Evangelism of great works in management_Beu and Leonard

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Evangelism of great works in management: How the gospel is spreadDanielle S Beu,Nancy H Leonard.Management Decision. London: 2004. Vol. 42, Iss. 10; pg.1226, 14 pgs

Abstract (Summary)

This paper explores how great ideas become "great works". The paper explores the process usedby Frederick Taylor to "spread the gospel" of scientific management - one of management's greatworks. The paper takes this example, dissects it and applies current theory and models to explainhow the concept of scientific management was created, refined, disseminated and ultimately usedthroughout the world in diverse industries and both public and private organizations. Ideas mustbe created, tested, evaluated, modified, and put back through the process of what Nonaka andTakeuchi call the "spiral of knowledge". Once an idea becomes great, it needs an evangelist tospread the good word - this person is a knowledge activist. The knowledge activist uses his/hersocial networks to reach a wide variety of groups. This illustration and explanation demonstratesthat both academia and the popular press are essential for great works to happen.

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[Headnote]Keywords Knowledge management, Continuing development, Social networks

Abstract This paper explores how great ideas become "great works". The paper explores theprocess used by Frederick Taylor to "spread the gospel" of scientific management - one ofmanagement's great works. The paper takes this example, dissects it and applies current theoryand models to explain how the concept of scientific management was created, refined,disseminated and ultimately used throughout the world in diverse industries and both public andprivate organizations. Ideas must be created, tested, evaluated, modified, and put back throughthe process of what Nonaka and Takeuchi call the "spiral of knowledge". Once an idea becomesgreat, it needs an evangelist to spread the good word - this person is a knowledge activist. Theknowledge activist uses his/her social networks to reach a wide variety of groups. Thisillustration and explanation demonstrates that both academia and the popular press are essentialfor great works to happen.

Introduction

We started this paper with the idea that we would look at which had greater influence onmanagement practice - academia or the popular press. However, we argued ourselves to the pointof saying both are very influential, but in different ways. When a person reads an academicjournal, he/she will find theory, rigorous research and ideas which generally build on others'work. Typically, only other academics read these journals. In the popular press, a reader will find


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ideas based on past success stories, easy-to-understand language, and a call to be on the cuttingedge of management practices. These books and magazines are generally read by anyone butacademics. This brought us to a discussion of the disconnect between academia and the "realworld." Academic research and ideas can be great, but if no one outside of academia ever hearsof them, then they are not useful to business practice. Finally, we found ourselves asking "How

does credible theory, developed through rigorous study in academic settings, reach managers andpractitioners?". Thus, this paper attempts to show not which has more influence, but how an ideabecomes a powerful force in both academia and the popular press. We start by defining greatworks and influence. This is followed by describing how one of management history's greatideas, scientific management, was formed and spread. Using this example, we attempt to explainthe mechanism through which great works are created, widely dispersed, discussed, tried,modified, and recreated. The paper concludes with a discussion of today's environment and howacademicians can make sure great ideas are heard by today's business.

What do we mean by great works and influence?

Great works in management constitute living ideas that have shaped, defined and directed worldbusiness. Great works stand the test of time, yet are radical for their time. As such they aresometimes misread, or distorted by popular simplifications. Understanding great works demandspersonal engagement and discussion. Great works in management include such concepts asscientific management, systems theory, human relations, etc. These works form the knowledgebase from which many managerial decisions are made today.

Great works can be distinguished from what has recently been termed "management fashion" or"management fad" by the fact that they stand the test of time. Abrahamson (1996, p. 257)developed a model of management fashion in which he defined fashion as "a relatively transitorycollective belief, disseminated by management fashion setters" and Carson et al. (1999, p. 320)

defined management fads as "managerial interventions which appear to be innovative, rational,and functional and are aimed at encouraging better organizational performance". In both cases,the authors go on to discuss the fact that while many ideas begin as fashion or fad, at some point,ideas that sufficiently demonstrate their effectiveness in numerous and diverse settings movefrom fashion or fad status to something that implies permanence (Carson et al., 1999). In theirdiscussion of management fads versus management classics, Miller and Hartwick (2002) notethat while management fads erupt on the scene and enjoy a period of prominence, they areeventually supplanted while management classics demand real organizational changes atsignificant costs and thus they have a lasting effect. They argue that while classics typically arisenot from the writings of academics or consultants but emerge out of practitioner responses toeconomic, social, and competitive challenges. In this paper, we will use Nonaka and Takeuchi's(1995) Spiral of Knowledge model to demonstrate the difference between management fads andmanagement classics and how this move to permanence occurs.

