Scientific Management: The Four Principles 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

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

Make management formally recognize and accept responsibility not only for the financials, but also for the internal control system.

Dividing the workers into groups and giving them tasks to perform. The workers should perform the tasks as if they are conducting the real activities of the company

Scientific Management Theory by Frederick W. Taylor – Throughout the industrial world employees are the large part of the organisation and Fundamental interests of employees are necessarily aggressive. So as a manager it is necessary to arrange mutual relations with employees so their interests become identical. In case of any single individual the greatest prosperity can exist only when that individual has reached his highest state of efficiency and that is, when he is turning out his largest daily output (Frederick Winslow Taylor, 2007).

4. Divide work equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers

‘Taylorism’ or ‘Scientific Management’ has been a prevalent idea in business theory since Frederick Winslow Taylor produced his “Principles of Scientific Management’ in 1911. The book was written in response to then President Theodore Roosevelt’s challenge to the American people to introduce new methods to create greater efficiency in the American workplace. Taylor’s idea was to ‘secure maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with maximum prosperity for the employee’1. Meaning companies could not gain high levels of production without an initiative for the work force,

Third principle as per Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis (2005) was based on selecting workers who possess skills and abilities to match the needs of the tasks, and train them to perform the task against established procedures. To increase specialization, Taylor believed workers had to understand the task that were required and be trained to perform them at the required level. Workers who could not be trained to do this level were to be transferred to a job where they were able to reach the minimum required level of proficiency.

In 1911, Frederick Winslow Taylor published his work, The Principles of Scientific Management, in which he described how the application of the scientific method to the management of workers greatly could improve productivity.

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.

Although retiring at 45, Frederick Taylor continued to promote his principles through lectures at universities as professional societies, leading to his election as president of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1906. That year he was also given an honorary science degree from the University of Pennsylvania. During his presidency he wrote many books documenting his methods for maximum production, including “Notes on Belting”, “Piece-rate System”, and his bestselling book “The Principles of Scientific Management.” He would argue that the most basic of jobs could be planned in a way to increase productivity, and that initiative and incentive did little in comparison to his scientific method. Taylor would argue that incentivizing and putting performance based pay on the worker didn’t guarantee that worker operating to the best of their abilities.

This report aimed to find the concept of the Taylorism is still effective in these days. It would seem that, Taylorism is “out-dated” theory of the Scientific Management however this theory is foundation of the organization management. Theory is all about how to be increase effectiveness of work place and how to encourage worker’s productivity.

The concept of scientific management was first introduced in the book The Principles of Scientific Management, by F.W. Taylor (1911), eventually forming the concept of the frequently used management technique referred to as Taylorism. This concept revolved around three prime objectives. Taylorism focuses on the achievement of efficiency – by maximizing output per worker through training in scientific methods to establish the “one best way of executing each motion” (Katia Caldari, 2007); to create direct control of the manufacturing process, by clearly implementing a hierarchical authority; and lastly predictability, through the standardization of tasks by the notion of division of labour (Huczynski, A., & Buchanan, D., 2013). Taylor strongly believed in rationalism, the theory that reason forms the basis of knowledge – and his studies, such as the the Time and Motion Studies conducted at Bethlehem Steel (Taylor, 1991), led him to believe that the most rational approach to achieving the maximization of productivity in a business, would be through the incorporation of these three concepts (Huczynski, A., & Buchanan, D., 2013). However, even though these concepts are arguably advantageous for secondary sector businesses, Taylorism largely ignores the importance certain psychological factors, for instance those emphasized by Frederick Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory or the Them vs. Us mentality. Such psychological factors, according to the Iceberg model (Figure 1), form the

Taylor’s scientific management theory suggests the idea of ‘one right way’ to manage an organization, which is the best way for worker to achieve their own duties by providing them proper tools and training. The old saying goes, ‘Practice Makes Perfect’, the concept suggests organization to industrialized, standardized mass production, so uncomplicated work do not need skilled workers, they can learn faster, perform better and speed up when they get more familiar with their work. Such pattern of work can achieve the economies of scale, provide affordable for average customers. He broke down the whole work into individual motion and analyze the each part of work to have a clear division of task and responsibilities, then timed and selected the right worker to do particular part of work, following a machinelike routine in order to enhance the productivity.

The scientific management theory have an assumption that workers are lazy, not smart in analyzing tasks, only prefers simplified work and only works for money (Miller & Form, 1964). According to Taylor (2004), workers are unable figure out the most efficient way in doing work. Therefore, they are thought as replaceable working parts like a machine in the production line and can be trained to specialize in a certain procedure in the production. They are assumed to adopt the Protestant work ethic, working for long hours and not taking any breaks. Whenever a worker or a ‘part’ failed to perform its tasks, they