SOURCE: Frederick Taylor and the Public Administration Community: A Reevaluation, State University of New York Press, 1989, 175 p.

In the following excerpt from his book Frederick Taylor and the Public Administration Community, Schachter addresses the major points of Taylor's method as laid out in The Principles of Scientific Management and Shop Management and recounts the reaction to Taylor's ideas during his lifetime.

Scientific Management

Shop Management and The Principles of Scientific Management are the two works that embody Taylor's mature ideas on organizational improvement and motivation. Although the first originated as a 1903 ASME presentation and the second was originally serialized in the April, May, and June, 1911 American Magazine (circulation 340,000), they can be examined as a single entity. Taylor wrote them for the same audience, chiefly industrial managers and engineers; their arguments are similar to the extent that the author quotes chunks of Shop Management in the later Principles.

A...