Scientific Management

Frederick Winslow Talyor developed a theory called the Scientific Management. It is a theory of management that analyse and improve work process, aiming to increase labour productivity. Scientific management methods are used to optimize productivity and simplifying the jobs so that workers could be trained to perform their task in one “best” way.

Scientific management was first developed by an American, Frederick Winslow Taylor in the1880s ~1910s and has evolved a lot since then. It is a theory or school of thoughts about process improvement and management. It aims at maximizing efficiency, productivity, output with least cost and minimizing wastes. It was criticized as inhuman by many organizational theorists. However, it is widely applied in manufacturing industry and service industry in both developing and developed countries nowadays. This article is to investigate the reasons why scientific

Scientific management is defined by (Robbins et al., 2012) as ‘an approach that involves using scientific methods to define the “one best way” for a job to be done’. Frederick W. Taylor is said to be the forefather of scientific management, during his time many people criticised Taylor and his work, however it is easy to see that many of his approaches are used in contemporary management systems. This essay will provide a review of the article ‘The Ideas of Frederick W. Taylor’, Academy of Management Review (Locke, E., 1982) which discusses the positives and negatives of Taylor’s theory. A further 3 articles will be analysed on the critiquing or support of scientific management and Taylor.

Scientific management included four major steps. The first step was aimed to eliminate the “rule of thumb” method adopted by employees and replace it with specific ways to complete a task. The second step was to

Scientific management was introduced by Fredrick Winslow Taylor in 1898. The basic attributes of this perspective were giving incentives to employees, training them in a standard method and developing a standard procedure of performing a task. These procedures were established by numerous studies and observations (Samson et al., 2012).

(3) Scientific management relatively paid more attention to object, not to people. Though it emphasized that people should match with posts, but in fact it didn 't focus on people, instead, it stressed standard and institution. As long as the workers are trained, and then can use standardized instruments, do their works in a standardized manner to achieve the highest efficiency. Workers repeat same work every day, which is apparently not consistent with the high standard requirement nowadays.(4) Scientific management highlighted the scale of the enterprise and the quantity of products, since it was seller 's market at that time. But nowadays it is buyer 's market, which demands personalized and high quality products, so scientific management may not be pretty appropriate in today’s management.

Practice of scientific management assumes workers to be able to function by obliging to strict instruction with negligible need for satisfaction from social, personal skill development, sense of belonging and alignment of personal opinion with management objectives. This practice also assumes that workers would be willing to perform under the above assumptions when given monetary rewards as incentives and this is sufficient purpose in working lives (Miller and Form, 1964). These assumptions neglect individuality and social needs and fail to incorporate different perspectives in order to seek the most efficient production method.

Scientific management has also been criticised for not accounting for the employees in the organisation (Handy, 20) “but people had been left out of the equation – they were not so easily regimented.”, moreover this the management style also received a bad reputation (Brooks, 19) “Similarly, in Germany in 1912 they were greeted with considerable hostility, and in France (Renault) they resulted in strike action and violent

Scientific management uses incentives to motivate workers. This idea comes from Henry Gantt who introduced the bonus system, which motivated workers to complete their daily tasks by

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

Scientific Management theory arose from the need to increase productivity in the U.S.A. especially, where skilled labor was in short supply at the beginning of the twentieth century. The only way to expand productivity was to raise the efficiency of workers.

Nelson, D. (1992). Scientific management and the transformation of university business education. In Nelson, D. (Ed.), A Mental Revolution: Scientific Management since Taylor, 77-101.

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.

Although Taylor’s scientific management seems like an easy, simple perfect approach, it does come with several limitations. These includes, from a worker’s viewpoint, they might feel that the employment opportunities are

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.