Control, Managerial

Martin Barlosky

Notions of managerial control have a long if occasionally dubious pedigree in educational administration, a practical discipline that has borrowed much, sometimes indiscriminately, from cognate fields and practices concerned with organizational management. Two of the most formative borrowings, each of which underscores the significance of managerial control, consist in appropriations of Frederick Winslow Taylor's (1856–1915) scientific management and Max Weber's (1864–1920) depiction of bureaucratic organizations. An American mechanical engineer credited with founding systems engineering, Taylor sought to redesign workplace practices in order to maximize industrial efficiency. Weber, a German sociologist and a discerning student of cultural development, presented bureaucracy as the rational organizational form optimally suited for complex social settings. The tightly interwoven principles and directives for ensuring workplace productivity that constituted Taylor's (1911/1967) scientific management found ready application in the large, industrial factories that emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century. As the promise of employment swelled ...

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