Father of Modern Management IELTS Reading: Translation & Answer Key

Have you ever wondered who laid the foundation for modern management principles? The reading passage “Father of modern management” about Peter Drucker not only provides fascinating business insights but also serves as an highly effective test for evaluating reading comprehension skills.

Check out the detailed analysis below to turn “tricky” economic vocabulary into a powerful tool for maximizing your exam score.

Reading Passage & Questions

Reading Passage: FATHER OF MODERN MANAGEMENT

A Peter Drucker was one of the most important management thinkers of the past hundred years. He wrote about 40 books and thousands of articles and he never rested in his mission to persuade the world that management matters. “Management is an organ of institutions … the organ that converts a mob into an organisation, and human efforts into performance.” Did he succeed? The range of his influence was extraordinary. Wherever people grapple with tricky management problems, from big organizations to small ones, from the public sector to the private, and increasingly in the voluntary sector, you can find Drucker’s fingerprints.

B His first two books – The End of Economic Man (1939) and The Future of Industrial Man (1942) – had their admirers, including Winston Churchill, but they annoyed academic critics by ranging so widely over so many different subjects. Still, the second of these books attracted attention with its passionate insistence that companies had a social dimension as well as an economic purpose. His third book, The Concept of the Corporation, became an instant bestseller and has remained in print ever since.

C The two most interesting arguments in The Concept of the Corporation actually had little to do with the decentralization fad. They were to dominate his work. The first had to do with “empowering” workers. Drucker believed in treating workers as resources rather than just as costs. He was a harsh critic of the assembly-line system of production that then dominated the manufacturing sector – partly because assembly lines moved at the speed of the slowest and partly because they failed to engage the creativity of individual workers. The second argument had to do with the rise of knowledge workers. Drucker argued that the world is moving from an “economy of goods” to an economy of “knowledge” – and from a society dominated by an industrial proletariat to one dominated by brain workers. He insisted that this had profound implications for both managers and politicians. Managers had to stop treating workers like cogs in a huge inhuman machine and start treating them as brain workers. In turn, politicians had to realise that knowledge, and hence education, was the single most important resource for any advanced society. Yet Drucker also thought that this economy had implications for knowledge workers themselves. They had to come to terms with the fact that they were neither “bosses” nor “workers”, but something in between: entrepreneurs who had responsibility for developing their most important resource, brainpower, and who also needed to take more control of their own careers, including their pension plans.

D However, there was also a hard side to his work. Drucker was responsible for inventing one of the rational school of management’s most successful products – “management by objectives”. In one of his most substantial works, The Practice of Management (1954), he emphasised the importance of managers and corporations setting clear long-term objectives and then translating those long-term objectives into more immediate goals. He argued that firms should have an elite corps of general managers, who set these long-term objectives, and then a group of more specialised managers. For his critics, this was a retreat from his earlier emphasis on the soft side of management. For Drucker it was all perfectly consistent: if you rely too much on empowerment you risk anarchy, whereas if you rely too much on command-and-control you sacrifice creativity. The trick is for managers to set long-term goals, but then allow their employees to work out ways of achieving those goals. If Drucker helped make management a global industry, he also helped push it beyond its business base. He was emphatically a management thinker, not just a business one. He believed that management is “the defining organ of all modern institutions”, not just corporations.

E There are three persistent criticisms of Drucker’s work. The first is that he focused on big organisations rather than small ones. The Concept of the Corporation was in many ways a fanfare to big organisations. As Drucker said, “We know today that in modern industrial production, particularly in modern mass production, the small unit is not only inefficient, it cannot produce at all.” The book helped to launch the “big organisation boom” that dominated business thinking for the next 20 years. The second criticism is that Drucker’s enthusiasm for management by objectives helped to lead the business down a dead end. They prefer to allow ideas, including ideas for long-term strategies, to bubble up from the bottom and middle of the organisations rather than being imposed from on high. Thirdly, Drucker is criticised for being a maverick who has increasingly been left behind by the increasing rigour of his chosen field. There is no single area of academic management theory that he made his own.

