Scientific Management, Systematic Management, and Labor, 1880–1915

Offering a significant revision of prevailing views, Professor Nelson examines the actual implementation of scientific management in industry and finds that it bore only a superficial resemblance to the system described by Taylor and his disciples. Rather than a “partial solution of the labor problem,” the Taylor system was a comprehensive answer to the problems of factory coordination, a refinement and extension of the earlier ideas known as systematic management.