IMC : Origins 1964

Origins 1964-1982

IMCA was established as the Institute of Scientific Business ( ISB ) in August 1964, but began operating prior to that date at several Polytechnics around the UK. On the occasion of its 25th Anniversary in 1989 John Fyfe, ISB's third Secretary from 1967-1973 penned his remembrances of those early years - Fyfe. Later in life John Fyfe was to be active in the South Pacific with the UK's Ministry for Overseas Development and an early tutor there on IMCA programmes in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

ISB's foundation was preceded by the launch of its journal Scientific Business in May 1963 with the support of The Creative Press in Reading. That journal changed its name when it was sold to IPC in London in 1967 to become Management Decision. 'The journal's first issue was preceded by a Pilot Issue explaining the need for such a launch. One year's subscription for 4 issues was set at £2.5s.0d / $US 7 post free. The Contents of the first issue "Introduced the Journal" and included the first announcement of ISB's formation. Dr EFL Brech, MBE, ISB's first President and subsequently elected a member of IMCA and Revans University Court of Honorary Members in at aged 94, wrote on the Theory of Management in the third issue later that year.

Reg Revans, then working in Bruxelles and to become IMCA's President in 1982, wrote for Management Decision in Spring 1969 entitled Alienation & Resistance to Change (part 1, part 2).

As the formation announcement had indicated, ISB was an Institute committed to classes of membership based on prior qualifications gained in business studies and management. Ken Marshall, the founding Secretary based at Woodley, near Reading, undertook co-ordination and processing of applications from his own home. As such its activities focussed on staying up to date both via the journal and via Seminars and Workshops rather than offering its own qualifications programmes. This was not attempted until the 1982 reforms. Ken Marshall's office was subsequently followed by 15 Hazel Walk Bradford and latterly 200 Keighley Road Bradford - the latter becoming the home of Management Decision's buy-out publishers from 1971. It remained at this last venue until its move to Buckingham in 1982.

The first open Seminar was with the world famous Harvard Professor, Pearson Hunt. It was held at Slough College from which the majority of ISB's founders had graduated in 1964 with their Diploma in Management Studies (DMS). It was entitled Higher Business Control and convened on July 21st/ 22nd 1964 for the fee of 5 guineas. Even in those days, ISB was clearly a strident force for critique of the heritage university way of doing things as Pearson Hunt's article A Professor Looks at Himself, His Students and Faculties (part1, part2, part3) shows.

1965 saw a joint conference at Windsor Hall, University of Reading addressing Conditions Favourable to Technological Innovation with the Marketing Society and the Young European Managers Association. A Draft Report of an ISB Study group led by Ashton, Gotham and Wills was published in time for that meeting with a title only differing by the substitution of 'Product' for 'Technological' (part1, part2, part3, part4).

By 1972 ISB's journal, Management Decision, was a well accepted widely read magazine commanding authorship from senior practitioners and academics alike. Its only rival was Blackwell's Journal of Management Studies based at the new Manchester Business School although conceived whilst its Director was still an Oxford Fellow, Grigor McClelland.
The 10th anniversary Editorial for Spring 1972 looked at Progress in Management Thought.

ISB was busy publishing from Hull a Report and Survey Series edited by Dr Barrie Pettman of the University of Hull; and it was organising workshops throughout 1972/ 1973 and 1973/ 1974. These included in particular the exploration of Management in 80s at Sorrento to which John Fyfe at the end of his 25th Anniversary Review draws considerable attention.

Seminars Conferences and Workshops have remained an enduring theme for ISB and IMCA until the present day, although the grand events of the 1970s and 1980s are no longer a contemporary feature. Some of these are captured here through their promotional leaflets ( and extend beyond the end date of 1982. ) Dr Bill Reddin, a Bradford University graduate and world authority presented Improving Productivity through People. In Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, where Reg Revans had a decade earlier been Tunku Abdul Rahman Lecturer (part1, part2) at the Institute of Management, the IMCA Workshop addressed Marketing of Financial and Banking Services. World Conferences on Management Development were convened in Dubai, with Reg Revans as a speaker. The 3rd and 5th were held in London at the Royal Lancaster and the Cafe Royal.
In 1988 IMCA and the International Foundation for Action Learning held Insights to Action Learning in Buckingham. The Manpower Services Commission funded research at IMCA into how directors learn, leading to a book from IMCA's Dr Alan Mumford Developing Directors.