Gurus of gurus

The Harvard Business Review asked 200 management gurus—the business thinkers most often mentioned in the media and management literature—who their gurus were. Below are their responses.

8 Mentions. Peter Drucker: Management theory;

7 Mentions. James G. March: Social scientist at Stanford;

6 Mentions. Herbert Simon: Nobel laureate economist and organizational theorist;

5 Mentions. Paul Lawrence: Organizational researcher at Harvard Business School;

4 Mentions. Richard Beckhard: Management theorist at MIT; Fernand Braudel: French historian; Ian Koshnick: Attorney organizational designer at the Univ. of Maryland; Henry Mintzberg: Management writer and critic at McGill; Joseph Schumpeter: Economist at Harvard; Karl Weick: Social psychologist at the University of Michigan;

3 Mentions. Russell Ackoff: Operations and systems theorist at Wharton; Warren Bennis: Leadership theorist at the Univ. of Southern California; Ronald Coase: Nobel laureate economist at the University of Chicago; W. Edwards Deming: Statistician and quality consultant; Erving Goffman: Sociologist; Gary Hamel: Consultant and management writer; Jay Lorsch: Organizational researcher at HBS; Michael Porter: Professor of strategy and competitiveness at HBS; C.K. Prahalad: Management theorist at the University of Michigan; Jack Welch: Former CEO, General Electric; Oliver Williamson: Organizational economist at UC, Berkeley.

Two Mentions and below are omitted here.