FREDERICK W.TAYLOR: HIS LIFE, HIS MANAGEMENT THEORY, HIS LEGACY

*Rick Marsh 2013

INTRODUCTION

Although the management of other people’s labour production and human resource management date back to the dawn of human history, the rise of employment management function is tightly tethered with the emergence of the doctrine and practice of ‘Scientific Management’ (Kaufman, 2007). The first visible roots of scientific writings on organizational management appeared in the early 1880s in the United States, were authored primarily by engineers. This new approach found was most influential in the writings of Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) particularly in his treatise, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911). In the US employers’ interests in applying scientific management to labour management has been substantially apotheosized by two new, and much vaunted enterprise findings reported in the early to mid-1910s: the first was the cost of employee turnover, often in excess of 100 per cent annually; the second was the cost from recently inaugurated industrial and safety movement. Perhaps outside the US, Japan was an early and enthusiastic adopter of Taylor’s credo of scientific management and, more so than in England, France, and Germany, strove to implement it (Merkle, 1980).

In 1912, the Taylor Society was founded by former business school deans and by a small group of engineers close to Taylor. Its raison d’etre was to develop and diffuse the management ideas and practices Taylor pioneered. Taylor freely acknowledged that the scientific management of the individualfirm could not totally eliminate industry and nationwide seasonal and cyclical depressions. Initially, he paid scant attention to job security, because he did not accept that the practices he advocated undermined this aspect of workers’ lives.

In this paper, I will identify the important antecedents of Taylor’s management theory and pass comment on his legacy towards organizational theory and practice.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Frederick Winslow Taylor was an American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He was born into an upper class liberal

Philadelphia family. His father was a Princeton lawyer and his mother, a spirited abolitionist and feminist. Both parents were Quakers and were noted for their intellectual thinking and plain living. Parental authority was not questioned and children were seen and not heard in the Taylor family (www.stfrancis.edu/content/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/bbios/biograph/fwtaylor.mapapesh.2013). Taylor is regarded as the father of ‘scientific management.’ Taylor was one of the intellectual leaders of the ‘Efficiency Movement’ (1890-1932), in the United States and his ideas, broadly conceived, were highly influential in the ‘Progressive Era.’ This movement was also active in the United Kingdom and other industrialized nations in early twentieth century. A filament of concern for Taylor was to identify waste and developand implement best management practices, which later became the central theme of his management theory. The movement’s quest for efficiency improvements promised to provide dynamic management practices and enhanced productivity.

1.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

As a result of the influence of an early proponent, the ‘Efficiency Movement’ became known as ‘Taylorism.’ (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor).2013.Taylor had planned to study at Harvard. He passed the entry exams but surprisingly, chose a different path becoming an apprentice patternmaker and gaining invaluable experience as a shopfloor employee at Enterprise Hydraulic Works in Philadelphia. Later, whilst employed at Midvale Steel Works, Taylor observed employees were not operating their machines, or working hard enough as they could, He soon realized these poor levels of productivity resulted in higher operating costs for the organization. As foreman, Taylordemanded more output in order to calibrate productivity of employees and their machinery. As Drucker (1974) claims, Taylor’s focus on the human proponent of production was one of the key constructs of scientific management. Taylor soon realized that he required a qualification in management or engineering in order to promote his theory. He enrolled at Stevens Institute of Technology and was awarded an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering in 1883 (www.stfrancis.edu/content/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/bbios/biograph/fwtaylor.mapapesh.2013).

In 1893, Taylor opened a consultancy business. His main objective was to perfect the principles of scientific management. In 1898, Bethlehem Steel recruited Taylor. His brief was to solve inefficiencies and although he wassuccessful in implementing measures to lift production, Taylor fell out with management in 1901. He retired at the age of 45 but this decision allowed him to continue lecturing and fine-tuning his management theory. In1906, Taylor was elected President of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Many of his influential publications first appeared in the transactions of that society. In 1909, Taylor published his magnum opus, ‘The Principles of Scientific Management.’ He was then bestowed a Doctor of Science honoris causa by the University of Pennsylvania in recognition for his substantial opus of management thought. Taylor accepted a professorship at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College in 1911. In March of 2015, Taylor passed away from pneumonia at the age of 59. According to Drucker (1974), Taylor was a thinker, who at once stands out against many intellectual currents and self-images of our time, and spoke to our deepestaspirations and hopes.

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

In Peter Drucker’s (1974) description, “Frederick W. Taylor was the first person in recorded history who deemed work deserving of systematic observation and study.” On Taylor’s scientific management rest, above all, the tremendous surge of affluence in the last 75 years which has lifted theworking masses in developed countries, well above any level recorded before, even for the well-to do. Taylor, though the Isaac Newton (or perhaps the Archimedes) of the science world, laid only the first foundation of research into productivity on the shopfloor. Not much has been added since, even though he has been dead all of sixty years.” In his treatise, The Principles of Scientific Management, Taylor started by quoting the then President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt: “The conservation of our natural resources is only the preliminary to the larger question of national efficiency.” Taylor argued that while a large movement had startedto conserve natural resources, the less visible and less tangible effects of the wasted human effort was only vaguely appreciated. He noted the necessity of focusing on training rather than the ‘right man,’ by stating, “In the past, the man has been first; in the future, the system must be first,” and the first objective for all good systems should be developing first-class employees (Taylor, 1911).The origins of scientific management date back to the second half of the nineteenth century. After the Civil War, US industry grew in size and bureaucratization, and managers and engineers began to complain about how difficult it had become to run complex enterprises and to keep the workforce disciplined and motivated.

