KURT LEWIN AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN MANAGEMENT THEORY.

Kurt Lewin's major contributions to management theory are 1. the concepts of field theory, 2. action research (the interweaving of laboratory experiment, systematic research in the field, and client service), 3. the study of group dynamics, and 4. aspects of sensitivity training techniques. His ideas appear today in discussions of productivity, management by participation, job enrichment, organizational development, organizational stress, and organizational change. His intellectual development may be conveniently divided into two phases. During the first period in Germany, after the First World War, his philosophy of science and psychology of individuals developed. The second period, in the United States, from the 1930's until his death in 1946, involved a market shift in his interest from the individual to the group and the birth of group dynamics as a field of study. In this brief paper I will trace some historically intriguing antecedents of later work in Lewin's earliest papers, which are not available in English. Although fascinating from a historical viewpoint, these papers do not, of course, show the full development of his thought in his latest papers.