The History of Management

Thought

MGT336
Michael L. Bejtlich

Based on The History of Management Thought, 5th edition, 2005 by Daniel A. Wren
Chapter Eleven

Scientific Management in Theory &

Practice
Scientific Management in
Theory & Practice
 Impact of scientific management on
management education
 Impact of scientific management on
international management and other
disciplines
 The spread of management ideas moved
beyond the factory leading to the emergency
of general management
Education for Industrial
Management
 Early in the 20th Century, the teaching of
management in colleges focused on
production management based on Taylor’s
writings.
 Daniel Nelson’s observed that scientific
management gave credibility to the study of
business.
 Business schools at the time were considered
too vocational.
Early Management Educators
 M. Clarence Bertrand
Thompson(1882-1969):
 Taught management at

Harvard from 1908-

1917.
 Compiled the most

extensive management
bibliography of the
period.
 Furthered the scientific

management movement
in academia, industry,
and abroad as a
consultant.
M. Clarence Bertrand Thompson
Early Management Educators
 Harlow S. Person (1875-1955) created
management course at Dartmouth, expanded
the Taylor Society, and recognized the
importance of social scientists.
 Leon Pratt Alford (1877-1942) pioneered the
concept of management handbooks,
influenced journals through his work and
books, and emulated Gantt’s call for service
to the community.
The International Scientific
Management Movement
 The “management revolution” spread abroad as a
product of the United States.
 In France, industrialists tended to implement scientific
management to increase productivity without
following Taylor’s advice.
 Taylorisme became a dirty word for French workers.
 Charles de Freminville with Le Chatelier formed the
Conference de l’Organisation Francaise in 1920 to
advance management in France.
 Hans Renold instituted scientific management in his
British firm but the movement was largely rejected in
Great Britain.
The International Scientific
Management Movement
 Henri Fayol formed the
Center for Administrative
Studies in France in 1917.
 He declared his work
complemented Taylor’s.
 First CIOS meeting held in
Prague in 1924.
 The Twentieth Century
Fund and the IMI worked to
promote management in
Europe.
 In Poland, Adamiecki’s
“harmonogram” was similar
to PERT.
Henri Fayol
The International Scientific
Management Movement
 In the USSR (the Soviet Union at the time):
 Lenin advocated Taylorism after 1917, but little
came of this in practice.
 Lenin thought scientific management would assist
the socialist revolution; others distrusted
capitalistic ideas.
 Higher productivity through competition was
accepted, not better job analysis and work
methods.
 Walter Polakov was successful in getting the USSR
to use Gantt Charts for their five year plans.
Scientific Management
Internationally
 In Japan, Taylor’s ideas
gained widespread
acceptance after their
translation appeared in
1912.
 The Japanese liked the idea
of harmony, cooperation,
and mutual interest.
 What modern scholars call
Japanese style management
had its roots in the work of
Taylor.
Yoichi Ueno was a leading teacher, author, and
consultant. The above picture was taken with
Harrington Emerson in Japan in 1925.
Scientific Management in
Industrial Practice
 Model scientific management installations:
 Plimpton Press – Henry P. Kendall; 186%
reduction in labor turnover
 Link-Belt – James Mapes Dodge
 Clothcraft – Richard Feiss and Mary B. Gilson;
combined Taylor’s ideas with personnel work
 Tabor Manufacturing – Horace King Hathaway;
250% output increase
 Scientific Management was recognized for
reducing costly labor turnover.
Scientific Management in
Industrial Practice
 The Hoxie Study highlighted the difference between
the notions of scientific management and how well
they were implemented.
 The Hoxie Study was viewed as biased toward labor
and conducted in a superficial manner.
 Other studies by C.B. Thompson and Daniel Nelson
reinforce this uneven application of scientific
management.
 Nelson concluded that scientific management had a
“strong positive correlation” with industrial efficiency.
In addition, scientific management was “associated
with growth not stagnation” in most industries.
 Industrial Practice
 Data refutes the belief that
scientific management led
to a de-skilling of workers.
 Skilled and semi-skilled
workers increased from
1900 to 1920.
 Scientific management was
associated with batch shop
production and labor
intensive operations.
 In capital intensive
Assembly line at Ford 1924, courtesy of Library of Congress, industries, or automobile
Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company
Collection
assembly lines, it was less
useful.
Emerging General
Management
 Scientific Management dominated the late 19th and
early 20th centuries.
 But, in the early 20th century, indications of a
broader concept of management developed.
 Other disciplines began to search for efficiency
through science:
 Public administration
 Marketing
 Accounting
 AMA founded in 1923
Early Organizational Theory
 Russell Robb (1864-1927): 1909 lectures at HBS
 Attempted a compromise between the old