Influence, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English is "the exercise of personal power byhuman beings" and as "the exertion of action of which the operation is unseen or insensible (orperceptible only in its effects), by one person or thing upon another" (Soanes and Stevenson,2003) and by the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (2003) as "... the power or capacity ofcausing an effect in indirect or intangible ways". However, because great works are radical and


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generally not easily accepted, we believe a more active definition is necessary. "Influence is apower affecting a person, thing, or course of events - it affects the nature, development, orcondition of - it modifies" (The American Heritage College Dictionary, 2002). MSN Encartasays influence is the power to sway: the power that somebody has to affect other people'sthinking or actions by means of argument, example, or force of personality. Does this power to

sway belong to the idea itself or to the person who created the idea or to the person who spreadsthe idea? Obviously, in order to be a great work, the original idea must have merit. However, it isour argument that great works become great works through the influence of an evangelist -someone with zeal for his/her cause.

Knowledge creation

Recent theories of knowledge creation[1] (Argote et al., 2003; Choo, 1998; Leonard-Barton,1995; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) focus on the process whereby managers decide whether newinsights, concepts, and ideas should be rejected definitively as irrelevant and uninteresting;returned provisionally for further elaboration in order to be reevaluated later; or declared relevant

for wider internal use and integrated into the corporate knowledge base (Von Krogh, Nonaka andNishiguchi, 2000). These theories emphasize the conversion of knowledge between its tacit andexplicit forms. Tacit knowledge is knowledge that is personal and developed through extensive,hands-on experience. Because this knowledge is developed "on-the-job" as one performs a task,it is difficult to formalize and express (Polanyi, 1966). Explicit knowledge is knowledge that hasbeen codified or written down and is easily shared. This is the type of knowledge that exists in aninstruction manual or other written material.

One of the most prominent models of knowledge creation is the "Spiral of Knowledge" modelproposed by Nonaka and his colleagues (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka and Konno, 1998; Nonaka andTakeuchi, 1995). According to these authors, knowledge emerges from the combination of

disparate perspectives and moves from the individual level to higher levels as it spirals through aprocess of socialization (tacit/tacit exchange), externalization (tacit/explicit exchange),combination (explicit/explicit exchange) and internalization (explicit/tacit exchange). In thissection, we will discuss the works of Frederick Taylor and use it to demonstrate the spiral ofknowledge proposed by Nonaka and his colleagues.

Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) is known as the Father of Scientific Management, which iscertainly one of management history's great works. Scientific management is "the use ofscientific fact-finding method to determine empirically instead of traditionally the right ways toperform tasks" (Wren, 1993, p. 107). Although Taylor passed the entrance examinations forHarvard University, failing eyesight convinced him not to enroll. Instead he decided to take afour-year apprenticeship as a patternmaker and machinist. During his apprenticeship, he sawworkers pretending to work hard when they really were not and he recognized poorworker/management relations. Following his apprenticeship, Taylor moved to Midvale Steel in1878 as a common laborer, and within six years became chief engineer. As a young foreman, heknew the workers could produce more (although not sure exactly how much more) and evenshowed them better ways to work so they could produce greater output. He believed the way toimprove performance was by building and sharing knowledge.


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During this time, Taylor was involved in the day-to-day operations of the company, and hadbeen building tacit knowledge. The skilled machinists also had their tacit knowledge, which hadaccumulated through their experiences and the transfer of knowledge over time. In 1878,management set the production standards based on what they had been in the past. Workersworked at a particular speed, using a particular methodology with particular tools because that

was the "common wisdom." Taylor knew his system worked better; however, he had troubleeither formalizing or expressing his ideas to others in such a way as to overcome the way thingshad always been done. This may have been because tacit knowledge has both technical andcognitive components (Nonaka, 1991). The technical component includes "know-how" or skillsand workers may have felt that they already knew how to do their jobs - they were skilled labor.The cognitive component of tacit knowledge includes insight, intuition, and hunches that comefrom experience. The workers believed that if they produced more, they risked pay ratereductions, layoffs of "unnecessary" workers, or other unscrupulous management practices. Atthis point, Taylor began to see that the soldiering was more than a technical issue and began torecognize the need for multiple changes - a systemic overhaul.

