Scientific Management Was the Product of 19th Century Industrial Practices and Has No Relevance to the Present Day. Discuss.

Scientific Management was first described by Frederick Taylor in the late 19th century. Its relevance to modern day management is widely debated in academic circles. In this essay, I will address the question of whether Scientific Management has a place today, in a 21st Century Knowledge Economy, or whether it belongs to a ‘different time and place. I will argue that much of modern management practice is derived from Taylor’s theories and that in this sense his work is very relevant. Next, I will examine the context in which Taylor developed his principles and contrast this with the contemporary context. Then I will evaluate the relevance of each of Taylor’s 4 Principles to today, with help from a

In the late 19th century, when a period of social activism and economic reform, historically known as the Progressive Era (Maligned), coincided with the capitalistic expansion at an unprecedented rate, a series of ideas on eradicating systematic soldiering and increasing the overall productivity quiet sprouted at steel industry, later growing into the theories of scientific management in the next two decades. Scientific management, also known as Taylorism, was one of the earliest attempts to apply scientific methods to optimize of management and achieve economic efficiency. Its founder, Frederick Winslow Taylor, was also the prominent figure in the Efficiency Movement in the U.S. The principles of scientific management have shaped American industry and on management science in three major ways since the 1880s. On the corporate level, scientific management had streamlined manufacturing process; on the individual level, it instilled many fundamental management ideas into the American industry; as the leading thought during the Progressive Era, it laid the foundation for various disciplines, many of which serve as guidelines even for modern-day industries.

Scientific management evolved into Fordism, which was established by the American entrepreneur Henry Ford. It basically involved mass production and an assembly line. Workers were attracted and motivated by higher wages, paid daily, which resulted in reduced staff turnover and productivity increase. Scientific management had many disadvantages, especially for the worker. Workers felt socially isolated, the work was exhausting, monotonous and stressful. As a result, in the 1930s, a movement, opposing Scientific management was created- the Human Relations movement. It emphasized on the cooperation of workers by treating them humanely and shifted the emphasis from utilitarian to normative control. Yet, it developed from Scientific management's principles. Post Tayloristic ideas influenced modern HRM, which unlike Taylorism, emphasizes on the commitment and individuality of

These theories were proven relevant by their popularity (Brooks, 20) “Taylor’s thinking preceded the widespread adoption of mass production techniques, possibly best demonstrated by the early 1920’s motor manufacturers, most significantly Henry Ford in the USA.” Production lines were sequential and followed a strict rule of the “one best way” which may be because the new industry and workers did not have a large amount of knowledge or expertise on how their jobs should be done.

Following Taylor’s revolutionary ideas, shortly afterwards Henry Ford incorporated some of these ideas along with his own to create Fordism, once again in an attempt to improve efficiency. Fordism concentrated on the idea of mass production, where Ford looked closely at three key components; analysing jobs, the installation of single purpose machine jobs and the creation of a mechanized machine line. He believed that by implementing these three, production would increase even further, improving efficiency further. This was to occur because much

The purpose of this essay is to show that Taylorism (Scientific Management) is still alive and well in the world today despite the many criticism and newer theories of management. The essay will be structured into four main headings. In the first section we will be looking and the definition if Taylorism and how Taylorism is implemented in the 21st century. In the second section we will look at the strengths and weaknesses Taylorism brings about when implemented to firms. When talking about Taylor we cannot miss out on mentioning his two cents in motivation, we would be

In todays modern era of business, with its exploding technological advances, easier access to materials and a much more skilled and specialized labor force the ideology behind using scientific management is fast becoming as dated a method as the industries that still heavily rely upon its principles to function efficiently. Considering that the fundamental principles of scientific management consist of breaking down manufacturing into its constituent parts allowing unskilled, simple minded, untrained workers to do any one of the multiple tasks that produce a product. This method functions in a manner that maximizes laborers potential and thus company profits by using an assembly line type system. Under this system only management however

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

a, Example: Scientific management is still applied by many types of today organizations. There are a considerable number of well-known companies that still apply scientific management to their business operation. The fist typical example is Mc Donald (MCD)- the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurant which serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries. The principles of scientific management have been applied by MCD in its business operation for 3 functions: the development of the workman and the scientific education, the method of performing every job and the system of rewarding in order to achieve goals as shown on Mc Donald’s corporate website, 2008. Specifically, MCD provides an incentive system of wages, in which offers bonuses for workers base on the amount of work that they produce. Long term incentives are offered to

In an ironic twist, Taylorism, the creation of a fully capitalist system was admired and adopted by Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin who implemented said scientific management method into soviet manufacturing, which indeed worked and increased worker productivity in the USSR at the cost of the happiness of the people, this shows both negative and positive factors of Taylorism. Taylorism was also applied on Ford’s assembly line which also boosted efficiency.

Taylor's own name for his approach was scientific management. This sort of task-oriented optimization of work tasks is nearly ubiquitous today in industry, and has made most industrial work menial, repetitive, tedious and depressing; this can be noted, for instance, in assembly lines and fast-food restaurants. Ford's arguments began from his observation that, in general, workers forced to perform repetitive tasks work at the slowest rate that goes unpunished. This slow rate of work (which he called "soldiering", but might nowadays be termed by those in charge as "loafing" or "malingering" or by those on the assembly line as "getting through the day"), he opined, was based on the observation that, when paid the same amount, workers will tend to do the amount of work the slowest among them does: this reflects the idea that workers have a vested interest in their own well-being, and do not benefit from working above the defined rate of work when it will not increase their compensation. He therefore proposed that the work practice that had been developed in most work environments was crafted, intentionally or unintentionally, to be very inefficient in its execution. From this he posited that there was one best method for performing a particular task, and that if it were taught to workers, their productivity would go up.

Scientific management has played a significant role in how workers are managed to provide efficiency to production lines. The question here is whether or not this approach has improved or worsened the experience for the workers in the modern day and how this approach has been adapted to fit the technological advances of this day and age. I will consider what the scientific management includes and how this may affect the non-managerial workers. In the approach to answering this question I will use McDonalds as one of the main companies which still use scientific management and how successful it is.

Ford’s scientific management theory is a system about production, consumption and based on Taylorist principles, it introduced a new

Scientific Management was the product of 19th Century industrial practices and has no relevance to the present day. Discuss.

Managers have been continuously trying to figure out the best way to manage the workplace since the start of the industrial revolution. The goal is to maximize production output and minimize cost therefore getting maximized profit while still keeping workers happy and motivated. Different methods have been introduced and tested. But perhaps one of the most influential and popular ideas in management is ‘scientific management’ or ‘taylorism’ as people know it. Taylorism, along with fordism, which follows after, are considered to be the classical work organization. The reason behind this is because; these ideas correspond to the first