"Dimock makes the generalization that 90 percent of the characteristics of public government executive management are identical with those of private executive management. In spite of large areas of similarity, I strongly dissent. I would place the percentage very much lower - whether 30 per cent or SO per cent lower, I shall not attempt to say."
"All these associates were willing to help me in expanding my habit of trying to look all around things before interpreting them, as it seemed to me that the administrator should, instead of limiting his range of thought to some specialized point of view."
"Everything ahead of us is dangerous. There isn’t a power the President has asked for that isn’t dangerous. But there isn’t a power or a combination of powers he has asked for so dangerous as continuing to do nothing."
"At this point water-tight compartments of university specialization and theories founded on the selected isolation of facts easily break down. Specialized thinking is rarely a sufficient foundation for concrete decisions involving action. The social scientist cannot often form sound administrative judgments solely on the basis of elements which he has picked out simply because they relate directly to his particular specialty. The present emphasis on artificial subdivisions of knowledge and on specialized thinking and teaching in universities, technical schools, and colleges and the relative neglect of administrative problems involving action have a dangerously narrowing effect on graduates of these institutions. While we may and frequently do arouse the intellectual interest of students in a considerable variety of subjects intimately related to the civilization of which they are a part, we pay almost no attention to the web of cross ties among these subjects."
"As a result our graduates leave us without having formed the habit of seeking wide generalizations related to diverse variables in the social situations which surround them. Because they lack both habits and methods which lead them to seek generalizations, they become, after they leave us, Specialists themselves and make decisions without the guides to action within their special fields which wider viewpoints might give. To develop them as we must, the artificial dividing lines between social sciences must in large measure be broken down. Specialized training must be both counteracted and supplemented by training which brings in the widest social implications. Otherwise men will not be trained to meet the problems faced by public and private administrators."
"p. 176; cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 194-5"
"As Dean, Donham developed the "case method" of teaching business administration by the study of actual experiences from day-to-day business life. He was also a leader in the scientific study of human relations, and after World War II helped to introduce human relations courses in Harvard College... When he resigned from the deanship in 1942, Donham still continued as George F. Baker Professor of Business Administration until 1948. During this six year period, he especially studied the human factor in economic relationships. His book, "Education for Responsible Living," in 1944 was a critique of college education and stressed the importance of courses in human relations."