Frederick Taylor: A Study in Personality and Innovation

by Sudhir Kakar

Book Overview

Using psychoanalytic concepts in an area previously untouched by psychohistorical research, this study explores the fateful coincidence of Frederick Taylor's conflicted life history with the needs of industrial management at a time when traditional ways were rapidly becoming obsolete. Although the ideas of "Scientific Management" have had an enormous influence on the industrial life of almost all countries, the development of these ideas in relation...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262610116
• ISBN13: 9780262610117
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
• Length: 240 Pages

Customer Reviews

Kakar, Erikson and sexuality

Kakar's monograph on Frederick Taylor is, like Erikson's work with Luther and Ghandi, a wonderful expose of the sexual dysfunctions that have made important inroads into the way we see ourselves. The effects of Taylor's groundbreaking work with 'scientific' management can still be felt today as companies, including those providing healthcare, insist on viewing people as commodities that must be controlled in the interests of financial health. Reading between the lines of Kakar's book one is struck by the sexual dysfunction of Taylor and how this was introduced into modern business practices. But then this is my view, the reader will have to make up his or her own mind.