F There is some truth in the first two arguments. Drucker never wrote anything as good as The Concept of the Corporation on entrepreneurial start-ups. Drucker’s work on management by objectives sits uneasily with his earlier and later writings on the importance of knowledge workers and self-directed teams. But the third argument is short-sighted and unfair because it ignores Drucker’s pioneering role in creating the modern profession of management. He produced one of the first systematic studies of a big company. He pioneered the idea that ideas can help galvanise companies. The biggest problem with evaluating Drucker’s influence is that so many of his ideas have passed into conventional wisdom. In other words, he is the victim of his own success. His writings on the importance of knowledge workers and empowerment may sound a little banal today. But they certainly weren’t banal when he first dreamed them up in the 1940s, or when they were first put into practice in the Anglo-Saxon world in the 1980s. Moreover, Drucker continued to produce new ideas up until his 90s. His work on the management of voluntary organisations remained at the cutting edge.

Questions

Questions 14-19 Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list below. Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i. The popularity and impact of Drucker’s work

ii. Finding fault with Drucker

iii. The impact of economic globalisation

iv. Government regulation of business

v. Early publications of Drucker’s

vi. Drucker’s view of balanced management

vii. Drucker’s rejection of big business

viii. An appreciation of the pros and cons of Drucker’s work

ix. The changing role of the employee

14. Paragraph A

15. Paragraph B

16. Paragraph C

17. Paragraph D

18. Paragraph E

19. Paragraph F

Questions 20-23 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

YES if the statement agrees with what is stated in the passage

NO if the statement counters to what is stated in the passage

NOT GIVEN if there is no relevant information given in the passage

20. Drucker believed the employees should enjoy the same status as the employers in a company.

21. Drucker argued the managers and politicians will dominate the economy during a social transition.

22. Drucker supported that workers are not simply put themselves just in the employment relationship and should develop their resources of intelligence voluntarily.

23. Drucker’s work on the management is out of date in modern days.

Questions 24-25 Choose TWO letters from A-E. Write your answers in boxes 24 and 25. Which TWO of the following are true of Drucker’s views?

A. High-rank executives and workers should be put in balanced positions in management practice.

B. Young executives should be given chances to start from low-level jobs.

C. More emphasis should be laid on fostering the development of the union.

D. Management should facilitate workers with tools of self-appraisal instead of controlling them from the outside force.

E. Leaders should go beyond the scope of management details and strategically establish goals.

Questions 26-27 Choose TWO letters from A-E. Write your answers in boxes 26 and 27. Which TWO of the following are mentioned in the passage as criticisms to Drucker and his views?

A. His lectures focus too much on big organisations and ignore the small ones.

B. His lectures are too broad and lack of being precise and accurate about the facts.

C. He put a source of objectives more on corporate executives but not on average workers.

D. He acted much like a maverick and did not set up his own management groups.

E. He was overstating the case for knowledge workers when warning business to get prepared.

Complete Translation of the Reading Passage

A. Peter Drucker was one of the most important management thinkers of the past hundred years. He wrote about 40 books and thousands of articles and he never rested in his mission to persuade the world that management matters. “Management is an organ of institutions… the organ that converts a mob into an organisation, and human efforts into performance.” Did he succeed? His influence was extraordinary. Wherever people grapple with tricky management problems, from big organizations to small ones, from the public sector to the private, and increasingly in the voluntary sector, you can find Drucker’s fingerprints.

B. His first two books – The End of Economic Man (1939) and The Future of Industrial Man (1942) – had their admirers, including Winston Churchill, but they annoyed academic critics by ranging so widely over so many different subjects. Still, the second of these books attracted attention with its passionate insistence that companies had a social dimension as well as an economic purpose. His third book, The Concept of the Corporation, became an instant bestseller and has remained in print ever since.

