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Taylor Society

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Taylor Society
SuccessorSociety for Advancement of Management
Formation1911
Dissolved1936
Typemembership organization
PurposeAmerican society for the discussion and promotion ofscientific management
Location
Region served
United States
Official language
English
President
James Mapes Dodge,first president 1911-1913; et al.
AffiliationsSociety of Industrial Engineers

TheTaylor Societywas an American society for the discussion and promotion ofscientific management,named afterFrederick Winslow Taylor.

Originally named The Society to Promote The Science of Management,[1]the Taylor Society was initiated in 1911 at theNew York Athletic Clubby followers of Frederick W. Taylor, includingCarl G. Barth,Morris Llewellyn Cooke,James Mapes Dodge,Frank Gilbreth,H.K. Hathaway,Robert T. Kent, Conrad Lauer (forCharles Day) andWilfred Lewis.[2][3]

In 1925 the Society declared that it 'welcomes to membership all who have become convinced that "the business men of tomorrow must have the engineer-mind".'[2]In 1936 the Taylor Society merged with theSociety of Industrial Engineersforming theSociety for Advancement of Management.[3][4]

Key figures and membership

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At the entry of theUnited StatesintoWorld War Iin 1917, the Society's membership numbered around 100.[2]

Prominent interwar members includedHenri Le Châtelier,Richard A. Feiss,Henry Gantt,Lillian Gilbreth,Mary van Kleeck,William Leffingwell,Harlow S. Person,Hans Renold,Oliver Sheldon,Sanford E. ThompsonandLyndall Urwick.

From 1919, the Society's permanent secretary wasHarlow S. Person.[5]

By 1925 the expanded Taylor Society had 800 members.[2]

The Society contained people of diverse political views. One of the Society's members,Walter Polakov,was a Marxist socialist engineer who joined the Society in 1915. Polakov was a keen associate of Henry Gantt and propagated the Gantt chart in theSoviet Unionin the 1920s and 1930s.[6]

Presidents of the Society

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Listing of presidents of the Taylor Society:

Activities

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The Taylor Society received early support from the BritishFabian Society.[18]

The Society was largely responsible for the research and publication of the firstbiographyofF.W. TaylorbyFrank Copley,published in 1923.[19][20]

The Taylor Society were involved in the Committee on American Participation to the Prague International Management Congress in 1924.[2]Frank Gilbrethdied prior to the conference and his wife,Dr. Lillian Gilbreth,also a Taylor Society member, appeared in his place. This substitution was later made famous by the movieCheaper by the Dozen(1950).

It had close connections with the Geneva-basedInternational Management Institute(IMI) andInternational Labour Organization(ILO).[21]From 1928 until its closure in 1933, the IMI was headed by Taylor Society memberLyndall Urwick.[22][23]

Bulletin of the Taylor Society

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The Society's regular periodical was theBulletin of the Taylor Society,[2]full editions of which can be found in theF.W. Taylorarchive at theStevens Institute of TechnologyinHoboken,New Jersey.Its successor publication was theBulletin of the Society of the Advancement of Management.

A 1914-1934 index of articles from theBulletin,and manyBulletinarticles, is in Donald Del Mar and Rodger D. Collons,Classics in Scientific Management: a Book of Readings(University of Alabama Press, c.1976).

Engagement with the Bedaux System

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Initially, the Taylor Society appears to have been unperturbed by theBedaux Systemand itsBedaux Unit:in 1927 a discussion of theBedaux Point Systemappeared in the Society'sBulletinwithout additional comment.[24]

However, its approach to Bedaux became more antagonistic. In 1929, the Society supported Southern textile workers in theirstrikeagainst the Bedaux System, which textile workers believed was 'even worse than the old "Taylor Stop-Watch System" '.[25]

Soon after the dissolution of the Taylor Society, its long-standing secretaryHarlow S. Personresponded to theCharles Bedaux&Duke of WindsorNovember 1937 fiasco by stating that theTaylor System,which required much management restructuring, and the Bedaux System, which could be applied 'as is', were 'poles apart'.[26]

In 1940,C. Bertrand Thompsoncriticised Bedaux as a 'time study merchant', claiming that one of Bedaux's clients told him that 'if they had found my machines bolted upside down to the ceiling, they would have left them there and time studied them just the same'.[27]

Society for Advancement of Management

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In 1936 the Taylor Society merged with theSociety of Industrial Engineersforming the Society for Advancement of Management (SAM). International presidents of the society have been:[28]

  • 1936-1937:Ordway Tead
  • 1937-1939:William H. Gesell
  • 1939-1941:Myron H. Clark
  • 1941-1942:Keith Louden
  • 1942-1944:Percy S. Brown
  • 1944-1946:Raymond R. Zimmerman
  • 1946-1947:Harold B. Maynard
  • 1947-1948:William L. McGrath
  • 1948-1949:Charles C. James
  • 1949-1951:Dillard E. Bird
  • 1951-1952: Leon J. Dunn
  • 1952-1953: Edward W. Jochim
  • 1953-1954: Bruce Payne
  • 1954-1955: George B. Estes
  • 1955-1956: Frank F. Bradshaw
  • 1956-1957: John B. Joynt
  • 1957-1958: Homer E. Lunken
  • 1958-1959: Phil Carroll
  • 1959-1960: Dause L. Bibby
  • 1960-1961: James E. Newsome
  • 1961-1962: Robert B. Curry
  • 1962-1963: Fred E. Harrel
  • 1963-1964: Hezz Stringfield Jr.
  • 1964-1965: William R. Divine
  • 1965-1966: Oliver J. Sizelove
  • 1966-1967: Donald B. Miller
  • 1967-1968: James L. Centner
  • 1968-1969: David N. Wise
  • 1969-1970: Jack E. Wiedemer
  • 1970-1971: Carl W. Golgart
  • 1971-1972: Owen A. Paul
  • 1972-1973: Ernest T. Tierney
  • 1973-1974: Warren G. Orr
  • 1974-1975: James W. Bumbaugh
  • 1975-1976: Hal J. Batten
  • 1976-1977: W. H. Kirby Jr.
  • 1977-1978: A. T. Kindling
  • 1978-1979: James J. Rutherford
  • 1979-1980: John S. McGuinness
  • 1980-1981: Clifford J. Doubek
  • 1981-1983: Tony Brown
  • 1983-1986: Moustafa H. Abdelsamad
  • 1986-1987: Thomas R. Greensmith
  • 1987-1988: S. G. Fletcher

