One of the few Australians to have appeared on anybody's list of famous management gurus, Elton Mayo (1880-1949) was born in Adelaide on Boxing Day 1880 and studied psychology at the city's university.

ECONOMIST: Guru

If Elton Mayo's Hawthorne results still hold good, all the attention being bestowed upon the individual worker might of itself be enough to bring about a productivity boost that even the foggy radar of economic statistics can pick up.

ECONOMIST: Business books (3)