Journal of Management History

Modern to postmodern management: developments in scientific management

Linzi J. Kemp
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Modern to
Modern to postmodern postmodern
management: developments in management
scientific management
345
Linzi J. Kemp
American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Abstract
Purpose – The aim of the paper is to evidence the development of scientific management through the
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lens of postmodernism.
Design/methodology/approach – The four principles of scientific management are deconstructed
through a postmodern lens. Current management practices are analyzed for indicators of development
in scientific management.
Findings – The principles of scientific management are found within current management examples;
measurement of knowledge production; empowerment; total quality management; teamwork.
Scientific management, when deconstructed through the lens of postmodernism, is discovered to have
developed over time.
Research limitations/implications – The limitation to this study is a precise definition for
postmodernism and postmodern management against which to “prove” any findings. The implication
is to extend research on the development of scientific management in postmodern management.
Practical implications – A practical implication for management practitioners is to apply a tenet of
postmodernism to management i.e. there are a myriad of managerial approaches that work.
Originality/value – The paper’s contribution is that the principles of scientific management
originated in modern times and are developed in postmodern management.
Keywords Modern, Postmodern, Taylorism, Scientific management, Total quality management,
Empowerment, Modern history, Management history
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Bedeian and Wren (2001) placed The Principles of Scientific Management (Taylor, 1911)
as “the most influential book on management ever published” (p. 222). A total of 134
academicians within the “Academy of Management” also ranked the author, Frederick
W. Taylor[1], in top position as an “outstanding individual who had contributed the
most to American business and management thought and practice in the past 200
years” (Wren and Hay, 1977, p. 471). The latter study was replicated and extended by
Joyce and Breland (2010) who rediscovered that “Frederick Taylor reigned supreme”
(p. 432).
Despite these accolades, myths have also built up over the years about what Taylor
himself believed or what the principles of scientific management involve (Carter and
Jackson, 1987; Wrege and Hodgetts, 2000; Wrege and Perroni, 1974). Research into
management has placed scientific management firmly as a creation of modern times,
not as well recognized is that scientific management “prepared the way for subsequent Journal of Management History
Vol. 19 No. 3, 2013
developments”, and is now employed in “well accepted practices” of contemporary pp. 345-361
organizations (Boje and Winsor, 1993; Payne et al., 2006, p. 397; Wren, 1994, p. 216; q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1751-1348
Wren and Bedeian, 2009). To acknowledge the influence on current management DOI 10.1108/JMH-02-2011-0005
 JMH practices we return to The Principles of Scientific Management (Taylor, 1911) as a
“foundational” text, “significant and influential in forming our knowledge of
19,3 organisation” (Monin et al., 2003, p. 378).
Over 26 years of observation and industrial experimentation, Taylor’s theory and
practice became scientific management,
[. . .] it is a testimony to the accuracy of Mr Taylor’s later statement that scientific
346 management is not a theory to be applied to practice, but that it is first and primarily a
practice out of which, many years after its beginning, a theory has developed (Taylor, 2008;
Thompson, 1914, p. 513).
Scientific management rests upon pillars created from the “four great underlying
principles of management” (Payne et al., 2006, p. 387; Simha and Lemak, 2010, p. 236;
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Taylor, 1911, p. 68):

(1) The development of a true science.
(2) The scientific selection of the workman[2].
(3) His scientific education and development.
(4) Intimate friendly co-operation between the management and the men.

The aim of the paper is to deconstruct these four principles through the lens of
postmodernism for evidence of developments in scientific management in today’s
management practice. First, the concept of postmodernism and a rationale for its
emergence is explained. Next, a relationship is found between scientific management
and postmodern management. Finally, the development of scientific management is
explored in postmodern organization. The paper’s contribution lies in
acknowledgement that scientific management has developed over 100 years from its
modern management origins into postmodern management.

