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Taylor's most famous story (Schmidt and the pig iron) was... mostly made up.

https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/1556350

Hawthorne effect... was also made up.

> But only five workers took part in the study, Dr. Ross said, and two were replaced partway through for gross insubordination and low output. > > A psychology professor at the University of Michigan, Dr. Richard Nisbett calls the Hawthorne effect ''a glorified anecdote.''

(https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/06/weekinreview/scientific-m...)

I learned both these facts from the highly entertaining "The Management Myth": https://mwstewart.com/books/the-management-myth/



Yes and no. For example, the Hawthorne study did spark new opposed research movements that have since (obviously) produced a lot of original work.

On the other hand, some economists have dug out the data from the Hawthorne studies and concluded that there's a small observational effect.

The former point is obviously what I was indicating here.




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