Ordway Tead (10 September 1891 – November 1973)[1] was an American organizational theorist, adjunct professor of industrial relations at Columbia University, chair of the New York Board of Higher Education, first president of the Society for Advancement of Management (SAM), editor and publishing executive, and prolific author on personnel administration and labor relations, organizational management, higher education, and political science.
[5] From 1938 to 1953 he was chair of the New York Board of Higher Education, where in 1941 he was involved in sacking any faculty staff who belonged to a Communist, Fascist or Nazi organization.
From 1920 until his retirement in 1961 he worked in the publishing industry at both McGraw Hill (1920-1925) and Harper & Row as an editor of business, social science and economics books and director of the organization.
In 1920, Tead and Henry C. Metcalf wrote Personnel Administration: its principles and practices, the first college level textbook in this emerging field and he served as a thought leader and advocate in the discipline's formative years up through the early 1930's.
[10] Tead's book, The Art of Administration (1951), has been called his "magnum opus" where he contributed important insights on management and social philosophy.