Rationale for the emergence of postmodernism

In the modern age of reform, management moved away from practices based on “rule
of thumb” to managerial “fact”, proven through scientific research and
experimentation (Cooper, 1990; Goldman, 1977; Kloppenberg, 1988; Locke, 1982).
Bevir (2011b) is skeptical about progression where social scientists “craved the
generality that comes from reducing highly diverse practices to a monolithic social
logic, law-like regularity” (p. 190). Skepticism is raised also about the “good” in
scientific progress that introduced modern technology, but contradicted religious
views, that led to social unrest because of the rise of industry concentrating wealth
with the few in “organized capitalism” (Cooper, 1990; Hofstadter, 1955; Kloppenberg,
1988; Weinstein and Weinstein, 1998).
Progress may have been considered inevitable, but it failed to consistently deliver
the promise of a better world, exampled in two world wars, the Depression, and
inequity between a developing and developed world (Rosenau, 1992; Lemert, 1997;
Lyon, 1999; McKelvey, 2003; Tikhomirov, 2011). More recent examples of progress
include the breaking apart of the Soviet bloc, changes to economic power, and a shift to
global trade giving rise to international management (Hatch, 1997; Welge and
Holtbrügge, 1999). There was realization that a progressive program was not enough
as it was deemed “unscientific”, if it was unscientific then that was “contrary to human
nature”, besides being “antidemocratic” Goldman (1977, p. 65; Wagner-Tsukamoto,
 2008). The inevitability of progress as only a positive force, as promised in modernity, Modern to
had thus been found wanting, and so “postmodernism has something to do with the postmodern
breaking apart of modernism” (Bauman, 1992; Berman, 1982; Lemert, 1997, p. 21; Lyon,
1999, p. 65). management

Postmodernism
Postmodernists suggest that nothing can be proven, and that also applies to an era and 347
definition for postmodernism (Easthope, 1998; Lemert, 1997; Spretnak, 1991). There is a
refusal to confirm an epoch for postmodernism (Welge and Holtbrügge, 1999);
Postmodernism is old because it represents elements from many orientations, but is
new because it quarrels with some tenets of all approaches (Rosenau, 1992); a
“many-headed, multi-armed, waving in different incompatible directions, at once old
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and new” (Docker, 1994, p. 82). It is far too “modern” to define postmodern
management because definition implies “conceptual simplification” ( Jones, 2003,
p. 517). Definitions, or perhaps non-definitions, of postmodernism embrace that it is
“multifaceted” (Smith, 1995, p. 550); there are many forms of postmodernism that
entwine, interact, conflict, contest and play with each other to present “unpredictable
combinations” (Docker, 1994, p. xii; Harvey, 1990).
Bauman (1992), claims that postmodernity means “many different things to many
different people”, and consequently postmodernity is “a state of mind” (p. vii). The
postmodern state of mind though is one that recognizes postmodern organizational
science brings “both a mastery of traditional social science techniques and a relevance
to the contemporary situation of organizational members” (Kilduff and Mehra, 1997,
p. 455). This is in contrast to the reliance in modernism on “scientific truth“ as objective
truth,
[. . .] absolute ideas, assumed to exist apart from the material world, with no relationship to
time, place, or the special interest of individuals or groups (Goldman, 1977, p. 70).
Positivism has a modernist outlook in its presumption of rational explanation of
everything through data that works via stable laws (Boisot and McKelvey, 2010). But
as Hamilton Grant, (1998) showed, science, far from being a “disinterested search for
facts”, was beset with pressures from many influences that distorted those scientific
“facts” (p. 66). Postmodernists are against the domination of an argument that decrees
science is right or right for all occasions, instead proclaiming that “modern science is
myth” as it falsifies reality (Rosenau, 1992, p. 13). Postmodernists question the
reliability and elitist claims of scientific research for producing definitive answers, “we
have seen the older master narratives of legitimation no longer function in the service
of scientific research” (Lyotard, 1979, p. xxiii/xi; Welge and Holtbrügge, 1999). A
concept that is termed “grand theory”, science as explanation for everything, as
typified in modernist beliefs of universal truth (Lyotard, 1979, p. xxiii; Hamilton Grant,
1998; Hassard, 1993; Sim, 1998).
Scientific knowledge had “been found out” in its subjectivity because it did not fit all
contexts, and in the process of finding out, other knowledge is therefore “legitimised”
(Bauman, 1992, p. 123; Thompson, 1993),
[. . .] scientific knowledge does not represent the totality of knowledge; it has always existed
in addition to, and in competition and conflict with, another kind of knowledge ( Jones, 2003;
Lyotard, 1979, p. 7).
 JMH As a leading postmodernist, Jones, (2003) side steps a definition, but uses the word
19,3 post-modern to describe “the condition of knowledge in the most highly developed
societies” (Lyotard, 1979, p. xxiii). Postmodernism has a similar philosophical stance
on knowledge to critical realism, “acknowledges the potential fallibility of all
knowledge claims, and supports modesty regarding verification and falsification alike”
(Miller and Tsang, 2011, p. 140). Rather than attempts to prove any definition or
348 particular period of time, it is concluded that postmodernism is differentiated from
modernism through the states of knowledge that defined the eras (Bauman, 1992;
Hassan, 1985). Postmodernism is therefore important to management as a newer state
of knowledge has progressed business from industrial to post-industrial times (Lyon,
1999, p. 47; Schachter, 2010; Simha and Lemak, 2010, p. 239). Postmodern management
is appropriate for a post-industrial time that has seen the loss of stable mass markets, a
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world fragmented and “loosely connected” in “a new age of information, computers,