military style of management and the new

conditions of industry.
 He felt that organizations differed as to goals

sought as well as means to those goals.

 Because of organizational differences, there

was no one best way to organize.

 He looked beyond scientific management to

see the organization as a whole system.

Scientific Management at
DuPont and General Motors
 DuPont Powder Co.
and General Motors led
innovative
organizational
development.
 DuPont
 Psychological tests for
personnel selection
 Donaldson Brown and
Return on Investment
(ROI) as R = T X P
 Separated line and staff
Pierre DuPont
 William C. Durant

William C. Durant From Pierre S. DuPont and the Making of the Modern
Corporation by Alfred D. Chandler. Harper & Row 1971.
Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.(1875-966)
 Led General Motors
from 1923 to 1956.
 Created centralized
policy, control, and
review.
 Decentralized
administration and
operations.
 Enabled decentralized
parts to work for a
common goal.
Source: http://www.amazon.com
DuPont and General Motors
 Both used multidivisional structures organized
around product divisions.
 These divisions could were decentralized for
operations and performance could be
measured by ROI.
 Origins of the “M-Form” Organization –
allowed growth without the encumbrance of
a functional organization structure.
Business Policy and Philosophy
 The idea of collegiate schools of business spread.
 By 1925, 38 schools belonged to the ACSB (today’s
AACSB).
 Arch W. Shaw taught a policy course at Harvard in
1912 based on cases. It integrated business
subjects.
 Alexander H. Church (1866-1936) broadened
Taylor’s concepts to include policy and
implementation.
 Oliver Sheldon (1894-1951) sought to combine the
efficiency with the ethics of service.
Summary
 Scientific Management was a force in:
 the formal study of management
 the practice of management in the US, Great
Britain, Europe, Japan, and the USSR.
 broadening the scope of management
 the study of organizations
 the development of business policy and the
philosophy of management.
Chapter Twelve

Scientific Management in Retrospect

Scientific Management in
Retrospect
 The Economic Environment
 Technology
 The Social Environment
 The Political Environment
The Economic Environment
 The United States was in transition from an agrarian
to an industrial nation. In this period of growth,
scientific management provided a means whereby a
better utilization of resources could occur.
 The U.S. worker prospered, both in real wages and
reduced hours of work.
 More employees were in management with the
addition of staff specialists. This growth in
managerial hierarchy made it more critical to plan,
organize, etc.
 The Economic Environment
 Alfred Chandler’s
rationalization of resource
utilization describes the
needs of industry during
this era. The ideas of the
scientific management
pioneers fit these needs.
 Industrial efficiency was
increasing, partially due to
scientific management.

Alfred D. Chandler
Courtesy of Harvard Business School
The Economic Environment
 America was uniquely diverse 1890-1920:
 Immigrants were 80% of New York’s population.
 More Irish lived in the US than in Ireland.
 71% of Ford’s labor force was foreign born.
 Developing systems and procedures and standardization
was more important with the heterogeneous workforce.
 Productivity increased due to:
 Methods of mass production.
 Taylorism (Scientific Management)
 Cheaper sources of power
Technology:
Opening New Horizons
 Enterprises developed and grew – 247 of the
Fortune 500 were founded from 1880-1929.
 New technologies developed:
 Bessemer process in steel
 Oil refining
 Internal combustion engine
 Synthetic material
 Telephony
 Electric energy
Technology:
Opening New Horizons
 The automobile changed
people’s lives and created
a new industry.
 Henry Ford, Charles
Sorenson and their
associates at Ford
created the moving
assembly line for mass
production.
 1910 – 2,773 workers
produced 18,664 cars
 1914 – 12,880 workers
produced 248,307 cars

