Mary Parker Follett and the Quest for Pragmatic Administration

Abstract

Beyond simply accepting Mary Parker Follett `s reputation as an innovative administrative theorist, this article scrutinizes both her administrative theories and her supporting ideation for these theories. It finds that she constructed her administrative theory on a mixture of idealism and pragmatism. She vacillated between the two. In her idealist mode she claimed that administration fulfilled the individual. In her pragmatic mode, she stressed organizational problem solving. Follett mistakenly assumed that these claims could be based on two very different, often contradictory, philosophic traditions. The result, then, was an unfounded "organizational imperative" that claimed modern administrative organizations were vital for individual development as well as essential for the survival of liberal democracy.

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