Appropriateness of Applying Scientific Management Principles in a Knowledge-Based Economy

Scientific Management – a method which sought to identify most efficient techniques for management through “time and motion” studies and then motivated worked to adopt these ways of working through the use of

In all, I feel that Scientific Management brings more benefits to the owners or shareholders of the company than to the workers that are working in the company, as I feel that workers are the people who build the companies, without them no companies can survive, to me it 's more essential the happiness of the workers than the profit margin of the company. The ideal scenario is where the company looks after the interest or welfare of their workers and the workers looks after the company 's interest, where both side wins. It 's the company lost if they fail to retain staffs as the

Scientifically select, train and develop workers instead of allowing them to choose their own tasks, decide the best way to complete the job and carry out their own training.

Scientific management is essential to some extent not only for service economy but any type of business these days. It enhances the level of production considerably by introducing new and improved methods of management and production which even promotes service economy more since the economy aim is to transform productivity into competency and profitability. Summing up, under scientific management, the work is carried out systematically according to pre-determined plans, time-wastage is reduced by large, work and products quality is

Taylorism is a system that was designed in the late 19th century, not only to maximise managerial control, but to also expand the levels of efficiency throughout workplaces. With this being said, productivity levels increased and fair wage distribution was the main result. However, with other, more recent theories and systems, such as Maslow and Herzburg’s theories, these helped to focus on the satisfaction and motivation of the workers rather than the concern of managerial control and empowerment. Fredrick W. Taylor ended up developing 4 main principles to help increase the work efficiency and productivity in workplaces; these will be discussed later on. Other theories relating to this include, Fayol, Follett, Management Science Theory as

The more lateral freedom an employee has the more room they have to excel rather than stick to a certain quota, as well as innovate and generally help improve the company in not only culture but productivity as well. This need for more specialized and skilled employees rather than more mindless cogs in a machine is what will move the industrial and business world to the next level from the one at which we stand now, a level that is based on century old and fast dissipating model of doing things. Taylor’s method rested on a few key things, with employees it was their intelligence that came into play, in no way is it possible to tell an educated man that he must do one thing a certain way all day long when there may be an easier or more efficient way to go about it and this is where there is the biggest split between old era scientific management and todays evolving model.

Such contributions stemmed from Taylor 's theory are still in practice today, Taylor 's idea of introducing rest periods for his employees and is now an essential part of many organisations today, these rests provided to employee not only alters any continuous, monotonous and repetitive work, but also allows the worker to return to their tasks refreshed and perform at a much higher potential if they had not Incentives provided today given to the employees encourages high productivity in the workplace by offering rewards for exceptional work effort. An early example was Henry L Gantt, who furthered Taylor 's workings and developing the concept of incentive pay and Gantt charts. These tools are now one of the most essential parts of project management today (Darmody (2007).

Fredrick Taylor, another management theorist invented the principle of scientific management showing five simple management principles: 1. Shift all responsibility for the organisation of work from the worker to the manager. Managers think, plan, and design work, while the workers does the implementation, 2. Use scientific method to determine the most efficient way of doing work. Design worker’s task accordingly, specifying the precise way in which the work is to be done, 3. Select the best person to perform the job thus designed, 4. Train the worker to do the work effectively, 5. Monitor worker performance to ensure that appropriate work procedures are followed and that appropriate results are achieved. (Morgan 1997)

The fourth principle was equal division of work and the responsibilities of employers and employees. Taylor designed a way of having management ensure that workers had knowledge of the job, the amount of time to do the job and how to do the job. These management principles aimed at finding the optimum performance value in an organization. Taylor’s principles were adopted in several enterprises but during the second half the century the theory started receiving criticism due to lack of flexibility and inhumanity.

According to Frederic Taylor in 1900, the scientific management style also known as “taylorism” if “individuals were given precisely defined set of tasks” with” clear set of objectives” then “they would calculate the benefits of improving their output and their productivity would rise” (Maund,p.94). Other principals indicated that to perform each job with the standard methods should be developed. Taylor believed that each trained worker with the sufficient support would determine the best way of performance.

Taylorism, additionally known as Scientific Management, is a theory of management methodology that emphasizes on maximising work efficiency. Developed and named after an American industrial engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor. Through thorough use of a stopwatch and a clipboard, Taylor put all his research and outcomes into a book called the Principles of Scientific Management, which was later published in 1911. In the monograph Taylor’s notion was to mend the economical proficiency, principally in the labouring output. He believed that there were great losses, when “the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost of all of our daily acts” (Taylor 1911) and that “remedies in inefficiency lies in systematic

Taylor's own name for his approach was scientific management. This sort of task-oriented optimization of work tasks is nearly ubiquitous today in industry, and has made most industrial work menial, repetitive, tedious and depressing; this can be noted, for instance, in assembly lines and fast-food restaurants. Ford's arguments began from his observation that, in general, workers forced to perform repetitive tasks work at the slowest rate that goes unpunished. This slow rate of work (which he called "soldiering", but might nowadays be termed by those in charge as "loafing" or "malingering" or by those on the assembly line as "getting through the day"), he opined, was based on the observation that, when paid the same amount, workers will tend to do the amount of work the slowest among them does: this reflects the idea that workers have a vested interest in their own well-being, and do not benefit from working above the defined rate of work when it will not increase their compensation. He therefore proposed that the work practice that had been developed in most work environments was crafted, intentionally or unintentionally, to be very inefficient in its execution. From this he posited that there was one best method for performing a particular task, and that if it were taught to workers, their productivity would go up.

Scientific management involves the application of psychological science to guide worker selection, training, and evaluation (Short, 2011; Zuffo, 2011). Other key elements of the rational choice approach include setting goals and establishing mechanisms to collect feedback, ensuring better customer relationship management through improved quality and processes (Salimath & Jones, 2011), increasing productivity, and reducing waste (Short, 2011). Efficiency is at the core of scientific management theory, and greater efficiency is achieved through a focus on optimising time and motion (Bell & Martin, 2012), while employee motivation is promoted by tying compensation to productivity (Edmans, 2012).

Scientific Management theory is important for every business it is followed by every industrial business operation whole in the world. it is a general process of business practices such as planning, process design, quality control, ergonomics and cost accounting. This theory provide good knowledge and understanding of industrial management. this theory also make us understand about how a one person (manager) can use quantitative analysis and other measureable data, an examination numbers, in management to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business operations.

The principles of scientific management focus on increasing employees’ productivity and efficiency. After joining the industry, Taylor identified three fundamental characteristics of the industry that contributed to its inefficiency. Their identification facilitated the development of the basic principles of scientific management, which guided Taylor in eliminating waste, increasing productivity, and efficiency. The elimination of waste functioned because of the systematization of production process, systematization of tools, standardization of work and the wage incentive all created to increase productivity (Tompkins, 2005). According to Tompkins (2005), monetary incentive remains a practicable option, which public agencies utilize to