A Mental Revolution: Scientific Management Since Taylor (Historical Perspectives on Business Enterprise Series)

In Contemporary African American Fiction: New Critical Essays, edited by Dana A. Williams, eight contributors examine trends and ideas which characterize African American fiction since 1970. They investigate many of the key inquiries which inform discussions about the condition of contemporary African American fiction. The range of queries is wide and varied. How does African American fiction represent the changing times in America and the world? How are these changes reflected in narrative strategies or in narrative content? How do contemporary fictionists engage diasporic Africanisms, or how do they renegotiate Americanism? What is the impact of cultural production, gender, sexuality, nationality, and ethnicity on this fiction? How does contemporary African American fiction reconstruct or rewrite earlier “classic” African American, American, or world literature? Authors under study include Ernest J. Gaines, Ishmael Reed, Edwidge Danticat, Octavia E. Butler, Olympia Vernon, Toni Morrison, and Reginald McKnight, among others. These essays remind us that the African American literary tradition is about survival and liberation. The tradition is similarly about probing, challenging, changing, and redirecting accepted ways of thinking to ensure the wellness and the freedom of its community cohorts. The essays identify new ways contemporary African American fiction continues the tradition’s liberatory inclinations—they interrogate the ways in which antecedent texts and traditions influence contemporary texts to create new traditions. A Mental Revolution Includes Eight Original Essays That Analyze How The Scientific Management Principles Developed By Legendary Engineer Frederick W. Taylor Have Evolved And Been Applied Since His Death In 1915. Taylor Believed That A Business Or Any Other Complex Organization Would Operate More Effectively If Its Practices Were Subjected To Rigorous Scientific Study. His Classic Principles Of Scientific Management Spread His Ideas For Organization, Planning, And Employee Motivation Throughout The Industrialized World. But Scientific Management, Because It Required, In Taylor's Words, A Complete Mental Revolution, Was Highly Disruptive, And Taylor's Famous Time-motion Studies, Especially When Applied Piecemeal By Many Employers Who Did Not Adopt The Entire System, Helped Make The Movement Enormously Unpopular With The Organized Labor Movement. Though Its Direct Influence Diminished By The 1930s, Taylorism Has Remained A Force In American Business And Industry Up To The Present Time. The Essays In This Volume Discuss Some Of The Important People And Organizations Involved With Taylorism Throughout This Century, Including Richard Feiss And Mary Barnett Gilson At Joseph & Feiss, Frank And Lillian Gilbreth, And Mary Van Kleeck, And Explore The Influence Of Scientific Management At The Bedaux Company, The Link-belt Company, And Du Pont. Chapters On The Taylor Movement's Influence On University Business Education And On Peter Drucker's Theories Round Out The Collection. Written By Some Of The Finest Scholars Of The Scientific Management Movement, A Mental Revolution Provides A Balanced And Comprehensive View Of Its Principles, Evolution, And Influence On Business, Labor, Management, And Education.--book Jacket. Introduction / Dana A. Williams -- Theoretical Influences And Experimental Resemblances: Ernest J. Gaines And Recent Critical Approaches To The Study Of African American Fiction / Reggie Scott Young -- Ideological Tension: Cultural Nationalism And Multiculturalism In The Novels Of Ishmael Reed / Jennifer A. Jordan -- The Politics Of Addiction And Adaptation: Dis/ease Transmission In Octavia E. Butler's Survivor And Fledgling / Mildred R. Mickle -- When The Women Tell Stories: Healing In Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory / Tara T. Green -- The Coming-of-age Of The Contemporary African American Novel: Olympia Vernon's Eden, Logic, And A Killing In This Town / Dana A. Williams -- Another Night, Another Story: The Frame Narrative In Toni Morrison's Paradise And Alf Laylah Wa Laylah [arabian Nights] / Majda R. Atieh -- A Stranger On The Bus: Reginald Mcknight's I Get On The Bus As Complex Journey / Sandra Y. Govan -- Re-imagining The Academy: Story And Pedagogy In Contemporary African American Fiction / Eleanor W. Traylor. Edited By Dana A. Williams. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. "In Contemporary African American Fiction: New Critical Essays, edited by Dana A. Williams, eight contributors examine trends and ideas which characterize African American fiction since 1970. They investigate many of the key inquiries which inform discussions about the condition of contemporary African American fiction. The range of queries is wide and varied. How does African American fiction represent the changing times in America and the world? How are these changes reflected in narrative strategies or in narrative content? How do contemporary fictionists engage diasporic Africanisms, or how do they renegotiate Americanism? What is the impact of cultural production, gender, sexuality, nationality, and ethnicity on this fiction? How does contemporary African American fiction reconstruct or rewrite earlier “classic” African American, American, or world literature? Authors under study include Ernest J. Gaines, Ishmael Reed, Edwidge Danticat, Octavia E. Butler, Olympia Vernon, Toni Morrison, and Reginald McKnight, among others"--From Amazon.com cover ......Page 1 0 Frontmatter and Introduction......Page 2 1 Scientific Management in Retrospect......Page 16 2 Richard A. Feiss, Mary Barnett Gilson, and Scientific Management at Joseph & Feiss, 1909–1925......Page 51 3 Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and the Motion Study Controversy, 1907–1930......Page 69 4 Scientific Management and the Transformation of University Business Education......Page 88 5 Mary Van Kleeck and Scientific Management......Page 113 6 Organized Production and Unorganized Labor - Management Strategy and Labor Activism at the link-Belt Company, 1900–1940......Page 141 7 The Diffusion of Scientific Management-The Bedaux Company in America and Britain, 1926–1945......Page 167 8 Scientific Management and Industrial Engineering at Du Pont......Page 186 9 Peter Drucker, MBO, and the Corporatist Critique of Scientific Management......Page 216 10 Epilogue and Notes on Contributors......Page 248 11 Index......Page 254