Oleg Samuilovich Vihansky

This article is devoted to the fiftieth anniversary of Management of organization department at the MSU Faculty of Economics. The article examines the analysis and dynamics of the management theory formation and development at the department, also to its role in the management knowledge development in the country. The article subject are theoretical development and provisions created by the department staff over fifty years of its existence. It is shown that the birth of a scientific school at the department, which later had a pivotal impact on the management theory development in the country, was generated both by the objective conditions of the planned system evolution of the country’s economy and changes in the social environment. The article considers the role of the personal factor in the scientific school formation, — the role of its founder and longtime leader G. Kh. Popov. The article demonstrates cardinal changes in the subject of theoretical research as the response to the change in the social and economic system of the country. The changes are evident in the new training courses creation and in the conceptual description of the new management theory provisions that are adequate to the current conditions in the environment. An important point of the article with concrete examples is the development of management thought within department scientific school which was not only in the form of reaction to the changes in the external environment, but also in accordance with scientific knowledge dialectics and logic of theoretical knowledge development. It is demonstrated that succession is a major factor defined the dynamics of theoretical thought development at the department in the stage of fundamental social and economic changes in terms of generation changes.