Uses and meanings of historical knowledge in organizational studies: a (re)reading of Taylorism from the disciplinary power perspective

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss – by expanding the uses and meanings of historical knowledge as proposed from the new history perspective and by Michel Foucault’s genealogy – approaches of more conventional organizational studies which take as research object the great deeds of great men in the management history. In this sense, one has: (1) as the main focus of analysis a re-reading of the legitimate version of Taylorism as a historical event directly responsible for a set of precepts and techniques of work rationalization; and (2) as the central argument the premise that epistemological "subversions" of renewed history and genealogy allow us to read this event through other lenses and identify the work of F. W. Taylor as included into a larger set of disciplinary social practices. In order to achieve this purpose, the text is organized in three parts. In the first part, one exposes the meaning of history for Michel Foucault, then, one analyzes the new history movement and its convergences with the historical knowledge proposal of genealogy. Finally, in the third part, Taylorism is rethought and analyzed under the light of disciplinary society.