Scientific Management
DANIEL
NELSON
I
Scientific Management in Retrospect
Injanuary 1912, Frederick W. Taylor, the center of a highly publicized controversy over the effects of "scientific manage ment, " testified before a House of Representatives committee investigating his handiwork. His first objective, he explained, was to "sweep away a good deal of rubbish." Scientific management was "not any efficiency device. . . . It is not a new system of figuring costs; it is not a new system of paying men . . . it is not holding a stop watch on a man . . . it is not time study; it is not motion study. . . . " I n fact, it was "not any of the devices which the average man calls to mind when scientific management is spoken of." On the contrary, it was "a complete mental revolution on the part of the workingman" and an "equally complete mental revolution on the part of those on management's side. . . . And without this complete mental revolution on both sides scientific management does not exist. "* Taylor's identification of scientific management with a "mental revolution" had several purposes. It was the culminating step in a long campaign to sell his approach to industrial management as a system rather than a series of palliatives for specific problems. It was also a defense against criticisms that had arisen from piece meal installations and the association of scientific management with hostility to unions. Finally, it emphasized a point that Taylor
The author gratefully acknowledges the comments and suggestions of K. Austin Kerr, Patrick Fridenson, Heidrun Homburg, Barbara Clements, Eisuke Daito, and the authors of the other essays in this volume.
6 • D A N I E L
N E L S O N
himself had only recently begun to articulate: that successful management depended on ideas that were applicable to many different kinds of organizations. Taylor's imagery evoked an enthusiastic response from engineers and factory managers and from a larger group whose interests extended to
NELSON
I
Scientific Management in Retrospect
Injanuary 1912, Frederick W. Taylor, the center of a highly publicized controversy over the effects of "scientific manage ment, " testified before a House of Representatives committee investigating his handiwork. His first objective, he explained, was to "sweep away a good deal of rubbish." Scientific management was "not any efficiency device. . . . It is not a new system of figuring costs; it is not a new system of paying men . . . it is not holding a stop watch on a man . . . it is not time study; it is not motion study. . . . " I n fact, it was "not any of the devices which the average man calls to mind when scientific management is spoken of." On the contrary, it was "a complete mental revolution on the part of the workingman" and an "equally complete mental revolution on the part of those on management's side. . . . And without this complete mental revolution on both sides scientific management does not exist. "* Taylor's identification of scientific management with a "mental revolution" had several purposes. It was the culminating step in a long campaign to sell his approach to industrial management as a system rather than a series of palliatives for specific problems. It was also a defense against criticisms that had arisen from piece meal installations and the association of scientific management with hostility to unions. Finally, it emphasized a point that Taylor
The author gratefully acknowledges the comments and suggestions of K. Austin Kerr, Patrick Fridenson, Heidrun Homburg, Barbara Clements, Eisuke Daito, and the authors of the other essays in this volume.
6 • D A N I E L
N E L S O N
himself had only recently begun to articulate: that successful management depended on ideas that were applicable to many different kinds of organizations. Taylor's imagery evoked an enthusiastic response from engineers and factory managers and from a larger group whose interests extended to