Taylor’s Scientific Management Theory Influences on Contemporary Management

Management is important in any environment, but especially so in the healthcare field.  As the health care system continues to evolve, sound management is critical to the survival of health care institutions (Johnson, 2005). The management team in a healthcare environment must always aim to improve the efficiency of the day to day activities and constantly plan for ways to improve the productivity and efficiency. Every manager’s main duty is to succeed in helping the organization achieve high performance while utilizing all of the organization’s human and material resources. On a daily basis health care managers must recognize performance problems and

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

The entire health industry is highly commercial and the face of the industry has changed and so has the requirements. Value creation today is mostly done by pharmacy benefit managers, doctors, nurses and the Physician Assistant--PA. These and health maintenance organizations are the new healthcare players. They are in need of modern tools to improve the medical cost management skills, and creating a competitive organizational culture. (Lopez, 7) The evidence-based practice which evolved in early 1990s was related to create organizational development including finding evidence for a specific clinical condition which later spread to become evidence-based practice as a part of management approach to service improvement. (Dunning, Delivering Better Health Care: What can go wrong when you are implementing evidence-based practice? Some lessons from the development process)

The way we practice healthcare and healthcare organizations are changing due to the pressure to reduce costs, improve the quality of care and to meet rigorous guidelines. This change has forced health care professionals to examine we evaluate our overall performance. Paradise Hospital, Inc. has not had any service improvements since 1995. A physician named Avedis Donabedian (2005) proposed a model for assessing health care quality based on structures, processes, and outcomes. He defined structure as the environment in which health care is provided. This is known as the organizational characteristics such as the measurement of staffing ratios and the number of hospital beds. The process is described as the method by which health care is provided. This represents the communication and interaction seen between doctor and patient. The necessity for the tests and procedures performed. The outcome is defined as the consequence of the health care provided, was there a desirable or undesirable effect.

Revans, R. (1958). On "Management and the Scientific method" The Journal of the British Institute of Management. Retrieved May 12, 2015.

Scientific management or "Taylorism" is an approach to job design, developed by Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) during the Second World War. With the industrial revolution came a fast growing pool of people, seeking jobs, that required a new approach of management. Scientific management was the first management theory, applied internationally. It believes in the rational use of resources for utmost output, hence motivating workers to earn more money. Taylor believed that the incompetence of managers was the major obstacle on the way of productivity increase of human labour. Consequently, this idea led to the need of change of management principles. On the base of research, involving analysing controlled experiments under various working

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).

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.

The central theme of this essay will deal with the role of Taylorism or scientific management in a specific organization. The primary focus will be to critically discuss how the various methods of scientific management are applicable to the chosen organization, which in this case will be Ford Motors. The essay will describe F.W. Taylor's early work life and techniques of scientific management and its success. It will then go on to discuss the production methods at Ford Motors prior and post the application of the management principles along with their benefits and criticisms.

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.

Taylorism, which is actually a method adopted and named after the US Industrial Engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, who in his 1911 book 'Principles Of Scientific Management' laid down the fundamental principles of large-scale manufacturing through assembly-line factories.

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.

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.

The scientific approach to management is one of the earliest methods used by organizations. Taylor’s systematic processes initially defined in 1910 gathered a multitude of support as his techniques develop a general understanding of the organization's workflow. While Taylor' idea propagated by the