2.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His Legacy Rick Marsh

As Guillen (2006), points out, the period between 1890 and 1910 was one of acute labour turmoil. Unlike most business owners, whose instincts led themto confront employee insubordination in a somewhat brutal manner, US engineers and managers attempted to meet the challenge through innovation (Bendix, 2001). The “American System” of interchangeable parts was an earlyattempt to solve the problem through labour savings (Hounshell, 1984). In arelated development, the so-called movement of systematic management of thelate nineteenth century on increasing efficiency was established. (Bendix, 2001). It was F W. Taylor, a self-made engineer, who came up with a coherent synthesis of these efficiency ideas, which he felicitously titled,“scientific management,” that came to be identified with Taylorism, as wellas the achievements of other efficiency experts and practitioners, including Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Henry Gantt, and Hugo Munsterberg.

In case anyone missed the implications of scientific management, Taylor made them explicit: “The work is so crude and elementary in its nature thatthe writer firmly believes that it would be possible to train an intelligent gorilla so as to become a more efficient pig-iron handler than any man can be………it is possible for the man who is best suited to this typeof work to understand the principles of science……without the aid of a man better educated than he is.” (Strang and Kim, 2005; 177-199, cited in Taylor, 1911: 40-41).

If one looks at the development of this large corpus of works, Taylor’s scientific management consisted of four episteme principles, namely:

Replace rule-of-thumb work methods based on a scientific study of tasks;

Scientifically select, train and develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train themselves;

Provide detailed instruction and supervision of each employee in the performance of that employee’s discrete task;

Divide work nearly equally between managers and employees, so that managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and employees actually perform the tasks (Montgomery, 1989).

Thereafter, Taylor has sought to defend his ongoing analysis of work, arguing the ‘one best way’ approach would be form the building blocks of his theory. Taylor, the father of scientific management, is guardian of reason, not in any deformed realization of which is pathological, but whererationality has been questioned and rethought. Taylor’s defence of the development of the stopwatch time study, combining Frank Gilbreth’s motion study methods, became known as ‘time and motion study.’ Taylor would break

down a job into its component parts and then measure each to the hundredth of a minute. However, Taylor was generally unsuccessful in applying his concepts and subsequently dismissed from Bethlehem Steel. It was largely through the efforts of his disciples, most notably H L. Gantt, that organizations eventually were persuaded to implement his principles (Nelson, 1980). On the question of the volume of work by Taylor, managementthinkers felt that this should heighten the interest of scientific management within organization studies in his writings, rather than diminish it and risk landing them in outlying entrepots of management theory Drucker, (1974), notes that key thinkers should be studied and not ignored.The importance of Taylor’s writings has been recognized in our field but his utility and insight have, by no means, been exhausted. Taylor’s defenceof scientific management happily provides an intellectual barricade behind which organization theorists can seek to hide if they wish. A substantial list of intellectual thinkers believed that scientific management could be adopted and, ultimately, saved. For example:

3.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

H L. Gantt (1861-1919). Gantt was an American engineer who developedthe Gantt chart, a visual aid for scheduling tasks and displaying theflow of work.

Lillian Gilbreth (1878-1972). Gilbreth was an American psychologist and industrial engineer who introduced psychology into management studies.

Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924). Gilbreth, wife of Lillian Gilbreth, was arguably Taylor’s most ardent supporter of Scientific Management. An early proponent of scientific management, Gilbreth developed his theory of ‘motion studies’ whilst working in the building industry, independently of Taylor. Gilbreth’s theory logically complemented Taylor’s systematic observation and analysis of workplace productivity. Taylor’s work and the two fields eventually became known as the ‘time and motion study.’

Carl Barth (1860-1939). Barth, a Norwegian-American mechanical engineer, implemented and popularized the industrial use of slide rules in scientific management. Taylor and Barth worked closely together on the formation of the principles of scientific management.

Harvard University was one of the first universities in the US to offer a graduate degree in business management in 1908. Harvard basedits first year curriculum on Taylor’s scientific management.

Hugo Munsterberg (1863-1916). A German-American psychologist, he wasone of the pioneers in applied psychology and a loyal supporter of Taylor and scientific management. In 1913, Munsterberg wrote, “Our aim is to sketch the outlines of new science, which is to intermediate between modern laboratory psychology and the problem of economics….”

