How Have We Evolved in the Management Field
Triston Jackson
MGMT 310
Case, George
Jan 14, 2018
American Public University
Introduction
As time passes businesses learn from failure and achievement. Have you ever found yourself, pondering how do businesses remain relevant, lucrative and profitable? For centuries business men and women alike, have introduced new theories and principles to remain competitive and drastically increase the understanding of organizational and human behavior. In this essay, I plan to discuss a few ways business men and women have changed the way we conduct business through their management theories.
Scientific Theory
Fredrick Winslow Taylor’s scientific theory of management was established in the early 20th century and is the most known and recognized management theory. In 1911 Taylor set this theory at the time it was called the time and motion study.
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Mayo challenged the views of Taylor that the use of science would command productivity by employing tight human control. Mayo put emphasis on self-interest and positive response as associated to pressure form the administration. The Hawthorne Experiment was tested in 1924 by Mayo because the growing number of works who were unsatisfied in plants throughout the Chicago area in the early twenties. Elton Mayo and his assistant Fritz Roethlisberger, conducted research by changing working conditions. They experimented with work lighting, duration of breaks and working hours. A group of women were either exposed to more or less light. No matter whether more or less lighting it had a positive effect on their performances. The same stood true for the duration of rest periods and the break periods whether shorter or longer increased the amount of productivity. The theory focuses on the importance of how human relationships affect workers in a psychological and social way. Workers who
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.
Management has indeed evolved since Frederick Taylor’s writings in 1911. Taylor, a pioneer of modern management theory, is best known for developing the ‘scientific management approach’, Kemp (2013). The development of management since Taylor’s writings is a response to the larger economic and social circumstances of our time. Today we are living in a digital era, whereas then, it was an industrial era. Taylor’s approach is built on the premise that in order to maximize production efficiency workers should be seen as individuals and that the more effort put in, the wealthier the man, George (1968). Taylor’s (1911) ideas have not disappeared; they have evolved to meet the challenge of a different era. In 1911, Taylor came up with four theories
Taylor the “Father of Scientific Management” was an American mechanical engineer, born in 1856. He decided against going to Harvard despite passing the entrance exam, instead joining the working world and later whilst working for Midvale Steel he completed his degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. He would go on to apply his engineering background to the scientific study of management (Simha and Lemak 2010).
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
Scientific Management is also known as Taylorism. Fredrick Winslow Taylor wanted to divide the work process into small, simple and separate steps (Division of Labor). Division of Labor meant every worker only had one or two steps, this was created to boost productivity. Taylor also believed in Hierarchy, he wanted a clear chain of command that separated the managers from workers. He did this so managers would design work process and enforced how the work was performed and employees would simply follow directions. Taylor wanted to select and train high performing workers or first-class employees and match them to a job that best suited them. Taylor believed the most productive workers should be paid more. Employees who could not meet the new higher standard were fired.
Two researchers, Elton Mayo and Flitz Rothlisberger, carried out an experiment in 1920s. In 1927, researchers were trying to determine the optimal amount of lighting, temperature, and humidity for assembling electronic components at Western Electric's Hawthorne plant. The results showed that lighting had no consistent effect on production. Researchers were frustrated to discover that
The Hawthorne Experiments were conducted between 1927 and 1932 at the works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago. Basically the aim of these experiments was to ” attempt to reduce worker dissatisfaction and resist trade union influence by the putting in place of a paternalistic package of social and recreational benefits calculated to sustain workers “loyalty” (Sheldrake 105:1996). Many little assignments were conducted in hope of putting into practice the above theory.
Elton Mayo is best known for the Hawthorne effect. Mayo was well educated, studying at several different universities including engineering at the University of Glasgow. Mayo faced a lot of rejection during his career but his work greatly influenced our working environments today. He believed that industries were destroying communal harmony and that production would increase if the workers were better taken care of. He is quoted as saying that workers must rise above “indignation and frustration which the…new industrial society forced on workers” (Hoopes 130). These new managerial styles in addition to a capitalist leaning society created an unfriendly environment for the majority of workers. Despite his attempts, his theories and ideas often fell
Philosophers of the centuries, like Cicero, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, have left behind a colossal amount of wisdom that leave one with a wealth of insight that can be applied in one’s personal life as well as their business life. Through these teachings, Morris focuses on four foundations of human excellence that should govern all that we do. Businesses today are continuously looking for ways to improve, become more efficient, and build a better business and new techniques are developed and advertised but the four techniques described by Morris is all a business needs to be successful in today’s modern business world. People are behind all the products, services, processes, strategies and techniques of every business.
Scientific Management Theory by Frederick W. Taylor – Throughout the industrial world employees are the large part of the organisation and Fundamental interests of employees are necessarily aggressive. So as a manager it is necessary to arrange mutual relations with employees so their interests become identical. In case of any single individual the greatest prosperity can exist only when that individual has reached his highest state of efficiency and that is, when he is turning out his largest daily output (Frederick Winslow Taylor, 2007).
Successful management requires an understanding of the fundamental concepts of effective management techniques and principles. In order to gain such insight, and manage effectively and efficiently, managers must develop an awareness of past management principles, models and theories. From the turn of the 20th Century, the
Scientific management (also called Taylorism, the Taylor system, or the Classical Perspective) is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflow processes, improving labor productivity. The core ideas of the theory were developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s, and were first published in his monographs, Shop Management (1905) and The Principles of Scientific Management (1911).[1] Taylor believed that decisions based upon tradition and rules of thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful study of an individual at work.
As I am reading the case, Personalize Your Management Development, I really touched by the author and I really learned a lot from the case. As everyone knows, different people have their different characteristics so they will have their own principle and procedure to deal things. Therefore, the different characteristics made the different working styles as manager. As a company, you will have a lot of different managers so personalize the specific management development projects are really essential to the company. After I read the case, I have a general sense about the different kinds of managers in company and I can imagine what they will do in management. In the case, the author
This led to lowered overall productivity and systematic underproduction. Hence, this provoked Taylor to develop scientific management. The principles behind Tayor’s management concept were based on the idea that workers put in the least amount of effort and that they are motivated solely by material gains. As a result, the theory implied that greater external control is needed for more productive operations. Furthermore, the theory basically built an instrumental view of human behaviour making the human factor a mere component in a machine (Morgan, 2006) . Taylor’s concept was considered a milestone in the development of management as it proposed a different, efficiency-orientated approach that relied on how work was organized. From his point of view surely it was the increased productivity, predictability and control of the system that made the idea better. H e himself states that if applied in a correct manner his methods would lead to far larger and better results (Taylor, 2007) . However, when the scientific management theory was applied the negative effects of the system manifested. Frederick Taylor was even called “enemy of the working man” because of the principles he introduced (Morgan, 2006) . The separation between execution and conception and tightened control led to workers going to strike or leaving their jobs. Furthermore, the fact that the applied system presumed that workers had no other
The experiments’ main purpose was steered towards factors affecting productivity. Too much emphasis was placed on human effort instead of technological assists. Human aspects alone cannot improve production and we need to turn to better technology and machines to significantly increase output. Hence, factors like environment or incentives cannot be used as the sole contributions affecting worker’s productivity but also the peripherals such as improved machines and equipments. Another criticism would be the huge emphasis the experiment placed on group decision-making. Some argued that the individual’s opinion should not be neglected especially during situations when an immediate decision was needed. Lastly, there is an over importance of freedom for workers during the experiment. This diminishes the constructive role