During his apprenticeship and the early years at Midvale, Taylor and his fellow workersexperienced what is now known as "socialization" in Nonaka and Takeuchi's (1995) model oforganizational knowledge creation. During socialization, tacit knowledge is exchanged throughjoint activities such as being together or spending time in the same environment, and isessentially an exchange of tacit knowledge. Once Taylor had learned the skills required toperform the various tasks, he saw that work could be performed better and faster - moreefficiently - and attempted to "externalize" or translate this knowledge in a manner that could beunderstood by workers. Externalization is the second stage of Nonaka and Takeuchi's model.Unfortunately, he was unable to convince workers that his methods were better than existingmethods and the workers rebelled and either refused to use his system or worked so fast theypurposely broke and jammed the machines. To counter these actions, the young manager usedfines, rate cutting and firings to double the work of the skilled machinists. Although his bossesloved him, his workers hated him. He was miserable and could not live in the working conditionshe had created.

The next year, at the age of 25, he began experiments in efficiency that he believed wouldbenefit both the worker and the company. Taylor was an engineer by training (he earned hisdegree in mechanical engineering while working full time at Midvale Steel) and a managerthrough job title and practice. He used his logical, mathematical, engineering mind to solvemanagement problems. Taylor saw the purposeful restriction of output as resulting from:

* the workers' concern that they would work themselves out of jobs;

* the workers' distrust of management - they would have to work harder for the same amount ofpay; and

* rule of thumb knowledge about the best way to cut metal that other skilled machinists hadhanded down.


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Taylor believed it was management's responsibility to design jobs and incentive systemsproperly. Thus, Taylor no longer asked "How long does it take?", but instead asked "How longshould it take?" and set out to find the most effective and efficient manner of performing.

Prior to his experiments, output standards were set based on rules of thumb, management would

routinely cut the pay rates of workers if they earned "too much", and workers refused to shareany knowledge they acquired that would improve performance. Knowledge within the companywas in a poor state. To address this problem, Taylor studied each job, broke it down into itscomponents and used time study to develop properly set standards and methods. He could seewhat slowed workers down, what steps were essential, how machinery could be modified. Taylorwas able to reconstruct a job to create greater output without greater effort. He was able todescribe in minute detail how each task was to be completed and in what order to get the mostout of each job. This careful investigation would lead to factually-based standards of output,which could be communicated in a logical fashion. When someone is able to write down orexpress tacit knowledge in a systematic way, it becomes explicit knowledge. Usingexperimentation and data, Taylor had found a way to codify and externalize the tacit knowledge

he had gained by working on the shop floor. Yet, many of the workers still did not conform. Toaddress this problem, he began to look at other systems in the organization.

Taylor determined that the pay system also needed to be studied. First, he made it his strictpolicy never to reduce the piece rate because it was set using scientific methodology. Second, heneeded to overcome the initial resistance of workers. He made deals with different groups ofworkers that if they were to do a job exactly as he said, they would receive a 15 percent, 20percent, 25 percent, 30 percent, 35 percent premium. After a certain amount of time, the workerscould choose to go back to the old methods and the old wages or stay with the new method andnew wages. Through this experimentation, he determined the minimum premium that wouldovercome worker resistance to the strict standards for a number of different jobs. Those whoused his system and performed above average earned high wages, and the company benefited bygreater productivity and greater profits.

By utilizing the knowledge he had developed regarding the appropriate methods of productionneeded to set standards properly, along with his understanding of the pay system, Taylor and theworkers at Midvale Steel were moving into Nonaka and Takeuchi's (1995) "combination" stageof the organizational knowledge creation process. It is during this stage that discrete bits ofknowledge are combined into a new whole. In this case, performance standards were linked tothe pay system in a manner that would create a win-win situation for workers and management.

Taylor believed that both the worker and the organization should be prosperous. Hismanagement philosophy was based on four principles:

(1) the development of a true science;

(2) the scientific selection of the workman;

(3) his scientific education and development; and


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(4) intimate friendly cooperation between the management and the men (Taylor, 1911; Wren,1993).

Taylor (1911, p. 140) wrote:

It is no single element, but rather this whole combination, that constitutes scientific management,which may be summarized: Science, not rule of thumb. Harmony, not discord. Cooperation, notindividualism. Maximum output, in place of restricted output. The development of each man tohis greatest efficiency and prosperity.

Taylor saw scientific management, not as the tools used, but as a "mental revolution" by both theemployer and the employee, the result of mutual respect over a period of time. Each personinvolved needed to understand the systemic nature of efficiency. This mental revolution by bothemployer and employee allowed the new knowledge to be "internalized" and it becameorganizational tacit knowledge as each person identified with and embodied the new knowledgein their actions and practices.