mass media and mass communication” (Docker, 1994, p. 104; Welge and Holtbrügge,
1999, p. 308).

Postmodern management contrast with modern management

In Ankersmit’s (1989) view, “postmodernist’s aim to pull the carpet from under the feet
of science and modernism” (p. 142), but the viewpoint in this article is that the aim of
postmodernists is to relay the management carpet in less defined ways.
Scientific management became synonymous with modernism because of its
universalist approach as “the one best way”, (Dewar and Werbel, 1979; Kanigel, 1997).
For Taylor, industrial efficiency came through prescription and the compliance with
rules, a belief so strong that instructions had to be carried out “whether right or wrong”
(Kanigel, 1997, p. 377). The application of a modern managerial logic of efficiency as to
“do things right” is unsustainable in a postmodern belief that effectiveness comes from
doing the right things (Gergen and Thatchenkery, 2004; Welge and Holtbrügge, 1999).
In postmodern logic, or “antilogic”, management needs to be “characterised by its
concern with organizational effectiveness” (Chanlat, 1994, p. 156).
Postmodern management writers criticize modern management for the focus on
efficiency, objectivity, prescription, rigidity and rules orientation; inappropriate in a
rapidly changing world of business (Carter and Jackson, 1987; Chia, 1995; Clegg, 1990a;
Clegg, 1994; Rosenau, 1992; Morgan, 1986). It is of note therefore, that Taylor (1911)
himself said,
[. . .] there is no system of management, no single expedient within the control of any man or
any set of men that can insure continuous prosperity (p. 11).
It is also noteworthy that scientific management is considered to be “no single
element”, but a “whole combination of elements” (Wren, 1994, p. 126; Wren and
Bedeian, 2009). Although the practice of Taylorism is aligned within the mantra of the
one best way, it appears that the way is open to interpretation. As Simha and Lemak
(2010) point out, Taylor was not so much about finding “one way” but “best ways”
(p. 235). This pluralism fits with postmodern management that “there is no one best
way of doing” (Brown, 1996; Clegg, 1990a, p. 162; Kanigel, 1997; Payne et al., 2006).
Modern management, in striving towards only one way as rational, is a “grand”
theory or narrative (Gergen and Thatchenkery, 2004; Simha and Lemak, 2010, p. 235;
Tikhomirov, 2011). It is more rational to consider that one way may not suit each and
 every managerial context. A contingency approach is “important in explaining Modern to
organizational outcomes” as it is the relationship between variables that predicts postmodern
effectiveness (Dewar and Werbel, 1979, p. 426). Organizations are complex entities with
multiple and contingent processes, and it is difficult to identify the conditions that will management
enable human behavior to deliver needed results (Dewar and Werbel, 1979; Miller and
Tsang, 2011).
In postmodern organization there is a paradigm shift of thinking in new ways about 349
change that necessitates flexibility and fluidity in an acceptance that confusion is a
normal state of events (Welge and Holtbrügge, 1999). Postmodernists recognize that
“postmodern attitudes come to the fore” as managing is a flexible rather than rigid
process continually dealing with change (Clegg, 1990b, p. 2). Rapid changes bring
“complexity, discontinuity, conflict, resistance and difference”, a state of change and
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ambiguity; recognized in organizational study, if not appreciated by managers

themselves (Jones, 2003, p. 504). Modern managers tend to rely on “management
fashion setters” (gurus and mass-media publications) in a competitive race of quick fix
approaches “to define which management techniques lead rational management
progress” (Abrahamson, 1996, p. 255; Dalton, 1959; Hassard and Holliday, 1998).

