Organization theory is a broad field with roots in sociology. Anthropologists, philosophists, and political scientists have contributed greatly to the field. Organization theory as a topic for managers, as opposed to scholars, has come about fairly recently. For example, political scientists trace many ideas back to Ancient Rome or even before. Philosophers reach even farther back in time, and anthropologists have been interested in organization in terms of how groups arrange social systems and status systems as long as there has been a field of anthropology.

Although it is difficult to pinpoint when managers became interested in theories of organization, some suggest it was around the 1940s, when the writings of the German sociologist and engineer, Max Weber, were translated into English. Although Weber's life-work was spent trying to understand why capitalism arose first in Western Europe rather than in Asia, American managers lifted Weber's notion...