Limitations Of Classical And Contingency Approach

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 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

The industrial revolution, which emerged between the 18th and 19th century, brought about new technology allowing for mass production (Hudson, 1992). These technologies brought new problems and so managers had to respond quickly. The response was the emergence of the classical perspective (Samson, Catley, Cathro, & Daft, 2012).

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.

Frederick Winslow Taylor, a mechanical engineer born in Philadelphia, was responsible for putting together the system called Scientific Management. Taylor’s introduction of new ideas and methods in industrial engineering, distinctly in time and motion study, proved to be fruitful in improving productivity. Taylor outlined the methods and techniques of Scientific management in his book which was published in 1911. Taylor was not an admirer of the ‘rule of thumb’ principle. The rule of thumb concept means that management would implement methods within the enterprise, based on their past experiences. Hence, Taylor found this to be flawed, as specific outcomes were not guaranteed. Taylor’s main objective was to ensure that wastage and inefficiency

Philosophers have identified three key perspectives to organization: rational, natural, and open systems. Each of these perspectives include key development for organizational design. They each also exemplify developments of the science of organization. Modern organizational theory can be described as a combination of these three main perspectives (Scott, 2003). This presentation will compare the rational and natural approach with suggestions of restricting to the natural perspective for our current organization.

If we go back to the first half of the twenty first century, organization theory was dominated by classicists who viewed organizations as rational systems and valued efficient operations above all. They promoted the idea that management is a process of planning, organization, command, coordination n, and control and that design of an organization should be like that of a machine. This concept spawned the modern bureaucracy. (Morgan, 1997a)

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.

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

Kirst-Ashman emphasizes “that specifically designed, formal structure and a consistent, rigid organizational network employees are most important in having an organization run well and achieve its goal” (as cited in Griffin & Moorhead,2012). Based on a rigid structure which, focuses on the productivity and sufficiency of completing tasks, the classical organization theory

The Classical Management Theory entered the business world in the early nineteenth century, with an emphasis on increasing worker productivity. Developed by Frederick Taylor, the classical theory of management advocated a scientific study of tasks and the workers responsible for them. It was the foundation of many modern management theories and it aimed to improve operations within an organization. The Classical Management Theory was broken into three schools of thinking: Scientific management, which looked at 'the best way ' to do a job; Bureaucratic management, which focused on rules and procedures, and Administrative management, which emphasized om the flow of information within the organization. One theorist, Henri Fayol, was an

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

Through my working experience in TUV SUD PSB, there were major changes in organisation technologies. The company deals with testing, certification, inspection where they apply technology to do testing on customer product.

Classical theory is about the organization, any reference or concern about the employees from a business standpoint is more of an after thought. Classical focuses on the needs of the organization and how can those needs produce the goals most important to organizational activity. Classical focuses on specific components of organizational theory including managerial tasks, administrative duties, and raw data. Employee morale is an important aspect of any business however when dealing with a classical organizational style can easily be affected.

The Classical theory holds many factors into consideration that an individual should analyze and look