Postmodern analysis
A deterministic approach to scientific management studies the facts of the Taylorist
system within the context of its modern time (Novicevic et al., 2008). A more
postmodern “indeterministic” study deconstructs a text for its value in the present and
for the future, through focus on what is “nonobvious, left out, and generally forgotten
in a text and examines what is unsaid, overlooked” (Kilduff, 1993; Kilduff and Mehra,
1997, p. 460; Novicevic et al., 2008, p. 340).
A postmodernist deconstructed the management text, “Organizations”, in an
interpretation that the power of that foundational text arose from its objectivity defined
as “logic, rationality, and truth” (Kilduff, 1993, p. 13). Callás and Smircich (1991)
deconstructed four organizational “classics” to reveal how knowledge is “produced by
heterogenous practices of power rather than from the discovery of truth, the traditional
dictum in science” (p. 569). The postmodern technique of deconstruction of these
foundational management texts reveals it is the literary qualities, as well as the science,
that maintains an appearance of objectivity (Callás and Smircich, 1991; Kilduff, 1993).
The Principles of Scientific Management (Taylor, 1911) are deconstructed in Table I
through a postmodern lens. Table I supports the analysis of the principles of scientific
management found in postmodern management examples to follow.

Postmodern management
The development of a true science
The analysis of the first principle of scientific management through the lens of
postmodernism, in measurement of knowledge production.
Taylor valued “sound education very highly”, and so the principles of scientific
management were initially brought to bear on best methods to improve educational
efficiency (Schachter, 2010, p. 441; Simha and Lemak, 2010, p. 240). The phraseology of
an industrial context as applied to Higher Education[3] fashioned the Professor as a
producer of research (Taylor, 1911, Thompson, 1914, p. 525). In the name of scientific
management, further attempts were made by Taylor’s followers to measure efficiency
 JMH
Principles of Scientific
19,3 Management Modern lens Postmodern lens

(1) The development of a true Efficiency – measurement of Effectiveness – measurement of

science industrial production knowledge outcomes
(2) The scientific selection of the Rigidity – selection of the fittest Flexibility – selection by quality
350 workman
(3) His scientific education and Hierarchy – control Delayering – empowerment
development
(4) Intimate friendly co-operation Division – authority Sharing – teamwork
between the management and
Table I. the men
Postmodern lens on
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scientific management Source: Author (2012)

in higher education. However, Simha and Lemak (2010) state that Taylor hated
“efficiency experts [. . .] because they were bringing a bad name to scientific
management” (p. 241). Taylor concluded scientific management was inapplicable to the
great extent of university life, “so intangible a nature as not to be subject to exact
measurement”; there is “no present gauge to efficiency in academic work” (Thompson,
1914, p. 525).
However, formulas to measure academic production are now arrived at in a similar
manner to the “standard operating procedure” of the modern industrial era (Thompson,
1914; Jones, 2003, p. 515). Boje (2009) in an analysis of the faculty annual review
process, found that academic production is measured against proscribed metrics in the
business school accreditation system (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools
of Business), “a standardized resume of my work [. . .] tabulates all my work and life
into the requisite AACSB metrics” (para. 3). The example of the software, Publish or
Perish, is an analytical tool brought in to measure the efficiency of faculty publications
through author/journal impact (Harzing, 2010). Application of the principles of
scientific management to academic production continues as journals are ranked and
faculty efficiency is then judged against the hierarchy of those publications (Australian
Business Deans Council, 2010).
The principles of scientific management have been developed to manage academic
efficiency, despite evidence that scholarly effectiveness is beyond definition or
measurement,
[. . .] measurement of scientific productivity is difficult. The measures used [. . .] are crude. But
these measures are now so universally adopted that they determine most things that matter
[to scholars] (Adler and Harzing, 2009, p. 72).
Jos and Tompkins (2004), p. 256) reveal there is an “accountability paradox” at work in
Higher Education where the application and monitoring of compliance with legitimate
standards “threaten the very qualities that support responsible judgement.” Despite
this paradox, Taylor’s ghost haunts Higher Education as attempts continue to measure
efficiency in academic performance through “performativity” (Jones, 2003, p. 512).
Thompson (1914) considered that the value of scientific management lay in
development, “all the best of modern developments in factory administration, and to
push development further in accordance with the principles discovered” (p. 507). It is
 important though to revisit here that Higher Education was deemed by Taylor as an Modern to
inappropriate sector for the application of scientific management, given that postmodern
“organizational researchers are well aware of the incapacity of tayloristic organizations
to learn effectively” (Greenwood and Levin, 2001, p. 435). Greenwood and Levin (2001) management
return us to the point made by Taylor himself and organizational researchers, that
there is a “disanalogy” between taylorism and academia, “university administrators
are not even as well informed about the production process as the lowliest industrial 351
engineer in a manufacturing plant” (p. 437). Despite reservations about the
applicability of scientific management to academia, the first principle of modern
industrial practice has been deconstructed to reveal its development in the
measurement of the efficiency of knowledge.
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The scientific selection of the workman

