Briefly Explain the Main Conclusions That Canbe Drawn from Taylors Theory of Scientific Management

Frederick Taylor’s fundamental thoughts on scientific management dated back to early 1880s when he was employed at Midvale Steel Company and observed his coworkers “soldiering” at work. In the following two decades, he moved around different companies while developing his management theory

Scientific management is defined by (Robbins et al., 2012) as ‘an approach that involves using scientific methods to define the “one best way” for a job to be done’. Frederick W. Taylor is said to be the forefather of scientific management, during his time many people criticised Taylor and his work, however it is easy to see that many of his approaches are used in contemporary management systems. This essay will provide a review of the article ‘The Ideas of Frederick W. Taylor’, Academy of Management Review (Locke, E., 1982) which discusses the positives and negatives of Taylor’s theory. A further 3 articles will be analysed on the critiquing or support of scientific management and Taylor.

Scientific Management, or Taylorism, is a theory of management by F. W. Taylor that analysed how the highest economic efficiency, especially labour productivity, can be achieved, hence the greatest prosperity for both employers and employees. The four principles that he brought forward are the replacement of the ‘rule of thumb’ work method with a scientific way to study work, matching and training the most suitable person to do each particular job scientifically instead of leaving the workers to choose their own work and teach themselves, the provision of detailed instructions and standard operating procedures by the managers to workers to ensure “all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the science” and the division of work between workers and managers, which managers are responsible for planning and supervising while workers are to complete the tasks they are assigned to.

Taylors Method was known as the Time & Motion Studies. Time was the least amount of time it took to perform each task and even each part of each task, whereas motion was where the fewest numbers of motions required for each small task. Taylor wanted employees to work as if they were machines. From Taylor’s Theory to Taylorism the outcomes were that it boosted in productivity by 200% to 400%. More work was also accomplished with fewer people meant more profit for companies from Taylorism and the final outcome was that more consistent products were of higher quality (Frederick Taylor Scientific Management). In Frederick Winslow Taylor’s ‘The Principles of Scientific Management 1910, he states that ‘under the old

What are the main features of Taylor’s approach to ‘Scientific Management” and what criticisms have been made of it? Do firms use scientific management today?

Scientific management, which is also known as Taylorism, is based on the systematic study of work relations in contrast to reliance on preconceived notions and hunch. One of the underlying assumptions concerning this management approach is that the worker is a biological machine; the “typical economically motivated worker” (Frederick Winslow Taylor, Miller and Form, 1964). The four principles devised by Taylor were: 1. Using science for each element of work to replace old unwritten rules by setting up accurate time and motion study. 2. Managers should select and train workers based on controlled experiments. 3. Both managers and workers are adhering to a system based on scientific equality and using “wages and other rewards linked to achievement of „optimum goals. – measures of work performance and output; failure to achieve these would in contrast result in loss of earnings” (Modern Management Theories and Practices, 2004). 4. Job fragmentation is important because this approach aims for optimum efficiency which could be achieved by deskilling.

The year 1911 saw Frederick Winslow Taylor publish a book titled ‘The principles of scientific management’ in which he aimed to prove that the scientific method could be used in producing profits for an organization through the improvement of an employee’s efficiency. During that decade, management practice was focused on initiative and incentives which gave autonomy to the workman. He thus argued that one half of the problem was up to management, and both the worker and manager needed to cooperate in order to produce the greatest prosperity.

In 1912, Frederick W. Taylor, an American mechanical engineer, viewed organizations as very mechanical with measurable functions and he applied a scientific approach to studying efficiency and productivity in the work process. In his published work, “Scientific Management”, he

Scientific management is an organizational theory that was discovered by Frederick Taylor. He was concerned with scientifically developing the worker to become more efficient. Taylor wrote a book called, The Principle of Scientific Management (Rimer, Waring, Wrege, & Greenwood, 1993). In this book he highlights four major principles to his theory. The first is that there is one best way to do every job. This is determined through time and motion studies to determine what’s the most effective way. The second point is proper scientific selection of workers. Thirdly, is properly training the workers in what is deemed as the best practice. The last point is defining the inherent differences and relationships between manager and worker. Managers should be in charge of administrative tasks, as well as being the thinkers, and planners of the organization. Workers on

Scientific management was first developed by an American, Frederick Winslow Taylor in the1880s ~1910s and has evolved a lot since then. It is a theory or school of thoughts about process improvement and management. It aims at maximizing efficiency, productivity, output with least cost and minimizing wastes. It was criticized as inhuman by many organizational theorists. However, it is widely applied in manufacturing industry and service industry in both developing and developed countries nowadays. This article is to investigate the reasons why scientific

The purpose of this essay is to show that Taylorism (Scientific Management) is still alive and well in the world today despite the many criticism and newer theories of management. The essay will be structured into four main headings. In the first section we will be looking and the definition if Taylorism and how Taylorism is implemented in the 21st century. In the second section we will look at the strengths and weaknesses Taylorism brings about when implemented to firms. When talking about Taylor we cannot miss out on mentioning his two cents in motivation, we would be

In Taylor’s time concepts of time and motion study and standardised tools were brand new ideals revolutionising production and management, but they were simply ‘maximising efficiency in production techniques by breaking down work into its constituent motions’8 These process are now being used in most industrialised countries and have proved to benefit management procedure throughout the last century aiding yet again to the theory that Taylorism is the ‘one best way’.

With those evocative words, Frederick W. Taylor had begun his highly influential book; “The Principles of Scientific Management” indicating his view regarding management practices. As one of the most influential management theorists, Taylor is widely acclaimed as the ‘father of scientific management’. Taylor had sought “the ‘one best way’ for a job to be done” (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 2003, p.39). Northcraft and Neale (1990, p.41) state that “Scientific management took its

It could be said that Fredrick Winslow Taylor’s scientific management theory is still significantly relevant to management practices the 21st century. By analysing both critics and advocates of Taylor’s theory, we are able to gain a comprehensive insight into Taylor’s contribution to the improved productivity, higher efficiency and greater consistency in the current business world. In conjunction with this, suggestions have been made that scientific management exercises poor working conditions, dehumanizing effects and in this century is rather diminishing in importance. Considering both of these views allows for the development of understanding as to what extent scientific management has had a relevant impact on management practises

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.