Scientific Management - for a Different Time and Place?

Frederick Taylor’s fundamental thoughts on scientific management dated back to early 1880s when he was employed at Midvale Steel Company and observed his coworkers “soldiering” at work. In the following two decades, he moved around different companies while developing his management theory

Taylor the “Father of Scientific Management” was an American mechanical engineer, born in 1856. He decided against going to Harvard despite passing the entrance exam, instead joining the working world and later whilst working for Midvale Steel he completed his degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. He would go on to apply his engineering background to the scientific study of management (Simha and Lemak 2010).

Locke (1982) also articulates Taylor’s major criticisms in his journal article; degradation of the worker, loss of complete skills, authoritarianism or dictatorship power given to management, exploitation of workers and dishonesty. Locke concludes his article stating that even though it has been 65 years since Taylor’s death and many more theorists of business management have risen and fallen, Frederick W. Taylor’s research and findings are still used in today’s business systems (1982, p.22).

Lastly is labour selection and motivation. Taylor said that every task should be performed by a ‘first class man’ for a specific task. “First-class” men should be given “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”. (Rose 1978: 36) “First-class” man can be both born and trained. Workers should go for training and development courses

Frederick Winslow Taylor, a mechanical engineer born in Philadelphia, was responsible for putting together the system called Scientific Management. Taylor’s introduction of new ideas and methods in industrial engineering, distinctly in time and motion study, proved to be fruitful in improving productivity. Taylor outlined the methods and techniques of Scientific management in his book which was published in 1911. Taylor was not an admirer of the ‘rule of thumb’ principle. The rule of thumb concept means that management would implement methods within the enterprise, based on their past experiences. Hence, Taylor found this to be flawed, as specific outcomes were not guaranteed. Taylor’s main objective was to ensure that wastage and inefficiency

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

Likewise, the production postponement lessens on account of pre-establishing the product operations. Nonetheless, there are also a number of drawbacks when it comes to scientific management. This theory is not useful to deal with teamwork or group work. It also ignores individual preferences and initiatives. Workers are treating as machines while soft factors are paid no attention as it mainly emphasizes measuring.

The “rule of thumb” is a procedure that developed from experience and common sense. It totally ignores scientific knowledge. Taylor argued that for an organization to become more efficient managers had to develop a “science of work” that is cultivating methods based on a scientific study of those tasks. Morgan (2006) asserts that this was done to determine the most efficient way of doing work. The scientific method would therefore simplify worker’s tasks in detail and specify the amount of work needed to do the task and the necessary time to finish that

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.

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.

“Hardly a competent workman can be found who does not devote a considerable amount of time to studying just how slowly he can work and still convince his employer that he is going at a good pace.” (web, 2008)

While this theory has made many positive contributions to management practice, there have also been negative implications. On a positive note, Taylorism has made an impact on the introduction of the 8 hour working day, minimum wage rates and incentive and bonus schemes, and more importantly, highlighted management as an important area of study, allowing for other theorists to improve on, or provide alternative management theories in response to scientific management such as more worker orientated theories, namely behavioural management. Taylor’s ideals have however been under constant scrutiny as managers highlight the shortfalls of scientific management. While the highly mechanistic way of practice may lead to increased productivity, it

The evolution of the society, social relationships, improvement in education… has influenced organizational structures and management principles. For example, the balance of power between managers and workers has changed. In the 19th century, the power was essentially in the employer side whereas today, particularly with the emergence of unions, it is quite balanced. The rise in workforce’s education and standard of living has resulted in much more demanding employees (C. Grönroos, 1994). Historical scientific management is therefore not appropriate anymore, either for its aims or for its principles.

While observing workers in the steel industry he noticed employees would “soldier” or purposely perform below their capability (Frederick Taylor & Scientific Management, n.d). Taylors Scientific Management Theory included the following principles;