Morris Cooke (1872-1960). Cooke was an influential American engineer. Taylor met Cooke in 1903 and both were the main engineers who implemented scientific management in 1911. (Taylor, 1911; www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor. 2013)

PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS

Taylor conceived scientific management as a method of reforming the workplace and, thereby, both industrial organizations and industrial society. In an essay, Frederick W. Taylor and John R. Commons: Two Views of Scientific Management, Spender (2006), provides an exemplary account of why Taylorism,as a reform movement, failed because these institutions successfully resisted change. Moreover, Spender (2006) argues that Taylor’s utopianism, individualism and naive view of science led him to attack many social institutions, especially those important to management and workforce (Nyland, 1996). Returning to the issue of Taylor’s contribution of reforming the workplace through his Principles of Scientific Management, where one can see clear dangers and clear opportunities. It is dangerous to try and be both the empirical and the transcendental; it is of concern to one’s audience to eschew utopianism yet for so much of one’s work to rest upon its pursuit. It is questionable to seek to defend the ‘one way best approach’ in ways which do not directly confront those critics of it and their detailed arguments. Yet management theory would be the stronger for facing up to these issues. Conversely, Spender (2006) maintains that scientific management, as an innovative approach to the control of organizational activity succeeded in ways that Taylor himself might have wished. Spender (2006), points to Taylor’s use of cost accounting which played a significant part in the institutional evolution of the US corporations in the transition, from employer capitalism to institutional fabric of the US workplace better, attempted to save more of scientific management’s original program. Commons’ arguments, which received little consideration, have clarified why parts of Taylorism survive and prosper intoday’s workplace, and others have disappeared. In 1912, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth offered alternatives to Taylorism.

4.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LifeRick Marsh

The “Human Relations School” of management evolved in the 1930s. Some scholars, notably Harry Braverman (1974), insisted that human relations didnot replace Taylorism but rather, both approaches were complementary in determining the actual organization of work process, and human relations assisting employees to the new workplace (Burawoy, 1979). In his discussionof Taylor’s work, Rinehart (1975) argues that Taylor was inflexible and notprepared to adjust his principles about the organization of work. Taylor had not noticed that society transmogrified itself around him and represents something fundamentally different from utopianism. In his discussion of Taylor’s magnum opus, Drucker (1974) has claimed the new efficiency methods, such as lean manufacturing, incorporate respect for employees and fulfilment of their needs as inherent traits of Taylorism. Spender (2006) suggests that contrary to popular belief, Taylor’s legacy isnot the ‘time and motion’ study. Though its impact was considerable, Tayloralso played an important role in facilitating the evolution of the US corporate form, and thereby the transition from employer capitalism to managerial capitalism.

Here is another question. The management historian’s problem is to identifyTaylor’s part in and contribution to these changes. F W. Taylor’s legacy should remain secure. In the ranks of Taylorism reformers, time has been kindest to the man who was the intellectual root of the new engineering view of work. (Whitsett and Yorks, 1983). The new engineers argued that the production process should be analysed into its smallest elements and measured, using time and motion study, under the supervision of professional control. Economic efficiency became the objective of the organization. Nevertheless, as Rose (1975) argues, the human factors and social purposes were subordinated. Spender (2006) has said that such over-simplification obscures both the work situation and Taylor’s impact. A further crucial factor concerned mass-production techniques which were widely used and appreciated in the UK by 1851. The division of industrial labour was already common in Adam Smith’s time, and the results of its extremes well understood before Taylor’s (Braverman, 1974). The Ford motor company asserted that Taylor had little impact on mass-production, which later became known as ‘Fordism.’ (Spender, 2006).

As Spender (2006), observes, the real appurtenance surrounding Taylor’s management theory concerned the wide differences between different

industries and the roles of employees and foremen. For instance, the foreman’s role differed and where there was mass-production machinery, the foreman’s role was much reduced. In the metallurgical trades, however, the work varied and the foreman had more authority (Spender, 2006, cited in Nelson, 1975: 36; Nelson, 1980: 7). Despite the sophistication of its taxonomic notations, the institutional context of scientific management’s time is typically overlooked. There was growing unrest between management and employees which was the impetus behind unionism, local and national politics and, eventually vast social and political change. A new social class was emerging, structured around educated middle-class professionals. In his treatise, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), Taylor emphasized the crucial role of the shopfloor foreman who was the symbol of an institutionalized craft-oriented power structure. The foreman was allowed entry into this sceptred isle by managers and owners and their kingdom enabled them from to hire and fire, to determine employee’s risk in shopfloor activities, and supervise workplace behaviour. No less significant, according to Hershberg (1981), was the position taken by owners and managers, who were more interested in establishing market power than in more efficient methods of production. The conflict with owners, managers and Taylor developed into acerbic ripeness. It is fair to say thatin all these debates, Taylor stood for efficiency at the workplace, and against all varieties of critique against scientific management which lead to despair. For him, the management intellectual as a guardian of reason, is also the sentinel of, and for, human hope. Throughout these years, thesediseconomies are crucial to understanding Taylor’s eventual impact, which was, and still is, considerable (Drucker, 1974).