Henry Ford
The Social Environment
The Social Environment
 Horatio Alger, Jr. characterized the “success” ethic of
U.S. enterprise.
 Scientific management ideas were consonant with
the social values of self-directing, high need for
achievement, individuals
 Change came as the Western frontier closed; William
G. Scott called this the Collision Effect, which would
lead to a transition period of individualism being
replaced by a social ethic.
 Taylor’s “cooperation, not individualism” bridged the
gap between the social and individualistic ethics.
The Social Environment
 The Social Gospel shaped personnel management
acting as a counterpoint to social Darwinism and
precursor to progressivism.
 Followers of the Social Gospel, like Robert G.
Valentine, thought unions were instruments of social
and economic reform.
 A reciprocal work-welfare equation linked the
progressives and scientific management.
 Efficiency was also advocated by conservationists,
feminists, and religious leaders.
 The Political Environment
 The political articulation of the Social Gospel
was the Populist-Progressive Movement.
 Scientific management appealed to the
Progressives, especially Morris Cooke.
 Scientific management offered leadership by
expertise and knowledge, not class, so it
appealed to moderate Progressives like Louis
Brandeis, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippman.
The Political Environment
 An increasing regulation of
business under Theodore
Roosevelt after 1901
overcame the inadequacies of
the earlier Sherman Act.
 Tax rate comparison –
Underwood-Simmons Tariff Act
of 1913.
 1% on personal incomes over
$3,000
 Surtax added progressively
on incomes up to $20,000
 Maximum tax rate of 7% on
incomes in excess of
$500,000 (compared to 35%
today)
Theodore Roosevelt,
courtesy of the Constitution Society
Summary of Part Two
 Taylor was the focus for a deeper philosophy of
managing human and physical resources in a
more technologically advanced world.
 Taylor’s disciples improved productivity and
service to society.
 Fayol and Weber, Taylor’s contemporaries, also
reflected a rational approach to enterprise.
 Taylor and his followers were affected by and
did affect the times.
 Part Two Internet Resources
 Academy of Management – Management History Division Website
http://www.aomhistory.baker.edu/departments/leadership/mgthistory/
links.html
 List of Internet Resources compiled by Charles Booth
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/files/MANAGEMENT-HISTORY/links.htm
 Western Libraries Business Library – Biographies of Gurus
http://www.lib.uwo.ca/business/gurus.html
 Scientific Management Demonstration Video
http://www.archive.org/movies/index.html
 Frederick Winslow Taylor
http://www.accel-team.com/scientific/scientific_02.html
 Fascinating Facts about Frederick Winslow Taylor
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/taylor.htm
 The Principles of Scientific Management, Taylor (1911)
http://melbecon.unimelb.edu.au/het/taylor/sciman.htm
 Who Made America – Frederick Winslow Taylor
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/taylor_lo.html
 Films of Westinghouse Works – 1904
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/west/westhome.html
 Part Two Internet Resources
 Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
(contains papers of Morris L. Cooke)
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/
 Henry Gantt
http://www.accel-team.com/scientific/scientific_04.html
 Frank and Lillian Gilbreth
http://www.accel-team.com/scientific/scientific_03.html
 The Gilbreth Network
http://gilbrethnetwork.tripod.com/front.html
 Harrington Emerson Papers
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/speccolls/FindingAids/emerson.html
 Wilhelm Wundt
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/wundt.shtml
 The Durkheim Pages
http://www.relst.uiuc.edu/durkheim/
 Part Two Internet Resources
 The Samuel Gompers Papers
http://www.history.umd.edu/Gompers/index.html
 Max Weber
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Weber/Whome.htm
 William Durant
http://www.flint.lib.mi.us/timeline/autohistory_0798/durantW.html
 The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
http://www.sloan.org/
 The Alfred P. Sloan Museum
http://www.sloanmuseum.com/
 The Henry Ford Museum
http://www.hfmgv.org/
 The Henry Ford Estate
http://www.henryfordestate.com/
 The Theodore Roosevelt Association
http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/
End of Part Two