The applicability of the second principle of scientific management is considered
through the lens of postmodernism, as exampled in Total Quality Management (TQM).
The selection of the worker in modern times was based on their ability to perform
one task, as exampled in the Ford assembly line. The production line becomes
subsumed in postmodernism, as the era is one of “post-Fordism”, where the rigidity of
assembly lines is replaced by flexible approaches to industrial production (Freemantle,
1995; Lyon, 1999, p. 56). In postmodern management, selection of the worker is based
on their flexibility to perform a range of tasks. A management practice of the late
twentieth century moved industry from the individual at the production line,
responsible only for his/her own input, to the system of continuous quality
improvement (O’Connor, 1996). Continuous quality improvement in “Japanese-style
management” can be traced to the introduction of scientific management to that
country (Payne et al., 2006, p. 388; Wren, 1994, p. 205). The Principles of Scientific
Management (Taylor, 1911) was translated and 1.5 million copies were sold in Japan
(Austin and Peters, 1995; Boje and Winsor, 1993; Wren and Bedeian, 2009).
Daniel (1995) considers TQM has much in common with scientific management
because of the element of continuous improvement in both processes. This is marked in
Taylor’s scientific selection of the workman, through continual adjustments of a
worker’s approach to the task, and in the customer focus of TQM (Daniel, 1995;
Deming, 2000). As in scientific management, the rules and principles that form TQM
offer a rationality to control quality improvement. TQM became a grand theory in the
management of production, taken up in every field from car manufacturing to service
industries, and healthcare (Boje and Winsor, 1993; Carnall, 1990). In the 1980s, quality
circles were adopted by 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies, somewhat of a
fashion or fad as by 1987 they had been abandoned (Abrahamson, 1996). The
“accountability paradox” had introduced game playing in compliance with rules, lost
was the notion of accountability for the outcome of quality ( Jos and Tompkins, 2004).
Management researchers are suspicious of TQM because it returns us to the “old
world order” of modern management, but at the same time TQM poses “under the
postmodern guise” (Boje and Winsor, 1993, p. 58, 64). The pejorative language in the
latter sentence emulates the portrayal of scientific management as “reckless deskilling,
impersonal production and mediocre quality” (Guillen, 1997, p. 682). However, Guillen
(1997) also challenges this negative portrayal of scientific management because it has
pervaded and endured in the field of architecture; a field known for its quality of design
 JMH and construction. The deconstruction of the second principle of scientific management
19,3 finds TQM as its postmodern development (Boje and Dennehy, 2000; Daniel, 1995;
Foucault, 1974).

