Mgt 300 Study Guide - Exam 2

Frederick W. Taylor worked across the United States in the first 15 years of the 20th century looking to solve production problems (Owens & Valesky, 2011, p. 67). He was an engineer in steel manufacturing and studied developed what what is now known as the four principles of scientific management. These principles spell out what both managers and workers are to do. Two important principles include having the management set goals, plan, and supervise workers, and the workers perform the work, and that organizations should establish the standard where management “sets the objectives and the workers cooperate in achieving them” (p. 67). Taylor’s principles are still used today by some organizational leaders who fight the movement that management should work as a team with the workers (pp. 67-68). Taylor’s principles have led to things such as strict discipline, the idea that workers must focus on their task with little or no interaction with colleagues, and the idea of incentive

“Scientific Management” and “Human Relations” are two different management approaches. In Scientific Management, managers are responsible to think and workers do. Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) develops the Principles of Time and Motion Study, which leads to a conclusion that certain people have a higher work efficiency compared to the others. In his means, cooperation is “to do what workers are told to do without asking questions or making suggestions.” (as cited in Miller & Form, 1924).

Quantitative Methods: used when situation it “stable” and historical data exists; existing products and current technology are key; involves mathematical techniques; ex: forecasting sales of color televisions

Scientific management, which is also known as Taylorism, is based on the systematic study of work relations in contrast to reliance on preconceived notions and hunch. One of the underlying assumptions concerning this management approach is that the worker is a biological machine; the “typical economically motivated worker” (Frederick Winslow Taylor, Miller and Form, 1964). The four principles devised by Taylor were: 1. Using science for each element of work to replace old unwritten rules by setting up accurate time and motion study. 2. Managers should select and train workers based on controlled experiments. 3. Both managers and workers are adhering to a system based on scientific equality and using “wages and other rewards linked to achievement of „optimum goals. – measures of work performance and output; failure to achieve these would in contrast result in loss of earnings” (Modern Management Theories and Practices, 2004). 4. Job fragmentation is important because this approach aims for optimum efficiency which could be achieved by deskilling.

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 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).

In 1912, Frederick W. Taylor, an American mechanical engineer, viewed organizations as very mechanical with measurable functions and he applied a scientific approach to studying efficiency and productivity in the work process. In his published work, “Scientific Management”, he

Frederik Winslow Taylor, one of the most famous pioneers of management gave the theory of Scientific management or what is now referred to as Taylorism. Scientific management or Taylorism refers to “a form of job design which stresses short, repetitive work cycles; detailed, prescribed task sequences; a separation of task conception from task execution; and motivation based on economic rewards.” (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2013). The applicability of Scientific management to this day is a controversial topic as there is still debate whether scientific management is beneficial to apply to organizations for smooth functioning or not. This paper discusses his theory of scientific management. While it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of this theory, it mainly expands on the criticisms of this theory and the reasons as to why the theory is not highly relevant now. This paper does this by using theorists like Abraham Maslow, Elton Mayo & Douglas Mcgregor and by stating modern day examples of companies with different principles of management as compared to Taylorism.

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).

It could be said that Fredrick Winslow Taylor’s scientific management theory is still significantly relevant to management practices the 21st century. By analysing both critics and advocates of Taylor’s theory, we are able to gain a comprehensive insight into Taylor’s contribution to the improved productivity, higher efficiency and greater consistency in the current business world. In conjunction with this, suggestions have been made that scientific management exercises poor working conditions, dehumanizing effects and in this century is rather diminishing in importance. Considering both of these views allows for the development of understanding as to what extent scientific management has had a relevant impact on management practises

Scientific management is a theory of management that analysis and synthesizes workflows, with the objective of improving labour 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). He began trying to discover a way for workers to increase their efficiency when he was the foreperson at the Midvale Steele Company in 1875. 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. Its application is contingent on

The manifestation of Frederick Taylor's theory of scientific management was a major breakthrough in traditional approach to management process, and employing a healthy degree of scientific management would remedy the problem of low visibility in Google. Scientific Management is an approach that emphasizes 1) A clear division of tasks and responsibilities; 2) determining the “one best way” of performing a task; 3) Scientific selection of best person for the newly designed job; 4) Ensuring workers are trained to perform the job the “one best way”; and 5) Strict surveillance of workers using a hierarchy of authority and close supervision. Organizations using scientific management are defined as “Collectives oriented to the pursuit of specific goals and exhibit formalized structures” (Scott, p. 29). A basic tenet of scientific management was that employees were not highly educated and thus were unable to perform any but the simplest tasks. Thus, Taylor, who advanced the theory, advocated that work should be reduced to a series of routine, predictable and standardized tasks. He also assumed that workers are motivated by money so he introduced payment on a piecework basis as an incentive which would increase productivity. The phrase “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” was used by Taylor to motivate workers to work harder.

Taylor suggested that “no one can be found who will deny that in the case of any single individual, the greatest prosperity can exist only when that individual has reached his highest state of efficiency; that is, when he is turning out his largest daily output.” (Taylor & Jones, 1911) There is a widespread variety of opinions regarding Taylor’s theory of Scientific Management, as it is debatable whether the technique accounts for the workers own interests within the working environment, and the effects of the technique as a whole whilst enforcing the rigorous scientifically designed working methods to gain maximum efficiency and productivity.

The concept of scientific management was first introduced in the book The Principles of Scientific Management, by F.W. Taylor (1911), eventually forming the concept of the frequently used management technique referred to as Taylorism. This concept revolved around three prime objectives. Taylorism focuses on the achievement of efficiency – by maximizing output per worker through training in scientific methods to establish the “one best way of executing each motion” (Katia Caldari, 2007); to create direct control of the manufacturing process, by clearly implementing a hierarchical authority; and lastly predictability, through the standardization of tasks by the notion of division of labour (Huczynski, A., & Buchanan, D., 2013). Taylor strongly believed in rationalism, the theory that reason forms the basis of knowledge – and his studies, such as the the Time and Motion Studies conducted at Bethlehem Steel (Taylor, 1991), led him to believe that the most rational approach to achieving the maximization of productivity in a business, would be through the incorporation of these three concepts (Huczynski, A., & Buchanan, D., 2013). However, even though these concepts are arguably advantageous for secondary sector businesses, Taylorism largely ignores the importance certain psychological factors, for instance those emphasized by Frederick Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory or the Them vs. Us mentality. Such psychological factors, according to the Iceberg model (Figure 1), form the

The primary goal for the managers within an organization should be to best utilize resources contributed by the shareholders of the organization to create and grow profits and revenues. In addition, the primary goal for an employee should be to earn the highest pay possible at his or her job level, while developing skills to maximize his or her efficiency. These two goals, along with other factors, are critical considerations in the long-term success of an organization (Taylor, 1914). Before the rise to scientific management, many managers viewed these two goals as unrelated, while scientific management looked at this same situation under a new light. Under the scientific management approach, the success of an organization is dependent on both competitive wages, as well as maximum productivity.