One of the main task of the Society for Advancement of Management was the recognition of achievements in the advancement of management. Fot that, the society had initiated an Award Program, which contained the Taylor Key Award, the Human Relations Award, theGilbreth Medal,the Materials Handling Award, the Phil Carroll Advancement of Management Award, the Industrial Incentives Award, and finally The SAM Service Award Honor Society.[28]

Prominent winners of theTaylor Key Awardshave been:

Publications

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References

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  1. ^"A word from President; Scientific Management and Labor Unions; Scientific Management in the Sales Department; Scientific Management in the Sales Department:: Bass Business - Bulletin of the Taylor Society".
  2. ^abcdefPercy S. Brown, 'The Works and Aims of the Taylor Society'Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science(May, 1925)online at JSTOR
  3. ^abMoustafa H. Abdelsamad(ed.),SAM Advanced Management Journal.Vol. 53. Nr. 2 Spring 1988. p. 5
  4. ^Link to Society for Advancement of Management
  5. ^Daniel Nelson, 'The Transformation of University Business Education' inA Mental Revolution: Scientific Management Since Taylor(1992)"Link"(PDF).
  6. ^Kelly, D. J. (2016). Perceptions of Taylorism and a Marxist scienti c manager.Journal of Management History,22 (3), 298-319.
  7. ^Carlos E. Pabon (1992, 119)
  8. ^Bulletin of the Taylor Society.Volume 1, No 1, Dec. 1914. p. 1; And: Volume 2, No 5, Dec. 1916. p. 1
  9. ^Carlos E. Pabon (1992, 121)
  10. ^John Cunningham Wood,Michael C. Wood (2002).F. W. Taylor: Critical Evaluations in Business and Management.p. 89
  11. ^Kyle Bruce, 'Henry S. Dennison,Elton Mayo,and Human Relationshistoriography'Management & Organizational HistoryVol. 1, No. 2 (2006), pp.177-199.
  12. ^Bulletin of the Taylor Society.Vol. 7, No 2, April. 1922. p. 1
  13. ^Industry Week,Volume 74. 1924. p. 365: Richard A. Feiss... re-elected president of the Taylor society for the ensuing year.
  14. ^Taylor Society.Bulletin of the Taylor Society,Volumes 11-12. Taylor Society, 1926. p. 513: Address of Morris Llewellyn Cooke, President of the Taylor Society
  15. ^The Taylor Society Looks Ahead(1927)
  16. ^Harlow S. Person(ed.),Scientific Management in American Industry,Harper & Brothers, 1929. p. xv
  17. ^Lyndall Urwick,The Golden Book of Management: A Historical Record of the Life and Work of Seventy Pioneers(1956)
  18. ^'A Word from the Fabian Socialists'Bulletin of the Taylor Society(June, 1919)
  19. ^Copley, Frank Barkley,Frederick W. Taylor, Father of Scientific Management(Harper and Brothers, 1923)2 vols. online at Archive.org
  20. ^Kanigel, Robert.The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency.MIT Press Books (2005).
  21. ^Nyland, Chris, Bruce, Kyle and Burns, Prue, 'Taylorism, the International Labour Organization, and the Genesis and Diffusion of Codetermination'Organization Studies(2014)
  22. ^E.FL. Brech,Andrew Thomson and John F. Wilson,Lyndall Urwick, Management Pioneer: A Biography(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
  23. ^'News of the Sections'Bulletin of the Taylor Society(1927).
  24. ^Milton Nadworny,Scientific Management and the Unions: 1900- 1932. A Historical Analysis(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955)
  25. ^Michael R. Weatherburn, 'Scientific Management at Work: the Bedaux System, Management Consulting, and Worker Efficiency in British Industry, 1914-48' (Imperial College PhD thesis, 2014).Weatherburn, Michael (2014)."Download PDF from Imperial College, London".doi:10.25560/25296.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)
  26. ^C. Bertrand Thompson,Advanced Management(Oct-Dec, 1940).
  27. ^abcS.A.M. Advanced Management Journal,Volume 53, 1988. p. 40-48

Further reading

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  • Percy S. Brown,' "The Works and Aims of the Taylor Society"Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science(May, 1925)online at JSTOR
  • Donald Del Mar and Rodger D. Collons,Classics in Scientific Management: a Book of Readings(University of Alabama Press, c.1976)
  • Samuel Haber,Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1964)
  • Milton Nadworny,Scientific Management and the Unions: 1900- 1932. A Historical Analysis(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955)
  • Carlos E. Pabon,Regulating Capitalism: the Taylor Society and Political Economy in the Inter-War Period(PhD thesis, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1992)PDF online
  • Lyndall Urwick,The Golden Book of Management: A Historical Record of the Life and Work of Seventy Pioneers(1956)