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Contempory Management Functions Essay example

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How do the theories proposed in your chosen reading inform your understanding of contemporary management functions and the employer-employee relationship?

The Purpose of this essay is to determine how scientific management impacts contemporary management functions and the employer-employee relationship. This essay is based on the journal article [Locke,E (1982)The Ideas of Fredrick W Taylor: An Evaluation, Academy Management review,7(11),pp.14-24] and is regarding scientific management started by Fredrick Winslow Taylor which was a theory developed regarding management which analysed workflows. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to management. Scientific management’s main objective was to improve economic efficiency …show more content…

Scientific management theories proposed in this reading do apply to contemporary management functions. Although many of these theories could be argued as common knowledge today, when Fredrick Taylor established them they were prehistoric terms. He wanted to find out ‘one best way’ for everything in the workplace. Taylor’s most well known experiment was the pig-iron experiment (Locke, 1982 ). The experiment involved workers loading ‘pigs’ of iron on to rail cars. He knew their current daily output, but believed more was possible using scientific management. This was done due to many things. First of all putting the right person on the job with the right tools and equipment. In today’s management people hire the best person they can for the job. Secondly he had the worker follow his instructions exactly. This is also normal in today’s management functions, because people do things the way the employer wants them to. Taylor also motivated successful and productive workers with higher pay (Locke, 1982). This is also very common in today, with higher salary packages for good workers and pay increases for productivity fairly common. This improves employer and employee relationships by making the employee feel valued.

Although many people believe in Taylors scientific management functions Lawerence (2010), Green (1986) both argue that that this is not the case and that scientific management is the problem in today’s management. Although there

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