Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to refute allegations from various sources that, as a pitcher for the Phillips Exeter Academy baseball team, Frederick W. Taylor cheated by using an illegal overhand delivery. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on archival research, including a...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the eugenic beliefs of behavioral geneticist Barbara S. Burks and scientific‐management pioneers B. Frank and Lillian M. Moeller Gilbreth. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on personal communications with the Gilbreths' daughter,...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider one inaccuracy in the written record of our discipline. That is, how the aphorism “There is nothing as practical as a good theory” came to be regarded as Kurt Lewin’s signature saying. Design/methodology/approach Primary and secondary...

Purpose – This paper aims to highlight myriad accomplishments of C. Bertrand Thompson, who is perhaps most well known as a scientific-management bibliographer and a Taylor disciple, in the belief that his contributions as a pioneer management theorist and consultant in Europe deserve to be...