Scientific Management In 21st Century Essay

McDonalds is a fast food restaurant chain and has more than 33000 outlets all over the world that serve 68 million customers everyday (Bhasin, 2012). McDonald’s objective is to provide prompt service and value to customers. Donald Thompson is responsible for managing the daily operations and strategies of the global business of McDonalds (Bhasin, 2012). Donald Thompson and his team work closely with people who control the functioning of 80% of the outlets all around the world as well as suppliers, employees and corporate staff Donald Thompson sets goals and standards for McDonalds and ensures that they are met and followed in each and every McDonald’s branch. In addition, he makes decision on opening new outlets and on implementing employee training schemes or bonuses. Moreover, he deals with other financial issues and represents the company in every aspect. Thompson ensures that customers receive quality service and to do this he has implemented the Taylor’s scientific management theory in his organization. To have a closer look at how Taylors Scientific approach blends with McDonalds, we will have a step-by-step look at each of the principles of Taylor’s scientific

Organization is refer to people collaborate with each other or a combination of collective groups to achieve certain goals, such as party organizations, trade unions, businesses, military organizations and etc (Simon, 2001). In modern society, it has been

An organizational theory that is still very much alive in modern day business practice is Taylor’s Scientific Management Theory. This theory was very influential when it first came out in increasing productivity, creating job specialization, and finical advantages. But, it is also important to keep in mind that all things have their setbacks and for this theory that entails, dehumanization, under education, and becoming an enemy of the workingman. Furthermore, when outweighing the positives and negatives, we can still see that for being in the manufacturing industry this theory would still be considered appropriate.

The productivity under Taylor’s method dramatically increased and costs of the manufactured goods were reduced by 1/10 to 1/20 of the previous manufactured cost. These changes allowed more people to purchase the goods [6]. It looks like the scientific management theory was the perfect solutions to the problems in organizations in the 20th century. But is scientific management appropriate in a modern world? The next section will look at pros and cons of this theory and the use of scientific management in today’s organizations.

Throughout history, there have been many different approaches of management theories. Some theories longer exist because they are no longer relevant in today’s environment, but some theories are still implemented like Scientific Management and Human Relations. Scientific management emphasizes on efficiency productivity by motivating workers with monetary rewards. Human relations emphasize on motivation of workers by both financial rewards and a range of social factors (e.g. praise, a sense of belonging, feelings of achievement and pride in one’s work).

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.

Scientific management has a number of important principles. First, it calls for the application of the scientific method at work for accomplishing

Scientific management theory was developed in the late 19th century by Fredric Winslow Taylor. At that time, the business environment was experiencing a revolution from agricultural to industrial dependency. As a result, a majority of the workers migrating from rural to industrial areas seeking employment opportunities were untrained and generally less effective. Taylor therefore sought to establish how an organization can enjoy maximum efficiency and productivity. He did this by scientifically studying the work flow process. Particularly, he was interested on how work was being conducted and the effect this had on individual productivity. He concluded that the level of efficiency and productivity between individual varied

Although many people believe in Taylors scientific management functions Lawerence (2010), Green (1986) both argue that that this is not the case and that scientific management is the problem in today’s management. Although there

The scientific management approach has originated from the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor and his colleagues in an attempt to resolve the problems and needs of organisations during the industrial revolution. According to Taylor, there are six main characteristics of this approach. Firstly, the speed at which the employees perform their tasks is determined by the speed of the conveyor line instead of their natural rhythm (Mullins, 2005). Secondly, each worker is meant to perform the same task

And organization is the social group of people that is structured and managed to meet collative goals of its

Although it has attracted a great deal of criticism, Taylor’s thesis can be regarded as an effective management approach in the sector it is has historically been implemented in; that is, the manufacturing sector. In fact, from an efficiency standpoint the value of scientific management cannot be denied – the vast majority of criticism directed toward the theory centres on human resource and ethical matters, rather than its capacity to maximise performance and productivity. The theory itself

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

Organisational behaviour is influenced by two main theories, scientific management and human relations. The scientific management approach developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor is one of the earliest ideological approaches which attempted to explain a management process scientifically. The main goal was to find the techniques to improve production efficiency of workers scientifically. On the contrary, human relations studied by Elton Mayo studied the social interactions within a working environment. Through his studies, he found that social relationships motivates workers at their workplaces (Daft & Samson 2014; Miller & Form, 1964).Based on the two approaches, this paper looks into the assumptions made on workers; the path managers should take to maximise the efficiency of workers and lastly, my choice between these two approaches as a worker.

Scientific management is a managerial practice characterized by separation of decision-making and execution where control of labour process lies strictly with the management to eliminate non-productive activities in accordance to the managers’ discretion (Thompson and McHugh, 1995). Labour is selected to be trained and instructed to perform one particular function in the production process or service line and employees are replaceable.