The spiral of knowledge

The model of organizational knowledge creation demonstrated in the previous section is calledthe "spiral of knowledge" by Nonaka (1991) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) and illustrateshow knowledge moves from the individual level to organizational level knowledge. Nonaka andTakeuchi (1995) outline a process by which individual tacit knowledge is transformed intoorganizational explicit knowledge that brings value to the company as a whole. The spiral ismade up of four basic patterns. First tacit knowledge is exchanged with others who have theirown tacit knowledge, as demonstrated by Taylor's interaction with other workers (tacit/tacitexchange). By compiling these bits of information, new, innovative approaches such as the

methods designed by Taylor are developed and shared with others (tacit/explicit exchange).When new, innovative approaches are combined with other new, innovative approaches, asillustrated by Taylor's revision of the reward system in order to encourage participation in hisnew production methods, there is an explicit/explicit exchange and when the workers accept andinternalize the new systems, there is an explicit/tacit exchange. As the new methods are used anddeveloped further, these skills become tacit knowledge once again and the "spiral of knowledge"begins again.

After 12 years at Midvale Steel, Taylor left and became the general manager of ManufacturingInvestment Company. He resigned in 1893 to become a consulting engineer to management.From 1893 to 1898, Taylor was on the road, doing many different things for different companiesin different industries. He was spreading his ideas, experimenting and modifying his system, andexperiencing both success and failure. As a consultant, he was often used as a neutral third partyto solve a big problem within a company. However, management rarely gave him completeauthority, nor did they completely fund his grand visions. Thus, he was only able to implementpieces of his system, which was frustrating for him. On the other hand, these experiences helpedhim to realize that scientific management had wide appeal and applicability. These variedexperiences helped him to crystallize his ideas - he started to see that what he had to offer wasnot just methodology, but a complete system.


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Frederick Taylor's contributions to management knowledge were important for the companies heworked for, but the question remains as to how the concept of scientific management movedbeyond the walls of Midvale Steel and became a body of knowledge and one of the "greatworks" that is still recognized and utilized in management. While Nonaka applied his model toindividual and organizational learning, it can also be applied, in a broader sense, to the area of

management thought and "great ideas." In order for this process to occur, the idea must stand thetest time and be considered a "justified true belief (Gettier, 1963, pp. 121-3). The concept of ajustified true belief comes from Plato's Theaetetus (a dialogue with Socrates thought to havebeen written around 369 BC) in which an attempt was made to define knowledge. A belief isonly a belief until it has been "justified" through a process of developing propositions and testinghypotheses. In order to become justified and true, ideas are not only created, but also tested, re-tested, questioned and finally accepted by the masses. In essence, the spiral of knowledgeproposed by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) must occur over and over as the idea is created andrefined. It is only through this rigorous process, which occurs over time, that knowledge or the"great ideas" of management are developed. Nonaka (1994) describes this "justification" processas a process of final convergence and screening, which determines the extent to which the

knowledge created in organizations, is truly worthwhile for organizations and society. Therigorous research processes utilized in academia are also part of this justification process.Whether an idea originates in academia or in practice, it must be discussed and shared withothers, expanded through the development and testing of related hypotheses, results shared withothers, and findings implemented in practice in order for the spiral to continue.

While their model did not exist during Taylor's time, the process used by Taylor is an excellentexample of the spiral of knowledge, and the model provides a theoretical basis for understandinghow organizational knowledge creation occurs. Unfortunately, the model fails to explain howorganizational knowledge moves to larger social systems including other organizations,academia, or society as a whole. It is essentially a model of knowledge creation rather thanknowledge sharing. Thus, while scientific management principles were now being utilized atMidvale Steel and other firms for which Taylor consulted, the question of how this "great idea"moved to larger social entities is not explained. To explore this process, we will return to the lifeof Frederick Taylor.

