The Management Styles Employed By Users Of Scientific Management

Chapter 2: The classical approaches (scientific management, administrative principles, and bureaucratic organization) share a common assumption: people at work act in a rational manner that is primarily driven by economic concerns. Scientific Management: in 1911, Fredrick W. Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management, in which he made the following statement: “The principle object of management should be to secure maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for the employee. He noticed that many workers did their jobs their own ways and without clear and uniform specifications. He believed this caused them to lose efficiency and underperform. He believed the problem would be fixed by scientific

Specialisation – having the required training to do the job well, this also increases productivity.

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

The tradeoffs between specialized and broad tasks assignments include comparative advantages, costs, and incentive issues. Specialized tasking allows matching employees with jobs based on their skills, reducing the need for training and producing a higher output. (Brickley, Smith, & Zimmerman, 2009). Broad task assignment employees are completing more than one job function, costing more money to train and hire, but allowing coverage if employees call in sick. Bagby would benefit in bringing in specialized employees for hiring requirements, as well. Bagby could hire different levels of education based on job requirement; if the tasks are bundled Bagby

2. Employees will exercise self-direction and self-control if they are committed to objectives. External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means to make employees to work towards objectives.

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

As job enrichment is all about “allow[ing] workers more control over how they perform their own tasks” (Layman, Elizabeth J, 2011), it is easy to see how the author of the article has demonstrated this in the table below. The table breaks down the author’s suggestions in respect of how

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.

This is very useful in most mass producing firms in the world today. An example of this would be the car industry mentioned in the first section. One of the first People to adapt this was henry Ford of the Ford motoring company. However the theories weren’t used exactly as Taylor prescribed it. Task was simplified and workers were deskilled. Workers did not like the new rules that came along with this change. This was not only workers but managers as well, as the text book states “Fords obsession with control brought him into greater and greater conflict with his managers, who often were fired when they disagreed with him” (Waddell, Jones & George year, p.43).

There are a number of management theories that have changed the management business environment in the twentieth century. The theories have assisted managers to come up with better ways of management and organization of people. Managers have been able to increase profits, reduce costs and maximize efficiency. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the contributions of scientific management and the human relations movement to the modern management. This essay will use Frederick Winslow Taylor’s theory on scientific management and Elton Mayo’s human relations theory. These two movements have been proven to increase productivity in the workplace (Mullins, 2005).

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).

According to the management text book Williams & McWilliams, 2010, job specialisation reflects the degree to which tasks get broken down and divided into smaller tasks. Benefits include worker proficiency, decreased time between task transfer and the ability to develop specialized equipment for a specific function. So why do organisations employ such a technique? It’s

Scientific management is a management theory developed by Frederick W Taylor. Its main purpose is to improve an organization’s efficiency in production through analyzing workflow systematically using quantitative analysis to improve task completion efficiency. Reducing waste, increasing methods of production and create a just distribution of goods are goals of the scientific management theory. On the other hand, human relations theory attributed by Elton Mayo counteracts with scientific management theory that ignored human issues of behavior. In human relations theory, a worker is treated as an individual and what motivates and cultivates them in their achievement is analyzed. Both scientific management and human relation theory aims to improve efficiency in the workplace and it still applies to the workforce in the modern days despite the opposing ideas of both theories.

It is clear to see that today’s management practices have stemmed from the studies and theories that have evolved over the past centuries. Scientific Management Theory and the Human Relations Movement are only two of many theories that have amalgamated over the past years to form current management trends and applications. There is no one theory that is preferred or more advantageous than the other, as we have learnt from the Scientific Management Theory and the Human Relations Movement, each have their positive and negative aspects. While these theories have their unique aspects, they also share similar themes and philosophies as discussed earlier.

Scientific management practices can still be observed in companies everywhere, from performance standards, to job descriptions and key performance indicators. Neo – Taylorism, as it is more commonly known today has evolved into a more flexible framework with a balance of standardization and welfare for the employee. Scientific management practices have been creeping into service sectors in the form of automated replies and standard operation procedures. In McDonalds, job fragmentation, specialization can be observed in the workplace and aims to standardize and routinize products and work processes.