ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between the tradition of management thinking which rooted in FW Taylor’s ‘scientific management’ and the growing trend towards the assessment of minutely described ‘competences’, as embodied, for example, in the national curriculum being introduced in England and Wales. The twentieth century to date has arguably been the era of FW Taylor’s ‘scientific management’, often referred to simply as ‘Taylorism’ or even, more politically, ‘Fordism’. This has been much refined, elaborated and developed since its original formulation by FW Taylor in the last decade of the nineteenth century, but it retains a strong subliminal hold on management thinking. Too many developments are deeply rooted in Taylorist principles, notably the implicit proposition that human skill and knowledge are ultimately reducible into elementary units. Taylor’s system originally led to an increase in the quality of work carried out by clerical and managerial staffs.
