was Marks & Spencer in England, which, beginning in the early 1930s, integrated practically all its suppliers into its own management system, but exclusively through contracts rather than through ownership stakes or ownership control. ——《Management Challenges for the 21st Century ·Chapter1》(Peter F.Drucker,1999)