Spreading the gospel - knowledge activism

In addition to being a consultant, Taylor put many of his ideas in writing. He was not considereda particularly skilled writer, but his strength of conviction created forcefulness in his words. Hepreferred to use plain English, without a lot of puffery easily understood by all who read hisworks. He submitted and presented many reports to the American Society of MechanicalEngineers (ASME), and became president of the association in 1906. He published ShopManagement in 1903 and The Pnncipks of Scientific Management in 1911. Within a few years ofits initial publication, Principles was translated into Japanese, Chinese, Dutch, French, German,Italian and Russian. He traveled widely and lectured to a variety of groups seeking efficiency. Heoften invited those individuals who wrote to him with an interest in scientific management to hishome. He would speak with them and then take them on a tour of one of the factories that hadimplemented his system. Many universities invited him to lecture and he was a lecturer atHarvard in the Graduate School in Business Administration from 1909 to 1914. His lectures


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were quite a bit more dramatic than most of the professors' - he enjoyed using anecdotes, as wellas curse words. It was important to him that everyone be able to understand not only themethodology of scientific management, but also its very essence.

In 1910, Taylor and scientific management received quite a bit of free press and were pushed

into the public arena. Louis D. Brandeis, an attorney representing Eastern Railroad shippers,sought help from followers of the Taylor system (including Harrington Emerson, Henry Gantt,Morris Cooke and Frank Gilbreth) in a rate hearing before the Interstate Commerce Commission.It was during these hearings that the term "scientific management" emerged. Brandeis arguedthat scientific management could be used to make Eastern railroads more efficient and prevent itfrom having to raise freight rates. Emerson claimed that the railroads could save $1 million perday with the use of the Taylor system, which created quite a bit of interest in the popular press.Hundreds of articles on scientific management were published in newspapers and magazines.Owing to this exposure, requests for speeches, articles, advice, and opportunities to visit Taylorflooded in. The publicity placed scientific management into the spotlight - management in anumber of industries was excited about the idea of improved efficiencies, but labor was

concerned about its implementation.

In 1911, union workers at an army arsenal in Watertown, Massachusetts went on strike againsttime study. Congress was told that with the implementation of the Taylor system came theunsatisfactory treatment of labor and thus, the strike. From October, 1911 to February, 1912,hearings were held that brought Taylor and scientific management before a special committee ofthe House of Representatives investigating the effects of the Taylor and other systems of shopmanagement on the treatment of labor. During 12 hours spread over four days, Taylor sat in thewitness chair and once again carefully described and defended his system. The testimony fromboth sides showed the hostility held by the unions and Taylor's impatience with their lack ofunderstanding. The committee saw no evidence of abuses and recommended that no legislativeaction was necessary. This was a trying time for Taylor, but he continued on his mission toimprove national efficiency.

In order for knowledge to be moved from one social entity to larger social entities, a knowledgeactivist is needed. Von Krogh, Ichijo and Nonaka (2000) propose that knowledge activists are thecatalysts or coordinators of the knowledge creation and knowledge transfer process. Aknowledge activist can be thought of as an evangelist who "preaches the gospel". Theseindividuals have gained vast tacit knowledge through a variety of experiences and have whatNonaka (1994) terms the "knowledge of experience". The knowledge of experience:

... is an embodiment of knowledge through a deep personal commitment into bodily experience

... commitment to bodily experience means an intentional self-involvement in the object andsituation which transcends the subject-object distinction, thereby providing access to "pureexperience" (Nonaka, 1994, p. 22).

This concept is clearly illustrated by Frederick Taylor in his work initially at Midvale Steel, andlater at the companies where he consulted, as he persevered in developing and implementing hisideas. He obviously had the motivational skills, interpersonal skills, unconventional thinking andvisionary skills necessary to be labeled a knowledge activist. Through his work as a consultant,


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speaker, president of the ASME, author, and host he now also had the broad social networksneeded to transfer knowledge to larger social entities.

From research on the diffusion of innovation, we know that in order for an idea to becomeaccepted in society, or to become a great idea, it must move not only from individuals to larger

social groups, but from social group to social group (Rogers, 1995). Social networks constitute acritical locus for this process and past work in boundary spanning and innovation suggest thatcertain individuals are more influential than others for importing and distributing new ideaswithin and between social networks. In order for this to happen, boundary spanners mustsuccessfully negotiate among multiple thought worlds and stakeholders (Boland and Tenkasi,1995; Burt, 1992; Dougherty, 1992). To illustrate this process, we return, once again to FrederickTaylor and his activities as a knowledge activist as he shared his ideas through the socialnetworks he developed during his years as an academic and consultant.

Social networks - how great ideas get shared

Frederick Taylor had a number of faithful disciples who helped him spread his philosophy. Inthis section, we will provide very brief descriptions of Taylor's direct disciples (Gantt, Earth,Thompson, and Cooke), as well as other early management theorists who were followers andsupporters of Taylor. We will also discuss the spread of scientific management internationally.This shows how scientific management spread through many companies, industries andcountries.

