Scientific Management

'Federic Taylor's Scientific Management reflects an approach to managing that is no longer appropriate for today’s managers'.

Critically evaluate this statement with particular reference to an example from workspace with which you are familiar.

Guidance: Many management textbooks claim that Taylor's ideas are no longer appropriate, but consider whether an organization can operate without clear rules, hierarchy and division of labor. Many large and successful organizations, such as McDonalds hamburger chain or call centers, appear to use a modern version of scientific management. It would also be a good idea to consider whether these sort of generalizations can be applied in a global manner, or whether they tend to reflect the dominance of the US experience in management theory. If you can't think of examples from your own workplace, then do some research (using fully referenced library or internet sources) about these issues in different organizations.

Contents

Introduction

An overview of Scientific Management………………………………………………………...

3

The appropriateness of Scientific Management for today’s managers

The benefits and drawbacks of Scientific Management .………………………………………. 5

Can an organization operate without clear rules, hierarchy and division of labor? ...................... 6

The global outlook on the use of Scientific management in today’s organizations……………. 7

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..... 8

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………….. 9

Introduction

The scientific management theory had a huge impact on the commercial industry at the beginning of the 20th century. Since the birth of this theory the management became a separate body of knowledge, a science which can be learned, taught and applied in different organizations [1]. This theory inspired the executives, consultants and others to expand and look into different ways of creating the effective productivity-increasing techniques.

The pioneer of the scientific management is Frederic Winslow Taylor. While working as an engineer for the steel company (Midvale Steel) Taylor noticed that most of the workers used inefficient working techniques and did not work at the speed which would be a satisfactory. He started to research different ways to achieve higher productivity, reduce costs and to optimize the way in which jobs were performed. His aim was to simplify the task to the point where each worker could be trained to perform this task in the “one-best-way”.

Before the scientific management work was performed by skilled craftsmen who learned their trade by the apprenticeship. Craftsmen were responsible for their own time management and how work was completed. The scientific management took all decision making away from the workers and transferred this responsibility to the managers and supervisors [2].

While working in a steal industry and observing workers Taylor noticed that most of them deliberately worked below their capacity and the work of those how actually did their best was far from efficient. Taylor highlighted three main reasons to this phenomenon:

1. Workers believed that the material increase in the output of each man or each machine in the trade would result in the reduced need for a number of man required within this trade. For example shoemakers thought that by producing more shoes and working at their best speed they would influence the loss of jobs for other shoemakers.

2. The ineffective relationship between employers and employees is very common in every organization and as a result each worker or soldier makes it necessary to work slowly so they can protect their own interests. Taylor points out that brining a number of workers together