Scientific Management

Genesis and Growth of Scientific Management

Frederick Winslow Taylor is considered the founder and dominant figure in this school of thought, which is often referred to as Taylorism. Considered alongside his collaborators and contemporaries, Taylor looms large. Arthur Bedaeian and Daniel Wren, based on an order of merit ranking procedure, credited Taylor with the most influential management book of the 20th century, Principles of Scientific Management, although multiple books from the human relations movement make the list. Edwin Locke and others have provided flattering treatments. Taylor's treatment in his Principles viewed management as systematic process and moved the field beyond the familial and craft leadership that was predominant in American industry. The scientific management approach offered stability in an era when traditional methods and assumptions were changing as a result of the confluence of progress, immigration, engineering, and education. Historian Robert Wiebe described the interval between 1877 and 1920 as a time in which many individuals and movements sought order in a country that was buffeted in a choppy sea of forces, such as industrialization and urbanization. The bureaucratic worldview coincided with a concept called psychotechnology in Europe.

Taylor blazed a trail as a consulting engineer and offered insights to industrialists and managers, much as Walter Dill Scott offered insights to advertising executives. After earning an engineering degree at Stevens Institute of Technology (site of the Taylor archives), he worked at the Midvale Steel Company, where he formulated his thinking. The expression of scientific management theory in Shop Management in 1903 and Principles of Scientific Management in 1911 earned Taylor widespread praise from factory owners but condemnation from trade unionists. Misunderstanding flourished on both sides. Taylor's biggest success was achieved at Bethlehem Steel, where his methods claimed to achieve a 200% increase in productivity after two years with only a 50% increase in wages. Careful historiographic research by Charles Wrege and his colleagues, however, shows problems with some of Taylor's claims about “Schmidt the laborer” (see Further Reading).

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