His scientific education and development

The applicability of the third principle of scientific management is exampled in
352 empowerment, through the lens of postmodernism.
Empowerment is defined by del Val and Lloyd (2003) “as the involvement of
employees in the decision-making process”, a managerial sharing of authority (p. 102).
Attempts to define “empowerment” is in accord with postmodernism as the term
remains confusing, and as a process it means many things (Eylon, 1998). A foundation
for empowerment is discovered in modern times in an analysis of Mary Parker Follett’s
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notion of self-government and Clegg’s version of power (Eylon, 1998; Boje and Rosile,
2001). Taylor himself was less recognized as a man to support self-government by
workers, and more as “the obsessive martinet who dehumanized [. . .] honest laborers”
(Weisbord, 2011, p. 171). However, Thompson (1914) stands firm that Taylor did
attempt to engender “the desires and aspirations of the men toward self-government
and democracy” (p. 548). The Taylor Society carried on this work as it “emerged as a
prominent advocate of industrial democracy” (Nyland and McLeod, 2007, p. 672). Boje
and Rosalie (2001) reconcile this dualism as “discussions of power are conspicuously
absent” from debates about empowerment (p. 93).
A modern trait of managerial control remains in empowerment, as evidenced in the
words of a Chief Executive Officer, “the more you have, the less you should use, you
consolidate and build power by empowering others” (Mills and Murgatroyd, 1991,
p. 120). In this postmodern management context of empowerment, we hear an echo of
the Taylorist mantra to “do as I tell you, and do no more and no less than that”
(Kanigel, 1997). In scientific management and its development in empowerment, we
hear the resounding of hierarchical “power”, leading to debate between Human
Resource advocates and critical postmodernists as the “latter contend there is more
disempowerment than empowerment” (Boje and Rosile, 2001, p. 91).
“Hidden” modernism in postmodern management practice is considered to be
masquerading “under a costume of worker development, involvement, and
empowerment, its hidden character is revealed by the patterns of control” (Boje and
Winsor, 1993, p. 57). As captured in the article title “Measuring empowerment” (del Val
and Lloyd, 2003), modern management control is maintained in empowerment,
through attempts to prove scientifically “the effects of empowerment on organizational
change” (p. 102). In an environment of increasing uncertainty we can also acknowledge
postmodern management seeks to control,
[. . .] as uncertainty increases, organizations typically find ways of controlling outputs (e.g. by
setting goals and targets) rather than controlling behaviours (e.g. through rules and
programs) (Morgan, 1986, p. 81).
Taylor’s scientific management has developed in the control of empowerment, through
“specific structures and goals that act more or less rationally and more or less
coherently” (Reed, 1993, p. 170).
The third principle of scientific management, scientific education and development,
is found in scientific management, “a complete revolution in the mental attitude and
 the habits of all of those engaged in the management, as well of the workmen” (Taylor, Modern to
1911, p. 51, 69). Empowerment is a development of this principle as it extends the postmodern
desires and aspirations of the worker toward self-government, emphasis now lies in the
ability to mobilize human resources rather than to assert power through domination management
(Clegg, 1990a, p. 181; Hales, 2000).

Intimate friendly co-operation between the management and the men 353
The applicability of the fourth principle of scientific management is exampled in the
management of teamwork through the lens of postmodernism.
Scientific management is considered to have objectified work i.e. removed the
human element in the concentration on an individual efficiently working on one task.
Although not created by Taylor, the result was a division of labor separating employee
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roles one from another, effecting the sharing of knowledge as employees defend their
professional perimeters (Adams et al., 2000). Such a division of labor, common in
modern times, is said to have “inhibited the ability to achieve cross boundary solutions
based on teamwork” (Hine, 2000, p. 3; Kumar, 1994a; Kumar, 1994b).
In the history of modern management, Taylor is not remembered for his
understanding of teamwork, however he did understood the significance of work
groups (Littler, 1976; Taylor, 1911, p. 68). Although business history holds up Taylor
as authoritarian, the text reveals his aim towards “friendly co-operation between the
management and the men” (Littler, 1976; Taylor, 1911, p. 68). Taylor (1911, Thompson,
1914) talked about “bringing the science and workmen together” (Nyland and McLeod,
2007). This togetherness can be acknowledged in the concept of task interdependence,
a sequence of tasks dependent on others for fulfilment (Gibson, 2008). Teamwork has
been said to involve “self-Taylorization” because of the surveillance by team members
of their fellow workers (Boje and Winsor, 1993, p. 62). A myth of scientific management
rather than reality, as Taylor was not reknown for encouraging worker s’ surveillance
of one another. The fourth principle in scientific management of friendly co-operation
has been deconstructed and is considered to have developed into the concept of
teamwork as found in today’s business organizations.

