Taylor is Dead, Hurray Taylor! The ＂Human Factor＂ in Scientific Management: Between Ethics, Scientific Psychology and Common Sense

Abstract

Approximately one hundred years after the historical insights of Adam Smith on the division of labor (1776) as a determining factor in value creation (Taylor, 1911), the first conceptions of modern industry and what would come to be known as Scientific Management were born. The incubation period had been long. But, in 1879, Taylor, at twenty-three, was hired at the Midvale Steel Company where he progressively deduced and outlined those principles, models, and ideologies that would go on to influence production and the way to ＂live＂ their work, and reconfigure their daily life for an entire century. Now, a century later, life is full of great promise and many changes and by rereading Taylor's works contextually to the ＂Progressive Era＂ (Gould, 2000), they assume the paradigmatic value of a broader debate (Nelson, 1975, 1980), concerning what extent his work and action can be in some way rediscovered and focalized.