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In the century since his death a great deal of speculation surrounds just how much Taylor has meant to business and industry functional and leadership practices in the United States and the world. It is generally acknowledged that Taylor not only greatly influenced how work was done in the 20th century but also had a direct impact on contemporary management practices and management education. This paper is an attempt to chronicle the life and work of a most extraordinary man who changed the way production, work processes and leadership practices are formulated and put into practice.
INTRODUCTION
Although it is generally recognized that lawyer and later Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the phrase "Scientific Management", no other man has ever been more associated with the field than Frederick W. Taylor (Savino, 2009). Taylor quickly realized his calling and learned his craft from his early days of employment at Midvale Steel Company of Philadelphia in 1878. As a result of seeing work effort often squandered and preformed inefficiently he felt the need to act on his seminal idea that the key to productivity was knowledge, organization and leadership (Kanigel, 1997). Some years later he applied his management reorganizing efforts at places such as Bethlehem Steel Company and Cramp's Shipbuilding Company where Taylor was famous for totally remaking companies from top to bottom. In some cases Taylor actually formulated and recommended complete efficient work systems that ranged from the duties of a boy bringing water to the unskilled laborers to the duties of the company president providing solutions to issues ranging from shop problems to improved accounting and sales procedures (New York Times, 1915).
Upon his death on March 21, 1915, the New York Times published the obituary of Frederick W. Taylor where it detailed his life's work devoted to the simplification of industrial processes to reduce costs and increase outputs (New York Times, 1915). Equally important was the impression he made on business and industry in the United States with his doctrine of where any man who once may have proved to be incompetent in his job could be fitted in where he might provide good service instead of being fired. Along with Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, Taylor was once acknowledged by Peter...