C. The two most interesting arguments in The Concept of the Corporation actually had little to do with the decentralization fad. They were to dominate his work. The first had to do with “empowering” workers. Drucker believed in treating workers as resources rather than just as costs. He was a harsh critic of the assembly-line system of production that then dominated the manufacturing sector – partly because assembly lines moved at the speed of the slowest, and partly because they failed to engage the creativity of individual workers. The second argument had to do with the rise of knowledge workers. Drucker argued that the world is moving from an “economy of goods” to an economy of “knowledge” – and from a society dominated by an industrial proletariat to one dominated by brain workers. He insisted that this had profound implications for both managers and politicians. Managers had to stop treating workers like cogs in a huge inhuman machine and start treating them as brain workers. In turn, politicians had to realise that knowledge, and hence education, was the single most important resource for any advanced society. Yet Drucker also thought that this economy had implications for knowledge workers themselves. They had to come to terms with the fact that they were neither “bosses” nor “workers”, but something in between: entrepreneurs who had responsibility for developing their most important resource – brainpower – and who also needed to take more control of their own careers, including their pension plans.

D. However, there was also a hard side to his work. Drucker was responsible for inventing one of the rational school of management’s most successful products – “management by objectives”. In one of his most substantial works, The Practice of Management (1954), he emphasised the importance of managers and corporations setting clear long-term objectives, then translating those into more immediate goals. He argued that firms should have an elite corps of general managers to set these long-term objectives, and then a group of more specialised managers. For his critics, this was a retreat from his earlier emphasis on the “soft” side of management. But for Drucker, it was all perfectly consistent: if you rely too much on empowerment, you risk anarchy; whereas if you rely too much on command-and-control, you sacrifice creativity. The trick is for managers to set long-term goals, but then allow their employees to work out ways of achieving them. If Drucker helped make management a global industry, he also helped push it beyond its business base. He was emphatically a management thinker, not just a business one. He believed that management is “the defining organ of all modern institutions”, not just corporations.

E. There are three persistent criticisms of Drucker’s work. The first is that he focused on big organisations rather than small ones. The Concept of the Corporation was in many ways a fanfare to big organisations. As Drucker said: “We know today that in modern industrial production, particularly in modern mass production, the small unit is not only inefficient, it cannot produce at all.” The book helped to launch the “big organisation boom” that dominated business thinking for the next 20 years. The second criticism is that Drucker’s enthusiasm for “management by objectives” helped to lead the business down a dead end. Critics prefer to allow ideas, including long-term strategies, to bubble up from the bottom and middle of the organisation rather than being imposed from on high. Thirdly, Drucker is criticised for being a maverick who has increasingly been left behind by the increasing rigour of his chosen field. There is no single area of academic management theory that he made his own.

F. There is some truth in the first two arguments. Drucker never wrote anything as good as The Concept of the Corporation on entrepreneurial start-ups. His work on “management by objectives” sits uneasily with his earlier and later writings on the importance of knowledge workers and self-directed teams. But the third argument is short-sighted and unfair because it ignores Drucker’s pioneering role in creating the modern profession of management. He produced one of the first systematic studies of a big company. He pioneered the idea that ideas can help galvanise companies. The biggest problem with evaluating Drucker’s influence is that so many of his ideas have passed into conventional wisdom. In other words, he is the victim of his own success. His writings on the importance of knowledge workers and empowerment may sound a little banal today. But they certainly weren’t banal when he first dreamed them up in the 1940s, or when they were first put into practice in the Anglo-Saxon world in the 1980s. Moreover, Drucker continued to produce new ideas up until his 90s. His work on the management of voluntary organisations remained at the cutting edge.

Academic Vocabulary Summary

This reading passage synthesizes many terms from the fields of management and economics. Below are the most valuable vocabulary items you can leverage for your IELTS Writing and Speaking tests:

• Grapple with (phrasal verb): To struggle with or try to overcome a difficult problem.

  • Example from the text: Wherever people grapple with tricky management problems…

• Decentralization (n): The transfer of authority from central to local government or management.

• Empowerment (n): The process of giving employees the authority or power to make decisions.

• Proletariat (n): The working class, especially those who do manual labor.

• Anarchy (n): A state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority.

• Maverick (n): An independent-minded person who does not follow established rules or conventions.

• Galvanise (v): To shock or excite someone into taking action; to stir into awareness.

• Conventional wisdom (n): A generally accepted belief or opinion.

• Banal (adj): So lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.

• Cutting edge (n / adj): The most advanced or innovative stage of development.

Detailed Analysis & Answer Explanations

Questions 14-19: Matching Headings

14. Paragraph A -> i (The popularity and impact of Drucker’s work)

Explanation: Paragraph A discusses Drucker’s immense influence: “The range of his influence was extraordinary” and “Wherever people grapple with tricky management problems… you can find Drucker’s fingerprints.” This aligns perfectly with “popularity and impact”.

