Saturday, November 12 2005 11:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Los Angeles: Peter F. Drucker, revered as the father of modern management for his numerous books and articles stressing innovation, entrepreneurship and strategies for dealing with a changing world, has died, a spokesman for Claremont Graduate University said.

The Vienna-born Drucker died yesterday (Nov 11, 2005) of natural causes at his home in Claremont, east of Los Angeles, said spokesman Bryan Schneider.

Drucker was considered a management visionary for his recognition that dedicated employees are key to the success of any corporation, and marketing and innovation should come before worries about finances.

His motivational techniques were used by executives at some of the biggest companies in corporate America, including Intel Corp. and Sears, Roebuck & Co.

In 2002, Drucker was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has been called the world's foremost pioneer of management theory and a champion of concepts such as privatization, management by objective and decentralization.

Business Week magazine hailed him as the most enduring management thinker of our time and Forbes magazine featured him on a 1997 cover under the headline, 'Still the Youngest Mind.'

In the early 1940s, General Motors invited Drucker to study its inner workings. That experience led to his first management book, Concept of the Corporation, in 1946. He went on to write more than 30 books.

"He's very much an intellectual leader, and that's not common," said D. Quinn Mills, a professor at Harvard Business School who shared the podium at several conferences with Drucker. Quinn described Drucker's insights as rare.