What Are The Four Elements Of Bureaucracy

Frederick Taylor (1917) developed scientific management theory (often called "Taylorism") at the beginning of this century. His theory had four basic principles: 1) find the one "best way" to perform each task, 2) carefully match each worker to each task, 3) closely supervise workers, and use reward and punishment as motivators, and 4) the task of management is planning and control.

Frederick W. Taylor worked across the United States in the first 15 years of the 20th century looking to solve production problems (Owens & Valesky, 2011, p. 67). He was an engineer in steel manufacturing and studied developed what what is now known as the four principles of scientific management. These principles spell out what both managers and workers are to do. Two important principles include having the management set goals, plan, and supervise workers, and the workers perform the work, and that organizations should establish the standard where management “sets the objectives and the workers cooperate in achieving them” (p. 67). Taylor’s principles are still used today by some organizational leaders who fight the movement that management should work as a team with the workers (pp. 67-68). Taylor’s principles have led to things such as strict discipline, the idea that workers must focus on their task with little or no interaction with colleagues, and the idea of incentive

Max Weber was a German sociologist who first described the concept of bureaucracy, an ideal form of organizational structure. He defines bureaucratic administration as the exercise of control on the

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

The most prominent model of bureaucracy was formulated by German Sociologist Max Weber during the nineteenth century. Webster’s model was formulated from the rampant patronage systems that existed during his time. Webster’s model proposed a solution for more professionally and efficiently managed merit-based organizations.Webster’s model however, represented a broad framework rather than an all encompassing model, complete in every detail.The central goal of Webster’s model was to make possible an optimum degree of control.Weber's bureaucratic theory emphasized the need for a hierarchical structure of power. It recognized the importance of division of labor and specialization. A formal set of rules was bound into the hierarchy structure to insure stability and uniformity. Weber also put forth the notion that organizational behavior is a network of human interactions, where all behavior could be understood by looking at cause and effect. He prescribed these five key elements(1) division of labor and functional specialization, (2) hierarchy, (3) maintenance of files and other records, and

Scientific Management is also known as Taylorism. Fredrick Winslow Taylor wanted to divide the work process into small, simple and separate steps (Division of Labor). Division of Labor meant every worker only had one or two steps, this was created to boost productivity. Taylor also believed in Hierarchy, he wanted a clear chain of command that separated the managers from workers. He did this so managers would design work process and enforced how the work was performed and employees would simply follow directions. Taylor wanted to select and train high performing workers or first-class employees and match them to a job that best suited them. Taylor believed the most productive workers should be paid more. Employees who could not meet the new higher standard were fired.

The Bureaucracy has manifested in the human administration system for over 5000 years. The history has written that such organization has been invented in the times of the Egyptian dominant. The creation of a bureaucratic system raise from the monarchy, the ruling of one principle monarch has established a figure that can be seen as the start of the bureaucratic organization. In my essay I’m going discuss is it or it’s not possible for the “Fourth Branch” of our government (the bureaucracy) to be equal with the other three branches.

Frederick W. Taylor was ahead of his time for his concept of Scientific management. It was a revolutionary way of running a business, that swept all over the globe, and his ideas were applicable to many different industries. Substituting disorder and conflict for a new untested method of control, cooperation, and science. Taylor understood there were no incentives for working harder. Knowing this, he payed workers based on output, allowing workers to make more money on any given day. It seemed like everyone would enjoy and prosper under this system, but that was not the case. Workers liked the opportunity to make more money in this system but many of them resisted this new idea. Being under constant supervision made work much harder for them.

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

Frederick Taylor developed scientific management theory was developed in 1917, and was often referred to as “Taylorism". Taylors theory had four basic principles. They were to find the best way

Taylor believed that people in all aspects of a business should do the work that they were best equipped to. “Managers would therefore direct and allocate work, and workers would complete the task”. Managers should be the ones responsible for the selection process, training and development of the employee. (Morley 2013,p15). This is extremely similar to what Weber believed in. He thought that a well defined hierarchy was one of the main characteristics of a bureaucracy. Organisations were designed with a clear structure from top to bottom. The people with the most power and authority in a business were located at the top. The people with the least authority were located near, or at the bottom of the organisation. “All positions within a bureaucracy are structured in a way permitting the higher positions to supervise and control the lower positions.” (Taylor 1939,44-54). Weber strived to provide a clear chain of command, which would mean that workers knew who they were answerable to and would prevent work overload for a particular manager or supervisor. It facilitated control and order throughout the business. The division of labour has many strengths within a business but there are also a few weaknesses. The division of labour ensures that the right person has a job to which they are well suited. They are assigned jobs which suit their skills and furthermore, this improves efficiency

Based on this right, the bureaucracy designed by Weber has clear division of labor; thoroughly indicated hierarchical relationship and pointed out impersonal relationship (Crozier, 1964). In the course of history, there have been various more perfect organizational systems, therefore, bureaucratic theory was questioned and criticized by many scholar. However, there are still certain organizations that use bureaucracy theory to design the corporate structure despite many critical views.

Taylorism is a management system which was popular in the late 19th century. It was designed to increase efficiency by breaking down and specialising repetitive tasks. This is exhibited as mentioned in ‘Selection and Development: A new perspective on some old problems’ that several jobs presently no longer consist of clusters of similar tasks, but are now process based collections of activities (Harrington, Hill & Linley 2005). According to Weber’s foundation of organisation theory; bureaucracy was portrayed as an “instrument or tool of unrivalled technical superiority which entailed charismatic, traditional and rational authority” (1978, cited in Clegg 1994). Thereafter, other theories derived based on the instrument being used as a form of manipulation. This is evident in Knights & Roberts’ (1982) concept of human resource management and staff misunderstanding the nature of power, treating it as if it were an individual possession, as opposed to a relationship between people (Knights & Roberts 1982). Subsequently, this led to the establishment of unions and increasing cooperative resistance in the workplace as employees seek change in the occupational structure (Courpasson & Clegg 2012). The change in this occupational structure was based around the ‘superior-inferior’ concept where managers prioritise their own success

Taylor imagined that workers would be able to make out the relationship between completion of more work in units and the economic rewards been increased. Taylors work as described by (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004) depicts how theories were to take place at shop floor levels, then how facts were substituted for opinion and guess work. Henri Fayol, his fellow classical writer had a different perception which looked at organisation from top to bottom. The pace setters of classical theories had engineering background hence derived theories with scientific approach. (Buchanan and Huczunski, 2004). (Cole, 2004) talks about how the production environment under the classical theory in America had created difficulties, where labour force were skint, uneducated, and in quest of making economic fortunes. (Lemak, 2004) point out how the classical management has had

In the early part of nineteenth century, scholars thought that some definite principles should be in the organization for better performance. Before this period, there were no particular rules for doing a job. This situation is called rules of thumb. Then FW Taylor, Henri Fayol, Max Waber established some principles to avoid this situation. Taylor established his principles for the workers and Fayol established his principals for the managers. Max waber tried to form a structure in the organization which will have all the powers and will be managed by strict and regulations.He focused on the overall performance of the organizationnot the workers or the managers. He is called the father of bureaucracy.