5.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His Legacy Rick Marsh

Nonetheless, it is difficult to see the precise linkages (Spender, 2006). Braverman (1974, makes the point that Taylor endeavoured to provide owners with new means to overcome labour’s interests, by separating planning from execution, scientific management shifted the balance of power from craftsman to management. That said, the weakness of Braverman’s thesis is that the evidence does not support the existence of such economies. Furthermore, the idea that owners and managers used new technology to pressurize and dehumanize the workplace to achieve these economies of scale, do not stand up to close scrutiny. If one looks at the development of this large corpus of works, Taylor’s system of production measurement wasa foundation of managerial control on which many different kinds of organizations could be built. The total system which he conceived had

several parts: task analysis and measurement; further analysis to discover the optimum method; equipment and job redesign to further increase efficiency; a differential piece- pay rate system and; a functionally specialized form of shopfloor administration (Taylor, 1911). The organization of scientific management was seen to be threatened by a seriesof crises in which the legitimation for the system to steer the lives of individuals had not been secured.

Henry Mintzberg, for example, is highly critical of Taylor’s methods. He argues that the obsession with efficiency allows measurable benefits to overshadow less quantifiable social benefits completely, and therefore, social values are neglected. www.enwikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor.2013). In these terms, Mintzberg places the concept of scientific management against the rationalization of systemic, formal systems. Yet Mintzberg prefers to remain grounded in critical modernism. Others, (Spender, 2006; Drucker, 1974) have been more understanding of Taylor’s defence and have proffered amore balanced thesis of his management methods. Severe steering problems arose when employees attempted to apply this total system. This, in the crudest terms indicated that scientific management was poorly synthesized. Turning then to the arguments in a little more detail, parts of Taylor’s system were separable and of variable relevance (Kelly, 1982). In addition,few organizations tolerated functional foreman. Consequently, few owners and managers believed this feature failed to identify the authority and responsibility for finalizing work. Whilst Taylor’s cost-accounting elements were widely adopted, the general consensus was that division of command could not work (Spender, 2006). Taylor recognized these irreducibleconstraints. By drawing so selectively from his own shopfloor experience, and treating employees as de-institutionalized individuals, Taylor elevatedthese two features into the guiding articles of a new faith, namely his mental revolution (Spender, 2006). It is here where Taylor’s concerns for owners and managers surface, for he sees that particular constellation of views to be profoundly antagonistic to emancipation, and therefore deeply conservative. The essence of Taylor’s reform was to mediate the rift between owners and employees by essentially changing the meaning of work for both, as the parties adopted his new ideology (Jones, 2000, 1997).

Yet the evidence for this is not all persuasive. His methods cost-accounting played a significant role in the institutional evolution of US enterprises and in the wider transition from employee capitalism to managerial capitalism. (Spender, 2006). Conversely, in straddling the distinction between the total system of scientific management and the implementation of Taylor’s ideology, and the resulting novel theory of the organization, was a failure. In the face of all this, the enigma of scientific management is to understand the distinction between

transcendental of its individual parts and the total system. For Taylor, the balancing act continues on as historians and analysts grapple to simplyreject scientific management, or adopt it wholly.

6.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT DIFFUSION in the US

SPREADING THE WORD

Taylor left Midvale in 1890 to join the Manufacturing Investment Company, investing his savings in stock options. Technical problems and excessive transition costs led to bankruptcy during the panic of 1893, wiping out Taylor’s investments. He ruefully concluded that ‘a systematiser must not have managerial responsibility.’ He became a consultant to spread the gospel of scientific management with evangelical zeal (Merkle, 1980: 54).

In 1893, Taylor was hired to improve the huge Bethlehem Steel machine shops. He realized the need for more efficient metal cutting and began a series of experiments to improve the tools. From 1901 to 1910, there were eighteen recorded adopters of scientific management in the US. Among them were showcase implementations, notably Tabor Manufacturing, Link-Belt Engineering, and Yale and Towne (Conti, 2013). These major engineering firms provided assistance to other firms to convert to Taylor’s methods andtechniques. Harry Browne, President of Yale and Towne, was responsible for F W. Taylor’s election as President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a prestigious post offering a platform of ideas. Moreover, widespread press accounts created a public relations bonanza for Taylor. There were, however, bumps in the road. The highly publicized 1911 Watertown Arsenal strike, where union workers refused to be time studied, was a period of uncertainty and angst for Taylor. The strike led to a 1912 House of Representatives investigation of Taylor’s system; it also increased political resistance to public sector installation of scientific management. In the private sector, top managers were often suspicious of the high costs of perceived threats to authority Taylor where transferred knowledge and control from workers. Nonetheless, Conti (2013) points out a cadre of professional specialists, not senior management, were part of thistrial.

Taylorism continued to expand in the US, ‘emerging from the 1920s, as a general philosophical doctrine of management.’ (Merkle, 1980: 243).

INTERNATIONAL DIFFUSION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

At the turn of the twentieth century, international interest in scientific management was generated by translations of Taylor’s writings and Paris steel-cutting demonstrations. There were marked differences, however, in patterns of adopting scientific management in various countries. Guillen (1994: 268) identifies seven explanatory factors: pressures or opportunities, structural changes in industries, industrial relations systems and labour unrest, business-elite mentalities, status of the engineering profession, the role of the state, and the reactions of the workers. The impact these factors will be reviewed in a selection of two major countries

RUSSIA

Vladimir Lenin read Taylor’s writings in 1916. He was impressed with the results of Taylorism and attracted to its routine job designs. After the 1917 Bolshevik industrialization, Lenin decreed that scientific management be employed to rebuild the economy. Leon Trotsky was appointed and he instituted a drastic ‘militarization’ of industry, and justified it as a form of Taylorism. Workers were conscripted and transferred to work sites, and escapees arrested.

