Taylorism was criticized for its over-simplistic view of what motivated the worker. Oliver Sheldon's theme was that though Taylorism had helped the development of a science of management, such work should not detract from the predominantly human job of the manager to manage. His work prefigures the human relations approach to management theory of Elton Mayo and F. J. Roethlisberger in rejecting the notion that economic incentives largely explain employee behavior.

Mary Parker Follett agreed with Sheldon about the need to emphasize human factors in management, but placed greater stress on the need to develop a science of cooperation. Follett's "Law of the Situation" sought to bridge the gap between an ideal of scientific management and the unilateral position that it seemed to involve in practice. In effect she was proposing the same collaboration between leaders and subordinates that was usually to be found between leaders of the same rank.

This edited collection includes contributions by Mary Parker Follett, Henri Fayol, James D. Mooney and Henry S. Dennison, L. J. Henderson, T. N. Whitehead, and Elton Mayo.
The paper by Henderson, Whitehead, and Mayo discusses the findings of the Hawthorne experiments. Whilst admiring the pioneering work of Taylor, these authors criticize scientific management on the grounds that it does not study the facts of human organization. The Hawthorne experiments revealed the importance of spontaneous social organization of the work group into a micro-social system.

This is the official account of the experiments carried out at the Hawthorne Works of the Eastern Electric Company in Chicago. These were divided into test room studies, interviewing studies and observational studies.

Barnard was prompted by Vilfredo Pareto's seminal four volume work Mind and Society to apply his theories of sociology to management studies.