The Principles of Scientific Management
(1911)
by Frederick Winslow Taylor, M.E., Sc. D.

CHAPTER II:
THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
THE writer has found that there are three questions uppermost in the minds of men when they become interested in scientific management.
First. Wherein do the principles of scientific management differ essentially from those of ordinary management?
Second. Why are better results attained under scientific management than under the other types?
Third. Is not the most important problem that of getting the right man at the head of the company? And if you have the right man cannot the choice of the type of management be safely left to him?
One of the principal objects of the …show more content…

It is only by giving a special inducement or "incentive" of this kind that the employer can hope even approximately to get the "initiative" of his workmen. Under the ordinary type of management the necessity for offering the workman a special inducement has come to be so generally recognized that a large proportion of those most interested in the subject look upon the adoption of some one of the modern schemes for paying men (such as piece work, the premium plan, or the bonus plan, for instance) as practically the whole system of management. Under scientific management, however, the particular pay system which is adopted is merely one of the subordinate elements.
Broadly speaking, then, the best type of management in ordinary use may be defined as management in which the workmen give their best initiative and in return receive some special incentive from their employers. This type of management will be referred to as the management of "initiative and incentive" in contradistinction to scientific management, or task management, with which it is to be compared.