historical evidence of administration practices: The beginnings of a contemporary science

This article aims to identify the managerial practices of organizations before the threshold of the twentieth century, a landmark of management as a science. Based on a bibliographical review, it seeks to identify evidence of management practices applied over the centuries and that fit into the five dimensions of management, namely: strategic, organizational, products and services, people and control. Each dimension is divided by the nature of its approach, with specific focuses of studies of the handcrafted practices of administration. By making some parallels between the approaches of management science and its dimensions applied to the past organizations, there is a series of evidences of management practices adopted by contemporary companies. Finally, it indicates that the administration as science can not do anything without the art of the administration being constructed by the administrators of companies. Thus, management scientists, from the evidence of management as an art, should scientifically seek empirical evidence to describe, explain or prescribe administrative facts for the universe of companies.