Journal of Management History (Archive) Emerald Article: Luther Gulick on Frederick Taylor and scientific management Paul P. Van Riper Article information: To cite this document: Paul P. Van Riper, (1995),”Luther Gulick on Frederick Taylor and scientific management”, Journal of Management History (Archive), Vol. 1 Iss: 2 pp. 6 – 7 Permanent link to this document: http://dx. doi. org/10. 1108/13552529510088286 Downloaded on: 02-11-2012 Citations: This document has been cited by 2 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight. om This document has been downloaded 3320 times since 2005. * Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by LA TROBE UNIVERSITY For Authors: If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service. Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www. emeraldinsight. com/authors for more information. About Emerald www. emeraldinsight. om With over forty years’ experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. Related content and download information correct at time of download. JMH 1,2 6 Luther Gulick on Frederick Taylor and scientific management Paul P. Van Riper Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University, Texas, USA When Luther Gulick, the distinguished former head of the New York Institute of Public Administration (often called “dean of US public administration”) died on 10 January 1993, at the age of 100, he was one of the few persons who had known Frederick W. Taylor personally.
In a talk before an Academy of Management meeting in Hartford, Connecticut, on 13 May 1977 Gulick recalled: It was through Dr Cleveland (Frederick A. , who headed Pres. Taft’s Commission on Economy and Efficiency and who for a while was Gulick’s boss in the organization preceding the formation of the Institute) that I met that great buddy of his, Frederick Winslow Taylor. He frequently dropped in to Dr Cleveland’s New York office at the (then named) Bureau of Municipal Research and occasionally talked to staff and student members.
To us young researchers he seemed rather cold, somewhat authoritative and aloof, though his emphasis on truly objective analysis and the timing of all processes and motions was most impressive, and to us, scientific. He orated on his studies even when talking to a few people and waved his stop watch to make his points, but we’ll never forget him. The phrase “one best way,” however, which has been associated with Taylor, was as a matter of fact, coined by Frank Gilbreth, not by Taylor. We also met the other half of the Gilbreth team, Lillian.
We met Gantt, the chart maker, and various other scientific management pioneers from time to time as the Bureau was a natural port of call for all of these scientific management people in those days[1]. Journal of Management History Vol. 1 No. 2, 1995, pp. 6-7. © MCB University Press, 1355-252X During an interview later that year (10 December 1977) in connection with some research into the writings of Gulick, he told me that Taylor was indeed a very close friend of Cleveland’s: “Taylor always carried a stop watch. He was not a very magnetic personality as we saw him.
The thing he impressed on us was the danger of general conclusions without specific, defined, quantitative steps in the production process in mind”[2]. Taylor died in 1915. Gulick’s impressions came from his early days in the Bureau during 1914 and 1915, but clearly the impact was lasting. He tended to expand Taylor’s somewhat limited conception of the use of science in management into a broader science of administration, on the great importance of which Gulick never wavered. It was in 1931, however, that Gulick gave his only known speech precisely on the place of scientific management in public administration.
That year the programme of the annual meeting of The Taylor Society in New York City provided for a session on 4 December, titled, “Public adminstration: a field in urgent need of scientific management”. The session was chaired by Gulick whose “Introduction” was as follows: The direction of the government of the city of New York, of the state of New York, or of the federal government is a much more difficult task than the direction of the United States Steel Corporation, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company or the General Electric Company.
I cite these governments and these business enterprises merely as illustrations. Because of this fact, scientific management is at the same time more difficult of application and more necessary in the field of public administration than in private industry. By scientific management, I mean the rational determination of purpose and the intelligent organization and utilization of manpower, technology and things to accomplish that end. Viewed in this light, it is vastly more difficult to apply scientific management in government than it is industry.
These difficulties arise (1) because in government we have what is popularly known as “politics,” a system of management under which production and service are incidental interests of those in control, whose main objectives are jobs, commissions, the sale of special privileges and the maintenance of an outside vote-gathering organization; (2) because in government we have democracy, which even under the best conditions is controlled by the many; (3) because the environment of government and the scope of operations of each unit are more complex than are those of any industry; (4) because the doctrine of state sovereignty and home rule in local affairs makes large scale production and standardization virtually impossible in the field of government; and (5) because of the teleological enigma of government. By definition, scientific management requires the determination in advance of the purpose to be accomplished. If you are manufacturing rails, motors, or shoes this is not a difficult affair. It is a vastly different problem when you are dealing through a single enterprise with streets, water supply, sewers, police and fire protection, education, recreation, the regulation of utilities, the control of individual action in large spheres of conduct, the planning of cities, taxation, the manipulation of economic forces, and the thousand and one other things which government does or controls.
In all of these fields, before action is taken the end in view must be defined through democratic channels, not through the easy methods of dictatorship or narrow control. It is because of all these difficulties that scientific management in public affairs is of supreme necessity. The very fact that government enterprises are larger in manpower and more complex in function than private industries makes scientific management the more essential. Moreover, every governmental unit is a monopoly. It, therefore, is heir to all of the diseases of monopoly. Inefficiency and bad management when reflected in bad service do not automatically terminate the life of the unit. There is no corrective competition in its structure.
Since scientific management is so vitally needed, though so difficult to achieve in public affairs, it is appropriate that we should devote this session of the meeting to a discussion of scientific management in public administration[3,4]. Luther Gulick on Frederick Taylor 7 Notes and references 1. From a transcription of Gulick’s address now at the Centre for Economic and Management Research, University of Oklahoma; made available to me by Daniel A. Wren, Director, and used with Gulick’s permission. 2. From my interview notes of that date. 3. Bulletin of the Taylor Society, Vol. XVII, April 1932, p. 71, reprinted by permission, Society for Advancement of Management, SAM Advanced Management Journal, Vol. XVII, Vinton, VA, April 1932, p. 71. 4. In 1936 the Taylor Society and the Society of Industrial Engineers merged to form the Society for the Advancement of Management.