Discussion
In this discussion, a critical review is taken of scientific management in its postmodern
development. The Principles of Scientific Management (Taylor, 1911) is a foundational
text that through the author’s writing has “the appearance of straightforward
objectivity” (Kilduff, 1993, p. 13, Monin et al., 2003, p. 378). An emphasis on objectivity
is maintained from the very beginning, in the title of the text, as Taylor endeavored to
prove his method of management as scientific. The “four great underlying principles of
management”, the pillars upon which scientific management rests, have been
deconstructed in this analysis (Taylor, 1911, p. 68). Taylorism is shown to exist in the
“well accepted practices” of yesterday and today (Boje and Winsor, 1993; Payne et al.,
2006, p. 397).
The principles were conceived in the “true” science of the modern era and given
birth through scientific selection of workers in an industrial environment, “scientific
management was the child of its culture and in turn made its culture an adult of
industrial, social and political vigor” (Wren, 1994, p. 231). The principles reflect the
scientific spirit of its modern time, as exampled in the drive for efficiency, the belief in
 JMH rationality, the emphasis on control, bounded within the “one right way”, and the
19,3 separation of managerial tasks from those of the worker. Scientific management was
the focus of management in the early 1900s, whereupon the image of organization
developed into that of the machine controlling man in the modern production line
(Chaplin, 1936; Morgan, 1986; Parker and Ritson, 2011; Taylor, 1911).
In many academic studies, scientific management has been discredited as an
354 ideology only fitting with modern times. Taylor himself has also been discredited
through accusations of falsification of research data and of plagiarism (Wrege and
Perroni, 1974). The worst traits of management practice are “blamed” on modernism,
and by implication on Taylorism. It is the veracity of more deterministic studies that
has interpreted the principles of scientific management in only a modern sense, of
understanding Taylorism as only one way and one set thing, and in doing so signaling
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that anything “other” is somehow “wrong” (Kanigel, 1997; Leach, 1970, p. 36; Taylor,
1911). Scientific management has been falsely maligned because it seems that Taylor
himself was not so objective, as Wren (1994) concludes, “there was never only one way”
(p. 130). Taylor’s work has been deconstructed in an interpretation that aligns with
postmodern attitudes in an acceptance of contingency, that one form of management
approach does not always produce the same results in every organization (Dewar and
Werbel, 1979; Miller and Tsang, 2011).
Scientific management can be interpreted as the set piece in the modern
organization, but in postmodernism it is not THE form of work organization or THE
only set of principles, it is a developing form of management. A postmodern lens is that
scientific management is “a form of work organization, or a set of principles underlying
work organisation” (Littler, 1976, p. 186). Twenty-first century management keeps the
principles intact, whilst using the rhetoric of a postmodern era (Boje and Dennehy,
2000). Postmodern management has been shown as cloaked in modernism in the
examples of measurement in knowledge production, total quality management,
empowerment, and teamwork, where, if we listen carefully “we still hear the footsteps
of Frederick Taylor” (Boje and Winsor, 1993, p. 68).
This author agrees with and goes further than Locke (1982) in maintaining that
Taylor’s work remains rather unappreciated, not only by critics but for recognition of
the applicability of the principles in postmodern management. Modernism and
modernists maintain a distance from history while postmodernism and postmodernists
embrace the value of the past for informing the present and future (Ankersmit, 1989;
Bevir, 2011a, p. 29). Postmodernists therefore appreciate, rather than reject, in an
acceptance that scientific management is not a regression to the past, but reflects
“management’s concern with the present and the future” (Ankersmit, 1989; O’Connor,
1996, p. 27). There continues to be competition between modernists and postmodernists
as to who has, or what is the “right” stance. A bridge between is that management is
both complex and contingent, where to predict the future may be problematic, but
remains “a legitimate goal for scientific endeavors” (Boisot and McKelvey, 2010 p. 431).
It has been shown in this article that Taylor expected scientific management to
develop from its basics to become effective for managerial success as time passed and
changed. Wrege and Hodgetts (2000) readily point out that a legacy from Taylor is of
new methods to be introduced by management “to increase productivity levels” (p.
1289). In a postmodern approach, rather than judging scientific management as
“wrong”, this author has embraced the modern past to interpret management
 development. The last words in the discussion remain with Taylor (1911) who in this Modern to
quotation exemplifies the future development of scientific management, postmodern
[. . .] scientific management fundamentally consists of certain broad general principles, a management
certain philosophy, which can be applied in many ways [. . .] It is not here claimed that any
single panacea exists [. . .] No system of management, no single expedient [. . .] can insure
continuous prosperity (p. 11).
355
Limitations and research direction
The limitation in this study is a precise definition for postmodernism and postmodern
management against which to “prove” any findings. It is a lack of provability that
perhaps leads Kilduff and Mehra (1997) in their “anti-conclusion” to recognize a gulf
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between modern and postmodern researchers (p. 476). A gulf where one side (modern)
“assume that data represent the truth about an objectively measured world”, and
another side that recognizes “benefit from the whirlwind of ideas associated with
postmodernism” (Kilduff and Mehra, 1997, p. 476). The “postmodern organization”
does not exist for some, in preference is a concept of organization theory and analysis
through a postmodern lens (Burrell, 1997; Welge and Holtbrügge, 1999; Parker, 1992).
That postmodern lens has been brought to bear on scientific management in this
article. An implication for researchers and management practitioners is to continue to
understand the “feeling in the air” that is postmodernism (Spencer, 1998, p. 161).

