Scientific Management

There is a renewed interest in scientific management and the works of F.W. Taylor. This volume seeks to add to the understanding of scientific management, which is under review because of the changes in the world's industrial activities. It asserts that the disciplined engineering approach to manufacturing which underpins scientific management was not uniquely American. Scientific management, as developed by Taylor, spread from America to the rest of the world. Sometimes it was taken up eagerly, sometimes it converged with local initiatives, but in no industrial nation was it ignored. The text comprises three parts: the insights and flaws in Taylor's theory of industrial organization; the nature of Taylor's contributions to engineering and to factory management and some of their effects; and with the spread of scientific management throughout the world. The editor believes today's managers and management educators cannot move on to the creation of a new post-industrial society without a better appreciation of the influence of scientific management, and of the person who was its principal architect.