A Colombian classic management thinker: Alejandro López Restrepo

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to present the Colombian Alejandro López Restrepo as a classic management thinker from the first half of the twentieth century and discuss his ideas in the light of Anglo-Saxon authors at that time and his contributions as a professor, manager and public servant. Design/methodology/approach Bibliographic material including López’s books and essays and their biography published by Mayor (2001) are reviewed to organize a new reading of López as a management thinker and practitioner. Findings Beyond several classical managerial thinkers, López reconceptualized scientific management with a critical discussion of classical economic theory using sociology and psychology to present a unique conception of work, enterprise and efficiency as a public service that gives sense to individual and social realization to face the future and create development. Research limitations/implications Techniques as critical biography and interpretation of data have not been used, instead the aim to contribute to the literature of management history a Latin American’ thinker. Practical implications Including López as a classical management thinker can improve the study of management history. His life and ideas give new reflexive insight to understand the development of management in Colombia and serve to inspire administrators to seek improvements in society. Originality/value The paper offers a new approach toward studying Alejandro López beyond previous sociological work by Mayor (2001) with the discussion of the contributions in the lenses of managerial practices and theoretical insights at that time.

In Search of the Traces of the History of Management in Latin America, 1870–2020

“…One of these engineers, Alejandro López, head of the mining company El Zancudo, made a keen use of Taylor's scientific management theory to improve the existing incentive scheme. He later became president of the mentioned engineering school and exceled by taking advantage of the company's practical management legacy, combined with leading-edge academic knowledge (Mayor 1984;Orozco and Anzola-Morales 2019). Overall, cases like these were not uncommon: Antioquia's mining sector, in conjunction with the commercial sector, became a "practical entrepreneurship and management school" since the mid-nineteenth century.…”

Obituary: Alberto Mayor Mora (1945-2021) the father of management history in Colombia

“…Mayor began in 1994 the research of the most prominent figure in Colombian industrialization – Alejandro López Restrepo – because of his contributions as a professor, manager, entrepreneur, politician and, as we proposed extending the work of Mayor, a classic management thinker from Latin America to the world (Orozco and Anzola-Morales, 2019). Técnica y Utopía.…”