Conclusion
In this journey from modernism to postmodernism, F.W. Taylor’s scientific
management has developed. It was conceived in the Modern era, born into the
factory, schooled by rules, developed by knowledge and has graduated in postmodern
management. Taylor’s principles are still evident in 21st century management in a
development from industrial efficiency to produce quality in an environment of
managerial flexibility. Hierarchy between management and workers has been delayered
in a sharing of knowledge through empowerment and teamwork. As revealed, rather
than scientific management only being a fit with modern management, Taylor’s
principles are found within current management. As postmodern management
acknowledges a process of continual development, scientific management can be
incorporated, even as it is considered “something to throw bricks at [. . .] rather than as a
tool of analysis” (Littler, 1976, p. 192). Scientific management remains worthy of further
study as to its role in management today (Boisot and McKelvey, 2010). Management
fashion comes and goes, but over the last century F.W. Taylor has continued to
substantially contribute to “ business and management thought, practice, and
philosophy” (Abrahamson, 1996; Joyce and Breland, 2010, p. 432).

Notes
1. The convention is followed in this article that Frederick Winslow Taylor and his work are
inextricably linked (Freemantle, 1995). Scientific management was/is intertwined with
Taylor’s controversial personality; it is recognizable in the sobriquet Taylorism; he is known
as the “founder/father”; together they are: “the body of principles deduced from experience
by Mr Taylor, and the engineers associated with and trained by him” (Bedeian and Wren,
2001; Payne et al., 2006, p. 395; Schachter, 2010; Simha and Lemak, 2010, p. 233, 234;
Thompson, 1914, p. 507; Wren and Hay, 1977).
 JMH 2. Original quotations specify the male gender, reflecting the values and practices of the
Modern time. Appreciating present and future value in this article, gender neutrality is used
19,3 where possible.
3. Educational and Industrial Efficiency, Educational or Administrative Efficiency, Scientific
Management and Academic Efficiency (1910; Thompson, 1914, p. 525).

356
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Further reading
Nguyen, C. (2010), “The changing postmodern university”, International Education Studies, Vol. 3
No. 3, pp. 88-99.
 About the author Modern to
Linzi J. Kemp, PhD, MBA, BEd (Business), Diploma in Marketing, is Assistant Professor with the
School of Business Management, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE) postmodern
teaching leadership and organizational behavior. Linzi was previously Faculty Associate, management
Empire State College, State University of New York, teaching and mentoring students in the
Centers for Distance Learning and International Programs. Originally from the UK, Linzi has
worked there in private and public organizations within education, (lecturer) retail (Area
Manager) and the NHS (Administrator). Previous academic and educational experience has been 361
international, including ten years in the UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the People’s
Republic of China. Linzi J. Kemp can be contacted at: lkemp@aus.edu
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