SUMERIANS CIVILIZATION (3000B.C.-2200B.C.

Sumer or Sumerian was one of the ancient civilizations and historical regions in
southern Mesopotamia, modern-day southern Iraq, during the Chalcolithic and Early
Bronze Age.

Although the earliest forms of writing in the region do not go back much further
than c. 3500 BC, modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first
permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a non-Semitic people who
spoke the Sumerian language(pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic
occupations, etc. as evidence).
The peoples of Sumer are among the earliest denizens of Mesopotamia. By about
4000 B.C., the Sumerians had organized themselves into several city-states that
were spread throughout the southern part of the region. These city-states were
independent of one another and were fully self-reliant centers, each surrounding a
temple that was dedicated to god or goddess specific to that city-state. Each citystate was governed by a priest king.
The irrigated farming together with annual replenishment of soil fertility and the
surplus of storable food in temple granaries created by this economy allowed the
population of this region to rise to levels never before seen, unlike those found in
earlier cultures of shifting cultivators. This much greater population density in turn
created and required an extensive labor force and division of labor with many
specialized arts and crafts. At the same time, historic overuse of the irrigated soils
led to progressive salinization, and a Malthusian crisis which led to depopulation of
the Sumerian region over time, leading to its progressive eclipse by the Akkadians
of middle Mesopotamia.
The Sumerians saw most of their wealth and success from trade. Artisans such as
weavers and potters would sell their wares to traders who had traveled the rivers or
the desert. The fertile land (the area was known as the Fertile Crescent) upon which
they lived provided a successful agriculture industry as well.
Sumer was also the site of early development of writing, progressing from a stage of
proto-writing in the mid-4th millennium BC to writing proper in the 3rd millennium
BC.
Sumerian pictographs predated cuneiform script.
The Sumerians used pictographs for commercial record keeping rather than
conveying sounds, according to the University of Chicago Oriental Institute.

Management history can be traced back to Sumerians in 5000 B.C. They kept
records of tax systems, properties and other monetary and non-monetary holdings.
Later, Egyptians showed to the world their expertise in managing to erect pyramids.
Then Catholic Church and governments of times were employing some form of
management to handle their affairs. Then industrial revolution took place and it
brought in picture big organizations and factories first in England and later in North
America. The concept of Economies of Scale also came in the picture according to
which large people were required to work to achieve cost benefits. The involvement
of large number of people in work areas brought complexities. In the initial days,
however, the emphasis was more on machines than people. The working conditions
favored machines and their efficiency rather than people and their capabilities. This
aspect of efficiency and machines paved the way for scientific management.
Frederick Taylor was the person who put forward the concept of scientific
management. His scientific management system pioneered the theories of business
administration in the early twentieth century. He emphasized on the inclusion of
scientific study in the management arena. He suggested improvement in
management practices i.e. study of different situation be carried out to bring about
improvements. The purpose was to increase the efficiency of production or factory
workers by developing the one best way of doing a job. Clearly, their contribution in
todays management was their use of written rules & regulation for governance
which we call policy in modern management language.