ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses an approach to improving the efficiency of organisational activities and processes, originally proposed by the Polish philosopher and praxiologist Tadeusz Kotarbinski in the 1950s. Polish organisational researchers in the mid-twentieth century were avid followers of praxiology, interpreted in line with Bourdeau's original concept of science of functions or Espinas's quest for practical rules and techniques. Even though Kotarbinski's model is not widely-known to scholars, it might offer useful insights both to theorists and practitioners. The Polish praxiology was successful in paralleling the Western management discourse that started with the works of Frederick W. Taylor, Frank and Lillian Moller Gilbreths and Henry Gantt, as well as a Polish researcher Karol Adamiecki, and was focused on improving work processes and organisational operations. Even though the dominant discourse in management science diverged from the initial research foci, methods and propositions formulated by precursors of scientific management, after several decades, approaches similar to Kotarbinski's model started attracting attention of business practitioners.
