Drucker, Peter

Drucker, Peter (Ferdinand) (1909–  ) writer, management consultant; born in Vienna, Austria. He emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1937. He had a varied early career as an economist, journalist, and philosophy professor before settling into a career teaching management and social sciences (New York University (1950–71), the Drucker School of Management (Claremont, Calif.) (1971)) and consulting to major corporations. He wrote prolifically on a wide range of topics from social and political issues to business analysis. He is best known, however, for changing the teaching and practice of management and helping establish management as a professional discipline through his numerous books, articles, films, and audiocassettes, including Practice of Management (1954) and Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1974). These reached a wide audience, and many of his ideas—business as the representative institution of industrial society, marketing as central to management's task, management by objectives as superior to management by control—have become commonplaces.