7.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

Workers became disenfranchised and unions were powerless. Eventually, Leninhad to abandon the Trotsky plan (Conti, 2013). Stalin then employed American experts, including former Gantt associates. The Stakhanovism programme employed Stakhanovites and elite workers were awarded bonuses forincreased output. Taylorist objectives of division of labour and individualachievements were implemented. At the same time, workers were forced to work harder under the threat of gulag labour camps. Witzel (2005) describesthe lesson of Russian Taylorism: ‘ just how dangerous the system could be where the power of the company was transferred into the hands of a tyrannical state was demonstrated in the Soviet Union.’

GREAT BRITAIN

Scientific management received a chilly reception from British industry. This was surprising reaction, according to Conti (2013), in the nation thatpioneered the Industrial Revolution and was the first to study the efficient management of labour. For instance, Adam Smith publicized the benefits of the division of labour, and Babbage the benefits of varying theskills and pay of workers to match their tasks. In the 1920s, industry faced fierce competition from the US and Germany. Management and unions opposed Taylorism as a solution claiming it was deskilling workers and the costs of implementation were exorbitant. British intellectual and business leaders were culturally conservative. Most received an elite education at private schools and then went on to the Oxford or Cambridge universities. Nonetheless, scientific management was more widely implemented after World War 11. A major factor was a change in trade union policy towards Taylorism. In 1950, the Trade Union Congress approved the application of scientific management throughout Great Britain to increase productivity (Conti, 2013). Several decades later, during the Thatcher years, there weremarked increases in Taylorist practices as Japanese transplants and progressive United Kingdom firms implemented lean production methods. This movement aided the industrial reforms of the 1980s, as well as Prime Minister Thatcher’s successful negotiations to convince the Japanese firms to manufacture in Britain. As Conti (2013) observes, that trend has continued and lean production is the prevailing method of organizing production in most UK factories.

THE 1930s and BEYOND

In the 1930s, the Depression swept Franklin D. Roosevelt into office. His ambitious “New Deal” recovery policy created several new government agencies and programmes. Scientific management had a direct impact in this rapid expansion of the federal bureaucracy. Urwick (1949, 1: 154) noted, ‘for the first time, the philosophy developed by F W. Taylor and other pioneers had been applied practically to a great nation.’

The World War 11 industrial mobilization of 1940-45 employed extensive Taylorist activities to improve efficiency and output in factories, heavilymanned by women. The standardized repetitive tasks were adapted quickly to production. After the war, Fordist mass production dominated American industry in converting to consumer goods. Workers tolerated the fast-paced,repetitive jobs as a result of favourable labour-management agreements. These agreements set the tone for recognizing management’s rights to organize and control production, and the countervailing power of unions to negotiate high wages, job security, grievance procedures, and workplace rules. This truce began to unravel during the upheaval of the 1960s, with young workers increasingly rejecting monotonous jobs and speed-ups. The

resistance eventually peaked in 1972, with strikes at the General Motors Lordstown assembly plant. This dispute symbolized an industrial crisis, lending impetus to several movements to reform Taylorist organizations and job designs. In the 1980s, Japanese auto plants demonstrated that lean production could be effectively operated with American workers.

8.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

The use of lean production accelerated, and with it, the growth of its imbedded Taylorist practices. ( Conti, 2013).

TAYLOR’S LEGACY

In the ranks of Taylorism reformers, time has been kindest to the bureaucratic enhancers (Conti, 2013). Like Taylor, John Commons understood the need to redefine the foreman’s role. Commons saw the foreman’s part in recruitment as especially inappropriate (Nelson, 1980). With Commons, scientific management concerned him on two fronts. First, he wrote: “The older scientific management, as applied to labour, achieved its success in the scientific study of work and the compensation for work, but placed too much reliance upon science as a means of restraining greed in the conflict of capital and labour….Second, the newer scientific management, which dealswith more or less collectively with labour, takes its new policy from tradeunionism.” (Spender, 2006; Nyland and Heenan, 2005; Nyland, 1998: 519-542; Commons realized that changing conditions demanded constant re-examination of the institutional context within which scientific management must function. For one thing, Common’s theory of society, and of the organization, was based on trust. However, a trust which differed significantly from the naïve ideological consensus which appealed to Taylor, appeals even now to modern Utopians. Moreover, Commons believed that every organization, just as every society, comprises divergent interest groups (Spender, 2006; Nyland, 1998: 519-542; Nyland, 1987: 20-37). In addressing the notion of trust, Commons it is itself a social institution, and is empty when various parties have nothing to disagree about. Again, this oscillation between the philosophy of different groups creates problems, but more important perhaps, is the tension between owners/managers and employees. As Spender (2006), suggests, Commons probably considered the Utopian consensus which Taylor sought as a kind of totalitarianism; the subordination of the every divergence of interests and

stabilizing institutional arrangements, which are part and parcel of democratic society.

