ABSTRACT
Pioneers pave the path for those who follow by shaping the discipline and defining the terrain. They also play a crucial role in surfacing and enshrining basic assumptions that permeate thinking and logic around the emerging discipline. As a leading pioneer in the development of management thinking, Taylor’s influence on the discipline of project management merits exploration and analysis in the context of the wider philosophy of management. The label ‘scientific management’ is borrowed from the work of US lawyer and judge Louis Dembitz Brandeis, who described the need to coordinate enterprise to everyone’s benefit. The origins of scientific management lay in Taylor’s observations of his fellow workers, recognising that they had no incentive to work harder or go faster, as ultimately it was in their interest to keep their employers ignorant of how fast the work can be done.
