Scientific Management Scientific management is a management theory that analyzes workflows to improve economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It implies the use of scientific methods in making decisions and acting on organizational problems and situations. This management theory, developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, was popular in the 1880s and 1890s in U.S. manufacturing industries. While the terms “scientific management” and “Taylorism” are often treated as synonymous, a more accurate view is that Taylorism is the first form of scientific management. Taylorism is sometimes called the “classical perspective,” meaning that it is still observed for its influence but no longer practiced exclusively. Scientific management was best known from 1910 to 1920, but in the 1920s, competing management theories and methods emerged, rendering scientific management largely obsolete by the 1930s. However, many of the themes of scientific management are still seen in industrial eng...