Abstract
Purpose This study aims to demonstrate that in the latter years of his life, Frederick Winslow Taylor embraced union participation in management decision-making and that interwar US Taylor Society members and organized labor extended his support for this endeavor. Design/methodology/approach This study engages with primary materials not previously present in the management history literature and secondary works generated by researchers in disciplines commonly ignored by management scholars. Findings This study contests the claim that the scientific managers reached out to unions only after Taylor’s death and demonstrates Taylor welcomed union participation in the management of enterprises, held it was necessary to “show” and not merely “tell” unions that scientific management could be “good” for them, that his inner circle and organized labor jointly promoted these propositions within F.D. Roosevelt’s New Deal administration, and that the US union movement was eventually compelled to settle for a form of industrial relations pluralism that limited their participation to bargaining over the conditions of employment and consequently doomed them to a disastrous future. Practical implications This study might support trade unionists develop strategies that may dampen employer hostility and thus revitalize the labor movement and assist management studies rediscover insights that once enabled the discipline to evolve beyond the enterprise. The latter is necessary for this study to live in an age when an increasing number of liberal market economies are characterized by austerity and retrenchment. Originality/value This study provides new evidence that demonstrates that Frederick Taylor embraced union participation in enterprise management and also that Taylor Society members actually made a significant contribution to Roosevelt’s New Deal labor policies.
Published Version
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