Evolution of Management Theory

Frederick Taylor (1917) developed scientific management theory (often called "Taylorism") at the beginning of this century. His theory had four basic principles: 1) find the one "best way" to perform each task, 2) carefully match each worker to each task, 3) closely supervise workers, and use reward and punishment as motivators, and 4) the task of management is planning and control.

Consequently, he decided to take initiative and put it to an end by declaring “to stop the motor of the world.” It was as though the company were trying to embed evil practices into the worker’s monotonous workload. Galt’s pure genius helped him devise a plan to stop these wretched procedures, and what better idea for employees to

The chapter describes many new implementations of practices in mills, factories, and other workplaces. For example, near the beginning of the chapter, Eli Terry’s clock designs are thoroughly described. Terry is a prime example of how the American industry began to seriously produce technologies without the intricate and expensive hassle of European products. Terry’s clock designs reduced the length of the gear trains inside the clock and moved the gears and pendulum outside the frame, instead of encasing the entire clock like the older, more expensive “tall clock” design. Terry’s clock was easier to make, cheaper to produce, smaller, and much easier to clean and adjust. Chapter three also highlights other people who had similar approaches in changing their industry of expertise, including textiles and mass production. This approach is also described in chapter four, titled “American Arms: Whitney, North, Blanchard, and Hall,” which focuses for the most part on gun making. It describes the process of making a gun so it shoots correctly and accurately, and how this process was

Scientific management or "Taylorism" is an approach to job design, developed by Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) during the Second World War. With the industrial revolution came a fast growing pool of people, seeking jobs, that required a new approach of management. Scientific management was the first management theory, applied internationally. It believes in the rational use of resources for utmost output, hence motivating workers to earn more money. Taylor believed that the incompetence of managers was the major obstacle on the way of productivity increase of human labour. Consequently, this idea led to the need of change of management principles. On the base of research, involving analysing controlled experiments under various working

This paper analyzes five great management theorists: F. W. Taylor, Max Weber, Mary Parker Follett, and Douglas McGregor. Each theorist will be compared by four management functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling as detailed in the textbook: The Essentials of Contemporary Management-Sixth Edition from Gareth Jones and Jennifer M. George. We begin by discussing commerce prior the industrial revolution and then we define the key management functions, followed by an examination of each theorist, applying a template of analysis and critique.

Management has experienced remarkable shifts in the way that organizations conduct business particularly in the last century, due to the evolving workplace as well as tremendous changes in the roles of leaders in organizations. Early managers often relied on authoritative tactics to get the job done, which we have learned from history does not work very well for many modern organizations. In this paper, I will be analyzing the management approach my organization takes and whether this is the best approach to meet organizational goals and whether or not my organization may benefit from adopting a different approach or combining multiple approaches.

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.

Managers throughout history have been interested in studying ways to increase productivity. For example, Frederick Taylor began the movement of scientific management in the 1880’s. Scientific management looked to improve productivity through means of scientific analysis of worker’s tasks and work processes rather than the old “rule of thumb” (Taylor, 1914). Taylor believed that he could maximize worker efficiency and productivity through focusing on workers specific hand motions and patterns. After this period, beginning in about the 1930’s, managers looked to take productivity to yet another level by studying worker physiology and motivation. This new movement came to be known as the human relations movement.

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

There are a number of management theories that have changed the management business environment in the twentieth century. The theories have assisted managers to come up with better ways of management and organization of people. Managers have been able to increase profits, reduce costs and maximize efficiency. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the contributions of scientific management and the human relations movement to the modern management. This essay will use Frederick Winslow Taylor’s theory on scientific management and Elton Mayo’s human relations theory. These two movements have been proven to increase productivity in the workplace (Mullins, 2005).

Over the past hundred years management has continuously been evolving. There have been a wide range of approaches in how to deal with management or better yet how to improve management functions in our ever changing environment. From as early as 1100 B.C managers have been struggling with the same issues and problems that manager's face today. Modern managers use many of the practices, principles, and techniques developed from earlier concepts and experiences.

Taylor imagined that workers would be able to make out the relationship between completion of more work in units and the economic rewards been increased. Taylors work as described by (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004) depicts how theories were to take place at shop floor levels, then how facts were substituted for opinion and guess work. Henri Fayol, his fellow classical writer had a different perception which looked at organisation from top to bottom. The pace setters of classical theories had engineering background hence derived theories with scientific approach. (Buchanan and Huczunski, 2004). (Cole, 2004) talks about how the production environment under the classical theory in America had created difficulties, where labour force were skint, uneducated, and in quest of making economic fortunes. (Lemak, 2004) point out how the classical management has had

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.

c. Thus the workers were urged to surpass their previous performance standards to earn more pay .Taylor called his plane the differential rate system.

The main focus behind the development of management theory is the quest for good ways to make use of managerial means. Management theory evolves constantly with the continuous stream of new ideas that come from the attempts to transform theory into practice, and vice versa (Aguinaldo & Powell, 2002). Progression in management theory normal happen as key personnel discover great methods to accomplish the most important management responsibilities: planning, organiz-ing, leading, and controlling human and other managerial means. This paper will show how man-agement theory having to do with suitable management processes has emerge in modern times, and view the main aspects that have led to its prosperity.