Abstract

This article examines Frederick Winslow Taylor’s career, contributions, and influence on management practice. As the father of scientific management, he evokes the most emotional and polarized responses of any management theorist. He is both revered and reviled. There may be disagreement about Taylor’s effect on work and workers, but there is little doubt about his enduring influence. A 2000 survey of the American Academy of Management ranked Taylor first among the twenty-five most influential management thinkers of the twentieth century. He distilled his efforts to increase efficiency into four Principles of Scientific Management: the scientific development of work, new management roles, the scientific selection of workers, and managerial cooperation. Two trends could have a significant bearing on Taylor’s influence in the twenty-first century: the application of lean principles to health care and the use of artificial intelligence adaptive computer programmes for securities trading.