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This is number 492 of 585 Primary Sources.

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Related resources:

Scientific Advances and Thinking

Related topics:

NCHS-6-1-A
NCHS-7-1
NCSS-7
NCSS-8
APUSH-22-A-1
APUSH-17-A
APUSH-17-C
APUSH-19-B




The Principles of Scientific Management

Primary source: Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1911.
Caption: Frederick W. Taylor was a mechanical engineer who wrote extensively about scientific management, a method of managing groups of people based on scientific principles, as part of progressive notions of efficiency. His ideas influenced business management theory in America and around the world. The Principles of Scientific Management is a collection of his essays published in 1911.

This paper has been written:
First. To point out, through a series of simple illustrations, the great loss which the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost all of our daily acts.
Second. To try to convince the reader that the remedy for this inefficiency lies in systematic management, rather than in searching for some unusual or extraordinary man.

Third. To prove that the best management is a true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation. And further to show that the fundamental principles of scientific management are applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest individual acts to the work of our great corporations, which call for the most elaborate cooperation. And, briefly, through a series of illustrations, to convince the reader that whenever these principles are correctly applied, results must follow which are truly astounding.

Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper, 1911), 7.



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