Talk:Frederick Winslow Taylor

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[edit] Was Wharton first?

Surely Wharton was the first graduate management school in the US? It was established in 1881 (http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/whartonfacts/). [unsigned]

[edit] "Generally unsuccessful"?

The summary of Taylor's work is summed up as "Generally unsuccessful"? According to the management theory book I had, Taylor got production at the Bethlehem Steel plant up from 7 tonnes of scrap iron per person per day to ~42 tonnes per person per day. Salaries shot up as well. Could this need some clarification? [unsigned]

I had a similar experience while getting my MBA. Unfortunately, college professors (including those in the Business Department) are anti-industrial leftists. Text book publishers cater to their clients and this is reflected in the texts they use. The fact is that Bethlehem Steel made the steel that built America during the 20th century. Henry Ford used the "Taylor" method to dominate the automotive industry. The mistreatment that Taylor received at the hands of my old Professors is what led me to buy some of his original works and transcribe them for Project Gutenberg. Someday I'll scan my collection and put them on the web in their original form as PDF files so people can print and read their own copies and make up their own minds rather than relying on the drivel they learn in B-School. [unsigned]

I think your point is correct. (However, it wasn't scrap iron that they were moving, it was pigs of good iron.) Nevertheless, I think your general point is correct. Taylor was neither the god that some pundits claim he was, nor the devil that others claim he was. He was a human being with some very good ideas and some flaws as well. Kanigel 1997 is an awesome book that I believe gets it right, showing the reality instead of either the angel caricature or the devil caricature. I plan to expand this Wikipedia article when I get the time, with plenty of parenthetical citations of Kanigel. We really can give Wikipedia a significantly better article on Taylor. Lumbercutter 19:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference systems merged to Harvard referencing

Regarding my recent reference heading changes: After reading WP:REF completely, I realized that what we had here was Wikipedia:Harvard referencing mixed with the <ref> tag system. So I merged the few <ref> references into the larger Harvard-style list. For more info on reference systems in Wikipedia, see WP:REF = WP:CITE, which provides good explanations. Thanks! Lumbercutter 19:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)