Hence, Commons, with some justification, made a significant attempt to garner more of the episteme sections of scientific management from Taylor’sdystopia, and bring them into the modern industrial world. In this paper, Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management have been vetted; his contributions and failures critiqued. By way of comparison, Common’s views of scientific management with F W. Taylor’s work in a more institutional framework. Critical management scholars should conclude from this paper that it is possible to develop a critical practice capable of advancing human emancipation and the development of critical theory. As regards the latter,it is important to appreciate that management theory and practice should inform each other. Nevertheless, the main factor for Taylor’s failures was his direct confrontation with most of the institutional fabric that gave meaning to life in the workplace (Spender, 2006). This is very worrying. Taylor, by seeking to change too much, failed to deliver the critical changes he had hoped for. The schisms began to appear early on the shopfloor, which was arbitrarily structured, and the hope that the foreman,whose power in the workplace was always formidable, to rule cooperatively by rationality, did not occur.

Most of Taylor’s debates, such as the House Testimony, and his disputes with the unions, concentrated on the ideological and institutional components of the system. Thus, Cohen-Rosenthal and Burton (1993) assert that while Taylor had little patience for unions, his followers were capable of embracing unionism; this was not true of Taylor himself. Moreover, the notion that Taylor might work with unions that rejected output restrictions and accepted efficiency wages was dismissed as mendacity (Nyland, 1998). Whilst these were not epiphanic disclosures, to his opponents, the Taylor system was simply another piece rate system (Nelson, 1980).

9.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

Commons, who was regarded as the father of institutional economics, believed the key to solving the labour problem was the creation of harmonious relations between management and employees. That said his view of American society was far from utopian. For example, Commons did not believe that shared values, culture and meaning were the cement of industrial society.

Like Taylor, he understood the need to redefine the foreman’s role. Whilst this may seem symbolic, Spender (2006) argues changing it is of enormous significance. Taylor had little sympathy for the changing institutional fabric of US society. His reputation preceded him. His extreme individualism was, as Spender (2006) describes, Horatio Alger-like. All forms of combination were odious. Profit sharing was equally flawed. As Taylor (1911: 49) describes: “ the inefficiency of profit sharing schemes had been that no form of cooperation has yet been devised………personal ambition always has been and always will remain a more powerful incentive to exertion than a desire for the general welfare.” Taylor was also very critical of the educational establishment, and of politicians and humanitarian gestures (Nelson, 1980). One may conclude that Taylor appearedto reject every social institution he could identify on the morally fallacious grounds that he, thinking like any other employee, had made it on his own. Peter Drucker’s (1974) inference is that Taylor just demanded from managers and employees an unwavering commitment to his kind of science. Nevertheless, Commons completely understood the naivete of this view, and the futility of abstracting work from its institutional context on the grounds of economic efficiency. Commons (1921) thoughts are compelling.

His belief in the workability of an expanded approach to scientific management, both to the labour question, and that of workplace power, was based on field research, a nationwide research for best management practices. If the debate about Taylorism hangs on such huge issues, is Commons correct in implying that it is more important to extract the more useful parts of scientific management and bring them into the modern industrial world? On the flip side, Commons acknowledges that despite the failure of Taylor’s ‘total system,’ two parts of his program proved immensely influential. First, it is an established fact that the time and motion study eventually found its way into the majority of organizations. Second, a far more reaching change had occurred. Cost-accounting was a success for Taylor because it had provided management with a new tool to control organizations. This measure allowed organizations to focus their attention to managing hierarchical structures and processes.

In relation to the more local changes within the workplace, Common’s (1921)analysis is instructive. Whilst the institutional fabric on the shopfloor was robust, both managers and employees trusted the world Taylor had envisaged. In other words, they effectively cooperated in resisting change.But the macro-social situation was much more fluid. A new generation of managers were able to close or combine factories, and maintaining a tight grip on accounting controls. At the same time, the control of the shopfloorsoon passed from local level to national level, as unions grew and became vast enterprises in their own right. Over time, both these institutions

started to gravitate towards the larger institutional fabric of the US. Hence, this set the stage for the struggle for control in the first half ofthe twentieth century. When Taylor’s work is examined, it is often approached by writers with no awareness of the histories of scientific management, published in an earlier age that painted a picture that differsmarkedly from Taylorism as demonology, they accepted uncritically. Despite claims that critical management theory may not have been robust in the literature, it is a failing that can still be corrected, according to (Spender, 2006). The dream of scientific management was a rationalized machine world where life would approach the perfection of an assembly line.But since its early twentieth century peak, this dream has become a dehumanizing nightmare. Henry Ford’s assembly lines turned out a quarter ofa million cars in 1932.

10.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

Forgotten has been the unparalleled new aesthetic beauty once seen in the ideas of scientific management pioneer, F W. Taylor, and Henry Ford. Although Taylor’s ideas were met by managerial scepticism and employee fury, he succeeded at placing efficiency and planning at the top of the agenda for social and business reform in the US and around the world.

