This brief essay, by Frederick Winslow Taylor, the founder of scientific management has served for over fifty years as a primer for administrators and for students of managerial techniques. Although scientific management was developed primarily as a system for increasing productivity in industry, its principles have been applied to all kinds of large-scale enterprises, including operations within departments and agencies of the federal government. It is in this volume that the author gives the theory of scientific management its clearest airing. (Information gathered from the back cover of the book.)