We need to talk about Taylor: evidence of racism in scientific management?

Abstract

Despite the decolonial and Afro-diasporic criticisms of the field of Management and Organization Studies, the teaching of Business Schools, in general, still presents Administrative Theories in an uncritical and ahistorical way, disregarding the remnants of black slavery and its logic in administrative practices. In this sense, the present work has the general objective of developing the hypothesis that Scientific Theory was ideologically conceived on a racist basis of work organization. In methodological terms, documentary research was carried out on the works of Frederick Winslow Taylor, opposing them to the historical context marked by eugenic elements that cross his worldview, apparently silenced in his works. Therefore, we concluded that the Taylorist theory, justified in the semantics of innate limitations to human nature, will intensify the forms of exploitation of workers, especially on blacks, reflecting, as a supposition, the reproduction of racism in the scope of organizational management.