As a managerial ideology, scientific management experienced a chequered erain the US. In part, this reflected the competition among the many versions of the approach. Taylor, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, and Charles Barth, alltouted the distinctiveness of the methodologies. And as the theory became fashionable, a horde of efficiency experts appeared on the scene. As the USovertook England as the world’s leading industrial and technological power,scientific management came to represent the American organizational model to the rest of the world. In England, for example, this model made little headway because of resistance from organized labour. In Japan, scientific management focused its attention on the US system of mass production, namely Fordism (Warner, 1994). The Principles of Scientific Management was translated into Japanese in 1912. As Strang and Kim (2005: 177-1999) observe, the Japanese interpretations were juxtaposed with America’s objective of sweeping away ‘industrial betterment,’ that posed a false moral community for replacing the traditional authority of the foreman and craftsman. In Japan, scientific management was viewed as building rather than simplifying employee skills, and strengthening, rather than deflating preindustrial understandings of the community. Presciently, Strang and Kim

(2005: 177-199) noted that ultimately, Japan’s own version of scientific management was essentially a personnel system of HRM, combining rationalized production with participatory activities, and themes of industrial harmony; a combination that reappeared after World War 11 in theJapanese quality movement.

Meanwhile, Taylor’s many followers refined several theoretical and methodology of time-and-motion study, introducing the cyclograph which was the product of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. Motion study using motion picture cameras became much easier and cheaper to implement, and the Gilbreth’s used them assiduously. Another prominent contributor to scientific management was Hugo Munsterberg, whose 1913 Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, developed and systematized Taylor’s observations about employees selection in The Principles of Scientific Management. These two books, according Guillen (2006), read more like manifestos than scientific treatises, perhaps one of the reasons why the avant-garde modernist architects were sofond of them. Scientific management was fundamental to the development of what came to be known as Fordism, that is, mass production based on the assembly line. Henry Ford made extensive use of Taylor’s techniques in Detroit, hiring the best mechanics and scientific management experts in thearea. The only principles that Ford did not implement were functional foremanship and the differential wage rate, mainly because the speed of theassembly line dictated the pace of work. Like Taylorism, Fordism was also an ideology promising great gains for employees, managers, owners, and consumers alike. Scientific management made an enormous impact on American industry, government, and non-profit organizations. A group of notorious mechanical engineers, active at the turn of the century, provided a set of methods and metaphors to make organizational practices more systematic and scientific. The writings and practical accomplishments of Taylor, the Gilbreth’s, and Munsterberg provided the modern engineers with an endless supply of inspiration.

Lean production has become the dominant mode of contemporary manufacturing and its Taylorists elements ensure an influential position for Taylor’s ideas for the foreseeable future. There will likely be more attempts to design more worker-friendly systems, similar to the experiments at the Volvo assembly plants in Sweden. The Volvo experiment was consistent with the lean concept of continuous improvement, and similar efforts should be continued (Conti, 2013).

11.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

CONCLUSION

This paper illuminates the life of an intriguing man and reveals how he devised his farsighted management theories on the factory shop floor and businesses. Taylor’s legacy is one of a brilliant and original thinker, Here, in all his complexity is the man who established the basis for contemporary manufacturing techniques. Frederick Winslow Taylor evokes the most emotional and polarized responses of any management theorist. He is both revered and reviled. Peter Drucker (1954) described scientific management as ‘ all but a systematic philosophy of worker and work. Altogether it may well be the most powerful as the most lasting contribution that America has made to Western thought since the Federalist Papers.’ In contrast, Jeremy Rifkin (1987: 109) laments that ‘in the new scientifically managed factory, the worker’s mind was severed from his bodyand handed to management. The worker became an automation………… his humanity left outside the factory gate.

Merkle (1980) believes many of Taylor’s scientific methods and techniques have survived at times, virtually intact, more often in an evolved manner. Lean production has become the dominant mode of contemporary manufacturing and its Taylorist element has ensured an influential position for Taylor’s ideas for the foreseeable future. Hence, F W. Taylor’s legacy should remainsecure. Merkle explains why: ‘ Scientific management increased productivity, making low-cost manufacturing goods for consumption, and it generally increased middle class opportunities by redefining the role of the planner, synthesizer and white-collar worker in industrial production. Efficiency in the factory was a measurable commodity, with a scientific basis and real benefits.’ (1980: 214).

Scientific management is perhaps the most distinguished American contribution to the theory and practice of the corporate organization. Thispaper has suggested that Taylor’s theory is just part of a broad family of efforts to apply the new professional disciplines of mechanical and industrial engineering, and cost- accounting to managerial tasks. Moreover,Taylor’s principles were not advanced as a system for deskilling workers and improving the bargaining position of managers and owners. Taylor presented his approach as a response to increasing levels of labour management strikes and conflict in American business, and in fact, attention to scientific management waxed and waned in the decades followingthe turn of the twentieth century (Strang and Kim, 2005: 177-179). In the ranks of management reformers, time has been kindest to Frederick W. Taylor. He will always be remembered as the devoted exponent and father of scientific management. John R. Commons, a prominent US labour economist, who by and large disagreed with much of Taylor’s theory and methods,

applauded the latter’s contribution to management. Commons also acknowledged Taylor’s ideas were influential and noted the Philadelphian mechanical engineer’s legacy among the pantheons of management reformers and theorists is assured. Commons eventually realized that some of the coreprecepts of Taylor’s theory placed Taylor amongst an intellectual progeny of an era, including Gantt, the Gilbreth’s, Munsterberg, and Cooke. In bothhis private and public life, Taylor demonstrated an activist concern for the control and management of the workplace. He sought to deal with these issues in his various roles as academic, consultant, and public figure. It was the tension between Taylor’s management science and his theoretical bent, namely his praxis which shaped his thought and persuaded him to rethink his views on the institutionalism of management.