Taylor's direct disaples

From 1887 to 1893, Henry Gantt worked with Taylor at Midvale and became an ardent believerin Tayorism. After 1901, Gantt became a consulting industrial engineer. He was one of the first

successful management consultants. Gantt strongly believed in the efficiency movement and hedid not keep his ideas proprietary. He believed in time-and-motion studies, standardization,worker cooperation and education, and financial incentives for management. He createdgraphical representations of project management to aid management in planning and controlling.He presented often before the ASME. He published over 150 titles, including three major booksand he lectured at Stevens, Columbia, Harvard and Yale.

When Taylor was consulting for Bethlehem Steel, he recruited Carl Earth for his mathematicalskills and when Taylor left Bethlehem, Barth followed and became a consulting engineer. In1903, after Shop Management was published, two Philadelphia manufacturers decided to use theTaylor system in their factories. Taylor sent Barth to install the scientific management principlesin both the Tabor Manufacturing Company (owned by Wilfred Lewis) and the Link-BeltCompany (owned by James Dodge, president of ASME). These two facilities becamedemonstration models and training schools for scientific management. Many of those trained inthese facilities became prominent figures in the efficiency movement. Barth lectured at theUniversity of Chicago from 1914 to 1916 and at Harvard from 1911 to 1916 and from 1919 to1922. He is considered Taylor's most orthodox disciple - he did not believe in tampering with theprecepts set out by Taylor.


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Sanford E. Thompson was Taylor's most trusted assistant at the paper mill when he worked forManufacturing Investment Company and the two formed close working and friendshiprelationships. In 1895, Taylor hired Thompson to gather time study data and to determine howmuch work a man could do in a day. Thompson started his career as a construction engineer andlater became a consultant, applying scientific management to construction and management

problems. He also served in a number of governmental posts.

Early in the scientific management movement, Morris Cooke read and defended what Taylorespoused and he eventually met Taylor. Cooke is different from the disciples mentioned above inthat he applied scientific management principles to educational and municipal organizations. In1909, by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching asked Taylor for help inconducting a study of administration in educational organizations. Taylor sent Cooke and thefinal report, Academic and Industrial Efficiency, detailed his findings and recommendations -many of which are evident in academia today - none of which were popular. In 1911, the peopleof Philadelphia elected a mayor interested in reform. He asked Taylor for help in municipaladministration, and once again he sent Cooke in to attack the problem. Cooke became the

director of public works in Philadelphia and brought scientific management principles togovernment run organizations. He wrote Our Cities Awake, in which he made the case forscientific management in municipalities. He held numerous other government jobs throughouthis career. In 1916, he began his own consulting firm and he also contributed to the war effort.During this time, he formed a friendship with Samuel Gompers, president of the AmericanFederation of Labor and showed him how labor and management could work together for thebetterment of all.

Other early management theorists influenced by Taylor

Frank Gilbreth read Taylor's Shop Management and then met with Taylor in 1907. He became

one of the best-known spokesmen of the scientific management movement. In 1914, he formedhis own consulting company - he worked in construction, manufacturing, and he even went intodoctor's offices and operation suites, making them more efficient. He helped form the Society toPromote the Science of Management (later called the Taylor Society). He wrote a number ofbooks on motion study and efficiency. He also wrote The Primer of Scientific Management,which was made famous at Taylor's rate hearings and Congressional investigation.

In 1912, Lillian Gilbreth completed her doctoral thesis for the University of California,"Psychology of management", which was published in sections in Industrial EngineeringMagazine and it was eventually published in book form (1914). She completed a second "dissertation, "Some aspects of eliminating waste in teaching" and received her PhD from BrownUniversity in 1915. After her husband's death in 1924, she went to Prague and presented a paperof his to the International Management Conference. She belonged to a number of professionalassociations (often as the first female member). In addition to her dissertation, she publishedmany papers and books. She continued her consulting, as well as motion study seminars formanagers. She was a professor of management at Purdue University and later at Newark Collegeof Engineering.


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Harrington Emerson was educated as an efficiency engineer, learning new methods of time andcost savings. He began corresponding with Taylor in 1903. His early career as a troubleshooterand consultant for railroads earned him praise for benefits reaped with the installation ofscientific management. Emerson brought efficiency to the area of cost accounting. He was anauthor, a consultant and an expert witness for efficiency systems; he served on the Hoover

Committee that published Elimination of Waste in Industry, and helped found the EfficiencySociety.

