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Management and Work Place

Decent Essays

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?

Frederick Taylor was an American, born in 1856. He was an the early management consultants who shot to fame due to his book the 'Principles of Scientific management ' written in 1911. Taylor called it 'scientific management ' but later in time it became to be known as 'Taylorism ' recognising him as the father of this idea. The thought that he came up with was to apply science to the work place in order to obtain 'maximum efficiency ' with the work places out put. He used a systematic system of observing then studying the causes of inefficient in the workplace, then …show more content…

But in all main thoughts about rationalising work, increasing the division of labour, and moving towards trying to increase efficiency became widely important in the work place, but it was not all of his ideas that were widely adopted which is important his ideas were evolved to suit the different firms. One of the main criticisms is that even though he created opportunities for much higher wages for workers his methods made the work deskilled and dehumanised which some argue made the system even less popular with the workers even though they had opportunities to earn higher wages. The effect of Taylors idea 's were much larger also as at the turn of the century there was huge upheaval from the working class due to the growing inequality divide, as Taylor was arguably the first man ever to 'study work seriously ' his idea of creating mutual interests with the workers and management were very influential in calming what many people believed inevitable uprising of the workers and help lead on to the industrial revolution being so large. A lot of his work was based on improving manager-worker relations and that part of 'scientific management ' is very much used by firms today.
But Taylor is criticized for having an oversimplified view of human motivation, in his theories he used only the power of money as a

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