Towards an industrial sociology

Kleeck, Mary Van

doi:10.1007/bf02273743

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Van Kleeck's concern at what she perceived as the vast space between technological development and humanity's capacity to “control and benefit by the cosmic forces which science has released” deepened in 1945 with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Appalled by this crime, in an address to the American Sociological Society in 1946 she called on the profession to meet the challenge generated by the nation's inability to manage effectively the contradiction between production and social relations (van Kleeck, 1946a). Her address was a tour de force by a scholar/activist approaching retirement, but desperately aware so much remained to be done.…”

Section: Scientific Management and The Depressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mary van Kleeck, Taylorism and the control of management knowledge

Nyland

Heenan

2005

Management Decision

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeMotivated by the call of the Congress for Industrial Organizations (CIO) for greater labour involvement in management (a call informed by the principles of the Taylor Society), US business launched a crusade in 1944 under the banner, “The Right to Manage”. The purpose of this paper is to extend earlier explorations of the ideas that inspired the leaders of the CIO.Design/methodology/approachThrough examining the work of the neglected feminist, and labour and social activist, Mary van Kleeck, the paper shows how the ideas concerning the democratisation of management, and the determination of decision making by knowledge, not profit, evolved into Taylorism's principal tenets.FindingsThe paper finds that an analysis of Mary van Kleeck's work helps explain why many of the ideas that prevailed among inter‐war Taylor Society members deeply disturbed employers, while concomitantly enthusing the CIO.Originality/valueThis paper redresses the view of scientific management's history that misleadingly stresses the initial hostility between Taylor's circle and organised labour, which has become entrenched in management folklore and accepted as axiomatic within the discipline, while ignoring the subsequent commitment of Taylor and the Taylor Society to management democratisation.

show abstract

Section: Scientific Management and The Depressionmentioning

confidence: 99%