As illustrated in Figure 1, Frederick Taylor was linked to many different individuals and socialnetworks. He enjoyed what Granovetter (1973) terms strong and weak ties within thesenetworks. Strong ties exist when individuals spend a great deal of time together and exchangeinformation and even friendship. These types of social ties are illustrated by his relationshipswith his direct disciples, including Gantt, Barth, Thompson, and Cooke. Weak ties are illustratedthrough his acquaintances with such people as Henry Emerson and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.These individuals were influenced by Taylor's writing and subsequently met and talked with himabout his ideas. Through these individuals and their personal and professional networks, the

concept of scientific management would reach and be accepted in such diverse areas aseducation, the government, industrial psychology, accounting, professional associations,international organizations and even the American Federation of Labor, an organization initiallyopposed to the implementation of his ideas.

His ideas were also discussed, in detail, in the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Houseof Representatives. By testifying before these groups, Taylor created a bridge between his ideasand his personal social networks and these diverse groups. A bridge, as defined in the work ofGranovetter (1973) and earlier work by Harary et al. (1965), is a line in a network whichprovides the only path between two points, the only route along which information or influencecan flow. If Taylor had not been called to testify before these groups, it is unlikely that his ideasand the concept of scientific management would have flowed as quickly as it did to these groupsand on to the popular press and the general public. Once the general public became interested inthe concept of scientific management, Taylor's books began to be used in the classroom, he wasasked to lecture to more and more professional organizations and his ideas became commonpractice in many companies. This created more and more bridges to the mass population andknowledge of the concept grew exponentially.

Figure 1.Illustration of the spread of the "great idea" of scientific management

Scientific management internationally

Once Principles was translated into foreign languages, Taylor received a great deal ofcorrespondence requesting further information on scientific management. In 1912, the Taylorswent to France and visited with a scientist named Chatelier, who introduced Taylor to LouisRenault and the Michelin brothers. These manufacturers liked the ideas, but did a poor job withimplementation - they used some of the techniques, but forgot the mental revolution.


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During this same time, a Japanese consultant, Yoichi Ueno wrote a paper "On the efficiency"that described the work of the US efficiency experts Taylor, Gilbreth and Thompson. Scientificmanagement penetrated Japanese business, education and journals. In the 1920s, Earth, Emerson,and Lillian Gilbreth went to Japan and helped educate interested parties on scientificmanagement. The Japanese embraced the idea of cooperation between workers and management.

They saw that both parties could make more money. That, which later became known asJapanese-style management, had scientific management at its foundation.

Scientific management was spread to England, Germany, Russia, Poland, Italy and othercountries. It had varying levels of success and it often looked quite different than it did in theUSA, but it definitely had an international impact.

Conclusion

In his book, Post-Capitalist Soaety, Drucker (1994) said that Taylor, along with Freud andDarwin, was most influential in creating the modern world. Scientific management is a great

work. This paper illustrates the process through which ideas travel to become great works. Itstarts with the idea - one that is innovative and radical and is probably not readily accepted bythe general public. The idea in its embryonic state has to be nurtured, thought about, employed,evaluated, and changed in a cyclical process so that it can become a great idea. An evangelistmust emerge to fervently believe in and preach the idea. This person must put him/herself out inthe world, meeting with diverse people, getting them excited about this great idea. And in turnthese disciples become evangelists.

Knowledge creation, the spiral of knowledge, a knowledge activist and social networks must allbe present for an idea to become a great work. There are those in management history who hadgreat ideas, but few knew about them until after the founder's death. Henri Fayol is one of these.

Fayol was somewhat active, periodically presenting unpublished papers, founding a group basedon Fayolism, and writing Industrialand General Administration (1916). He did not publish hismajor work until he was 75 and translations were very slow to follow. Obviously, his was a greatwork, but it took the effort of others to bring it to the fore. Today, we have the opposite problem- with globalization, the internet, a proliferation of academic and popular press journals,newspapers, a wide variety of publishers, paid programming on television, etc. just about anyonecan put a message in front of the general public - even if it is a bad one. Management fads are notgreat works because they do not start with great ideas and cannot stand the test of time. Themodern day management "greats" (e.g. Drucker, Bennis, Senge, Deming and Peters) areacademics, consultants, authors, members and leaders in a variety of associations and have theirown disciples. Their great ideas may be different, but they all created great works throughsimilar processes.