15. Paragraph B -> v (Early publications of Drucker’s)

Explanation: Paragraph B specifically lists his early books: “His first two books… The End of Economic Man (1939) and The Future of Industrial Man (1942)… His third book…” (Drucker’s early publications).

16. Paragraph C -> ix (The changing role of the employee)

Explanation: Paragraph C focuses on the argument for “empowering workers” and the rise of “knowledge workers”. The employee’s role shifts from “cogs” in a machine to “brain workers” who act as entrepreneurs responsible for their own careers.

17. Paragraph D -> vi (Drucker’s view of balanced management)

Explanation: In paragraph D, Drucker presents a balanced view between empowerment and command-and-control: “if you rely too much on empowerment you risk anarchy, whereas if you rely too much on command-and-control you sacrifice creativity.” (Drucker’s view on balanced management).

18. Paragraph E -> ii (Finding fault with Drucker)

Explanation: Paragraph E directly lists three criticisms of Drucker: “There are three persistent criticisms of Drucker’s work.” (Finding fault with/criticizing Drucker).

19. Paragraph F -> viii (An appreciation of the pros and cons of Drucker’s work)

Explanation: Paragraph F fairly evaluates both the weaknesses and strengths regarding the criticisms in paragraph E: “There is some truth in the first two arguments” (Accepting flaws – cons) while defending him: “But the third argument is short-sighted and unfair” (Appreciating his pioneering contributions – pros).

Questions 20-23: YES/NO/NOT GIVEN

20. NOT GIVEN

Question: Drucker believed that employees should enjoy the same status as employers in a company.

Explanation: Paragraph C mentions that employees are neither bosses nor workers (“neither bosses nor workers, but something in between”). However, the passage DOES NOT mention any requirement for “the same status” between employees and employers.

21. NOT GIVEN

Question: Drucker argued that managers and politicians will dominate the economy during a social transition.

Explanation: Paragraph C states that society will be dominated by “brain workers”. This has profound implications for managers and politicians, but it does not say that they (managers/politicians) will “dominate the economy”.

22. YES

Question: Drucker supported the idea that workers should not simply place themselves in an employment relationship but should voluntarily develop their intellectual resources.

Explanation: Paragraph C states: knowledge workers are entrepreneurs “who had responsibility for developing their most important resource, brainpower, and who also needed to take more control of their own careers…” This matches the question’s statement.

23. NO

Question: Drucker’s management research is out of date in modern times.

Explanation: In the final sentence of paragraph F, the author asserts: “His work on the management of voluntary organisations remained at the cutting edge.” This means it is not out of date.

Questions 24-25: Multiple Choice (Choose 2)

Answer: A and E

A (High-rank executives and workers should be put in balanced positions in management practice): Based on paragraph D, Drucker emphasizes balance: “if you rely too much on empowerment you risk anarchy, whereas if you rely too much on command-and-control you sacrifice creativity.” (Balance between top-down control and worker empowerment).

E (Leaders should go beyond the scope of management details and strategically establish goals): Also in paragraph D: “The trick is for managers to set long-term goals, but then allow their employees to work out ways of achieving those goals.” (Leaders should set strategic long-term goals and let employees handle the details).

(B, C, and D are either not mentioned or contradict information in the text).

Questions 26-27: Multiple Choice (Choose 2)

Answer: A and C

A (His lectures focus too much on big organisations and ignore the small ones): Based on paragraph E, the first criticism: “The first is that he focused on big organisations rather than small ones.” (Matches A perfectly).

C (He put a source of objectives more on corporate executives but not on average workers): Based on paragraph E, the second criticism shows that Drucker wanted objectives to be set from on high (imposed from on high), which displeased critics who preferred strategies to bubble up from the bottom and middle.

(B, D, and E are not clearly stated as criticisms in paragraph E).

In summary, quickly grasping viewpoints and counter-arguments in the “Father of modern management” passage will help you hone your analytical reading skills—a crucial ability not only for the Reading section but also for building arguments in IELTS Writing Task 2.