This paper synthesizes some advances of a research project that tries to identify the place of human being in modern organizations. The main argument is that during the last centuries it has taken place in Western World a process of instrumentalisation that has conceived man, nature and knowledge only as means for the fulfillment of economic purposes, and the emergence of management is a manifestation of this process. The document examines very briefly the historical evolution of the concepts of human being and work, trying to answer the question about the role of management in the formation of contemporary conception of man and work.