12.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bendix, R. 2001. Work and Authority in Industry: Managerial Ideologies in the Course of Industrialization: Transaction, Brunswick, New Jersey.

Braverman, H. 1974. Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century: Monthly Review Press, New York.

Burawoy, M. 1979. Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under MonopolyCapitalism: Chicago University Press, Chicago, II.

Commons, J. R. (ed.) 1921. Trade Unionism and Labour Problems (2nd Series): Boston, MA.

Cohen-Rosenthal, E. and Burton, C. E. 1993. Mutual Gains. A Guide to Union-Management Cooperation: ILR Press, Ithaca, New York.

Conti, R. F. 2013. Frederick Winslow Taylor. In: Witzel, M. and Warner, M (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Management Theorists: Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Drucker, P. 1974. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities and Practices: Harper Row, NewYork.

Guillen, M. F. 2006. The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical: Scientific Management and the Rise of Modernist Architecture: Princeton University Press, New Jersey.

Guillen, M. F. 1994. Models of Management. Work Authority and Organizations in a Comparative Perspective: University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

Hershberg, T. (ed.) 1981. Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family and Group Experience in the 19th Century, New York.

Hounshell, D. A. 1984. From the American System to Mass Production 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States: John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

Jones, O. 1997. Changing the Balance? ‘Taylorism, TQM and Work Organization.’ New Technology Work and Employment. 12 (1), pp. 13-24.

Kaufman, B, E. 2007. ‘The Development of HRM in an Historical and International Perspective.’ In: Boxall, P. Purcell, J. and Wright, P (eds.)The International Handbook of Human Resource Management. Oxford University Press: Oxford. pp. 19-47.

Kelly, J. 1982. Scientific Management, Job Redesign and Work Performance: AcademyPress, London.

Merkle, J. 1980. Management and Ideology: The Legacy of International Scientific Management Movement. University of Southern California Press: Berkeley, CA.

Montgomery, D. 1989. The Fall of the House of Labour: The Workplace, The State and America Labour Activism 1865-1925: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

13.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His LegacyRick Marsh

Nelson, D. 1980. Frederick W. Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management: Universityof Wisconsin Press, Madison.

Nyland, C. 2006. ‘Critical Theorising, Taylorist Practice, and the International Labour Organization.’ Working Paper.

Nyland, C. 1998. ‘To Taylorism and the Mutual-Gains Strategy.’ Industrial Relations. 374. Pp. 519-542.

Nyland, C. 1996. ‘Taylorism, John R. Commons and the Hoxie Report.’ Journal of Economic Issues. 304. Pp. 985-1016.

Nyland, C. 1987. ‘Scientific Management and the 44-Hour Week.’ Labour History. 53. Pp.20-37.

Nyland, C. and Heenan, T. 2005. ‘Mary van Kleeck, Taylorism, and the Control of Management Knowledge.’ Management Decision. 43. Pp. 1358-1374.

Rifkin, J. 1987. Time Wars: The Primary Conflict in Human History: Henry Holt, New York.

Rose, M. 1975. Industrial Behaviour: Theoretical Development Since Taylor: Harmondsworth, Middlesex.

Spender, J. C. 2006. Frederick W. Taylor and John R. Commons: Two Views of Scientific Management: J.-C. Spender – jcspender@yahoo.com.

Strang, D. and Kim, Y-M. 2005. The Diffusion and Domestication of Managerial Innovations. The Spread of Scientific Management and TQM Betweenthe United States and Japan. In: Ackroyd, S. Batt, R. Thompson, P. and Tolbert, P S. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Work and Organization. Oxford University Press: Oxford. pp. 177-199.

Taylor, F. W. 1911. The Principles of Scientific Management: Harper Row, New York.

Urwick, L. 1949. The Making of Scientific Management. Volume 3: Management Publications Trust, London.

Rinehart, J. W. 1975. The Tyranny of Work. Canadian Social Problem Series: Academic Press, Canada.

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_ Winslow_Taylor.2013.

www.stfrancis.edu/content/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/bbios/fetaylor.mapapesh.2013.

Witzel, M. 2005. ‘Where Scientific Management Went Awry.’ European Business Forum, 21. Pp. 89-92

14.

Frederick W. Taylor: His Life, His Management Theory, His Legacy Rick Marsh

*Rick Marsh MCom (Hons), MHRM (Charles Sturt), CAHRI, FAIM is a human resource management researcher and a Golden Key International Honour Society Scholar. His research traverses high commitment management within the hospital sector, high performance work systems, strategic HRM, the history of management thought, management theorists, and critical organizational theory. Contact: Rick Marsh 4 Egan Street, Manunda QLD 4870;Tel: 07-4051 5758; Mobile: 0438 515 750; Email: rickmarsh@internode.on.net

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

.

15.