We began this paper with the question of whether academia or the popular press had moreinfluence on management thought and through early discussions, concluded that both were veryinfluential but in different ways. As we researched the life of Frederick Taylor and followed thespread of his ideas and the concept of scientific management, we have come to a differentconclusion. Our conclusion is that not only are both academia and the popular press influential,but also they are essential to each other and the spread of "great ideas." By applying Nonaka and


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Takeuchi's (1995) "spiral of knowledge" to the development of "great ideas" it is clear thatwithout the application of knowledge in a "hands-on" fashion, new knowledge will not bedeveloped. Without the sharing of knowledge between academia and practice, these new ideaswill not be tested and refined. Without the application of this new knowledge in practice, thespiral of knowledge will not continue, thus, there would be no more "great ideas".

In a recent "special research forum" on the transfer of knowledge between academics andpractitioners, Rynes et al. (2001, p. 340) note that:

A substantial body of evidence suggests that executives typically do not turn to academics oracademic research findings in developing management strategies and practice ... similarly,researchers rarely turn to practitioners for inspiration in setting their research questions or forinsight in interpreting their results.

They go on to discuss the fact that this is unfortunate given the strength of academics in thecreation of explicit knowledge and the strength of practitioners in the creation of tacit

knowledge. Although academics and practitioners may appear to live in different "thoughtworlds" (Beyer and Trice, 1982), it is essential that we overcome differences in values andideologies in order to allow knowledge to flow freely between these, often separate,communities.

[Footnote]Note1. Note - information on Frederick Taylor, scientific management, and other efficiency scholarswas gathered from Copley (1923), Kanigel (1997), Wrege and Greenwood (1991), and Wren(1993). We recognize that this is a small part of what is known about Taylor and scientificmanagement, but we are using this example to illustrate the process of knowledge creation,

activism and dissemination.

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Copley, F.B. (1923), Frederick W. Taylor: Father of Scientific Management, 2nd ed., Harper &Row, New York, NY.Dougherty, D. (1992), "Interpretive barriers to successful product innovation in large firms",Organization Science, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 179-202.Drucker, P. (1994), Post-Capitalist Society, HarperBusiness, New York, NY.

Gettier, E. (1963), "Is justified true belief knowledge?", Analysis, Vol. 23, pp. 121-3.Granovetter, M. (1973), "The strength of weak ties", American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78No. 6, pp. 1360-80.Harary, F., Norman, R. and Cartwright, D. (1965), Structural Models, Wiley, New York, NY.Kanigel, R. (1997), The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma ofEffidency,Viking Books, New York, NY.Leonard-Barton, D. (1995), Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources ofInnovation, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (2003), llth ed., HarperCollins, New York, NY.Miller, D. and Hartwick, D. (2002), "Spotting management fads", Harvard Business Review,Vol. 80 No. 10, pp. 26-7.

Nonaka, I. (1991), "The knowledge-creating company", Harvard Business Review, Vol. 69,November-December, pp. 96-104.Nonaka, I. (1994), "A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation", OrganizationScience, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 14-37.Nonaka, I. and Konno, N. (1998), "The concept of "ba": building a foundation for knowledgecreation", California Management Review, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 40-54.Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995), The Knowledge Creating Company, Oxford UniversityPress, New York, NY.Polanyi, M. (1966), The Tacit Dimension, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, NY.Rogers, E. (1995), The Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed., The Free Press, New York, NY.Rynes, S.L., Bartunek, J.M. and Daft, R.L. (2001), "Across the great divide: knowledge creationand transfer between practitioners and academics", Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 44No. 2, pp. 340-56.Soanes, C. and Stevenson, A. (Eds) (2003), Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford.Taylor, F.W. (1911), Principles of Scientific Management, Harper & Row, New York, NY.Von Krogh, G., Ichijo, K. and Nonaka, I. (2000), Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlockthe Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation, Oxford University Press,New York, NY.Von Krogh, G., Nonaka, L and Nishiguchi, T. (2000), Knowkdge Creation: A Source of Value,St Martin's Press, New York, NY.Wrege, C.D. and Greenwood, R.G. (1991), Frederick W. Taylor: The Father of ScientificManagement: Myth and Reality, Business One Irwin, Homewood, IL.Wren, D. (1993), The Evolution of Management Thought, Wiley Text Books, Indianapolis, IN.

[Author Affiliation]Danielle S. Beu and Nancy H. LeonardDepartment of Management and Marketing, Division of Business Administration, College ofBusiness and Economics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA


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