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This paper aims to offer a new history of management by tracing a religious dimension of scientific management. The thesis is that the good was foundational for bringing scientific management to success in Taylor’s native Quaker Philadelphia in the 1880s. The paper’s main contribution is to contrast the philosophical origins of Taylor’s ideas in scientific management to his native Quaker roots, and how Taylor, over time, into the 1910s, wrestled with this issue.

The paper is situated in historical interpretivism and subjectivism, leaning on contextual and narrative research on religious morality.

Quaker morality prevented managerial opportunism at Taylor’s Midvale Steel in the 1880s. Conversely, by the 1900s and 1910s, interest conflicts between workers and managers escalated when scientific management moved out of its traditional cultural contexts of Quaker Philadelphia and spread across the USA. The historical implication is, already for Taylor’s time, that scientific management never was the “one-best way” of management.

Future research needs to deepen and broaden research on scientific management when tracing the significance of religion and culture in management thought.

The paper has implications for modern studies of business morality by uncovering the practical relevance of religious business ethics at the outset of management studies.

The historic emergence of scientific management points to a theory of institutional evolution and economic growth, when religiously grounded governance of the firm deinstitutionalized, and institutional economic governance, with different but superior economic advantages, progressed by the 1900s.

The paper suggests an alternative version of the intellectual heritage of management studies by tracing the legacy of Taylor’s Quakerism and how religious and cultural ideas contributed to the formation of science in management.

This paper aims to study the origin story of Harvard Business School’s involvement with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to study the reasons for the spread of American management education. It introduces both the explicit influence of Cold War politics and Indian development imaginaries to the export of American management thought in the early 1960s.

This paper relies on archival research for its primary source material, drawing upon rich archives of documents found at the Baker Library of Harvard Business School.

Harvard’s role in Ahmedabad was explicitly influenced by the Cold War anti-communist foreign policy of the USA, but did so opportunistically and contrary to the Ford Foundation’s (FF) original plans. Vikram Sarabhai, who was a key player in the Indian national imaginary of development, invited Harvard on his own initiative and forced the foundation to follow his interests rather than being a mere “subaltern.”

This paper could additionally add to the historical debate about the scope and periodization of the Cold War and the role of non-state actors.

This paper covers new ground in exploring the early connection between the Indian development imaginary and business education. It concludes that the export of hegemonic US management education was not successful during Cold War, and the FF was not as dominant as it was made out to be.

This study aims to evaluate and compare the quality of work life (QWL) of nurses, in pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic situations.

The study adopts a descriptive research design. Data were collected during the pre- and post-pandemic periods. The target sampling unit of the study comprises nurses working in Bangalore city, Karnataka, India. The minimum sample size was determined (Bartlett et al., 2001) as 385. The scale validation is carried out. The factors for the present study were explored using exploratory factor analysis and confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Model fitness (proposed measurement model) is ensured by using fit indices. The linear regression method was used to measure the level of QWL of nurses.

The present study noted that key factors that affects the QWL of nursing staff are work condition; work environment; work-life balance; compensation and reward; career development; job satisfaction and security; organization culture; relationship among co-workers and stress. Further, it is noticed that QWL of nurses pre-COVID-19 pandemic is 87.2%, while post-COVID-19 pandemic, it is 67%.

Present study can be extended to address the same research question by considering sampling unit such as therapist, technicians and sanitarians who have equally undergone tremendous pressure during pandemic.

The study outcome provides references for organizations engaged in health services to understand the extreme job conditions posed by pandemic. The constructive inspiration (physio-social and organizational support) reinforces the nurses to continue in their professions by decreasing negative impact.

The research paper extends the contributions of Hwang (2002), Nikeghbal et al. (2021), Howie–Esquivel et al. (2022) and Rania et al. (2023) and add to the existing body of the QWL literature. The outcome of the research records the prevailing conditions of pandemic and its effect on changes in work environment with specific reference to health-care sector.

This study investigates the origins and elaboration of the managerial “unitary” frame of reference associated with Alan Fox, focusing on unionised firms: the industrial relations context, intellectual roots, elaboration, adaptation by other writers, and international applicability.

Tracing the above requirements through contemporaneous sources.

Fox’s designation of the unitary frame needs to be understood in its 1960s’ context, particularly the promotion of “productivity bargaining”, and its furthering through management training and education. Fox’s specific contribution is identified. Subsequent UK writers have underplayed the importance of the legal dimension of managerial authority, especially relevant in the US context, while other extra-economic factors bolster the managerial unitary frame in authoritarian societies such as China.

The use of Fox's neglected 1960s’ writings; tracking how Fox developed the unitary frame concept and how it was funnelled into the narrow parameters of non-unionism by subsequent writers; identifying its applicability beyond the UK (with the USA as a historical example and China as a contemporary one).