Taylors Scientific Management Theory and McClellands Needs Theory - Essay Example

?INTRODUCTION Manufacturing activities are different from merchandising activities. In manufacturing, a firm takes raw materials, processes them and adds value to them so that they become finished goods. Management is also required in the realm of manufacturing and Taylor’s theory and McClelland’s Needs Theory can be used to explain it. TAYLOR’S THEORY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT Taylor is referred to as the Father of Scientific Management. In his work, the Principles and Methods of Scientific Management, he attempted to emphasize the loss incurred by a country due to inefficiency and laid-back attitude of workers. Taylor’s Scientific Management theory became popular not only in USA but also all over the world. But historians have shown the reaction of British engineers to the Scientific Management Theory in a wrong light (i.e. British engineers resented Taylor’s theory). In reality, British engineers did not completely disregard the theory and Taylor’s theory received praise and attention in Britain just like it had in America. This theory provided learning to British engineers and they greatly benefitted from it (Whitston, 1997). The crux of Taylor’s theory of Scientific Management is efficiency, which serves to be beneficial for the entrepreneur and the workers both. The logic behind this is quite simple as increased efficiency brings in more profits and the entrepreneur can give more wages to workers and will be left with a handsome amount after that. He also clarifies that the solution to inefficiency lies in systematic management, and searching for an extraordinary man will not solve this problem. It was also claimed by him that management is a science confined within rules, laws and fundamentals (Jordan, 1994). But considering only the profits and wages dimensions of the benefits of efficiency is quite a narrow approach. Efficiency is far beyond both and it is achieved when each business unit is performing in the most efficient way possible and the workers are performing at the highest level of efficiency. Since efficiency has advantages to owners and workers both, it is also necessary that the goals of the two are in the same direction. There should be cooperation from the businessman’s end as well as the worker’s end. Taylor was ahead of his time and encouraged owners of businesses to have a democratic style, as opposed to an autocratic style. When owners let their employees voice their workplace problems, conflicts and opinions, a sense of belonging is instilled in employees and they work hard and own the organization. From the workers end, they should show diligence and honesty in work and negate the exaggerated notions of exploitation. Sometimes workers get the feeling that they are working hard so that the owner can make huge profits. What they fail to see is that their wages are linked to owner’s high profits. Efficiency in the production industry is not limited to the efficiency of workers only. In economics, productive efficiency is defined as producing a given output at the lowest cost possible or producing more output with the limited amount of resources. Taylor’s efficiency also incorporates minimum cost of machines, overheads, raw materials etc. When there is room for efficiency and an organization is not making use of it then it is only missing a profitable opportunity because higher efficiency leads to higher profits. Workers need to grow in order to attain efficiency. Workers grow and develop when owners invest in human capital through training, workshops and mentoring. This empowers the workers and they are in a better position to be efficient. If Taylor’s Scientific Management is applied at macro level, then investment in human capital can increase the productive capacity of a nation because of higher overall efficiency. Sometimes efficiency does not increase even though a firm is investing in training. This is because workers deliberately loiter and there are hold-ups in the production process due to this. This term is known as ‘hanging it out’ in England and it is a very common phenomenon world over. Workers do this because they are demotivated or they are exploited. It is their way of protesting. It is important that the owner recognizes the rights of workers and pays them on time in order to keep them motivated and energized. Otherwise the cost to labour-intensive business is very high when workers loiter (Jordan, 1994). Taylor’s wanted scientific management to be beneficial for everyone. In his time, workers could not earn beyond a certain limit and he criticized the piece-rate wage systems because an efficient worker deserved to be highly paid. He also recommended that workers should not worry about how much of the profits should be given out as wages and how much should be pocketed by owners because if workers showed honesty and sincerity in work, increased wages were bound to follow. Assigning a monetary value to everything diminishes quality and so workers should first try to perform to the best of their potential and then demand higher wages (Cole, 2004). NEEDS THEORY The Needs Theory was developed by David McClelland. He explains that there are three needs that humans develop through learning. These needs are: 1. Need for achievement: is when an individual is determined and motivated to do complex and challenging task. These tasks are complex but they can be accomplished. Risk is different from complexity and hence people who have a high need for achievement, prefer challenging but moderate-risk jobs. Risk has to do more with chance than human efforts and workers who have a high need for achievement do not rely on chance. They want to prove themselves by working hard and they have a consistent need for achievement. After undertaking a lot of challenging tasks, such people become self-sufficient and can take responsibility for their actions and prefer getting feedback on the tasks that they accomplish. But such people are not sociable as they have a low need for affiliation. 2. Need for power: is sparked when an individual wants to be in a commanding position and take responsibility for the actions of others. There are two branches of the need for power: need for personal power and need for social power. The need for personal power is driven by personal interests as the person who has it will want authority so that he can be in an authoritative position. Need for personal power can be detrimental for the organization because the people who desire are prone to exploit their subordinates, once they get a authoritative designation. Need for social power is when an individual wants to assume responsibility to achieve organizational goals. Need for social power is very beneficial for the organization as a whole and the employees, who are driven by it, want to bring about a positive change in the organization as they are more concerned about collective good than the personal gains. There is a clear distinction between managers and leaders. People who have a need for social power ultimately become leaders because of their collectivist approach. 3. Need for affiliation: is prevalent in people who are sociable or who strive to achieve social acceptance. Such people value interpersonal relations and they are friendly with their subordinates and bosses, both. But a manager or a leader should have a moderate level of the need for affiliation because otherwise it might affect his decision making. In decision making and delegating instructions, managers cannot make take actions to please others. They have to make an impression on the staff so that instructions are followed and the organization does not suffer (Cole, 2004). A complete manager or owner is one who strikes a balance among the need for achievement, need for power and need for affiliation. Extremity in any of these needs is not good because in order to make it to the top management level, a manager must have technical skills, cognitive skills and human skills. Needs theory clarifies one thing that employees over perform or underperform based on what they wish to achieve, hence their self motivation is the major enabling factor for them to do well at work. Organisational hierarchy is generally split into 3 main tiers; lower management, middle management and upper management. Three kinds of needs as described in McClelland’s theory can exist at any tier at one time or they may also exist with respect to management hierarchy e.g. need for achievement at lower management level, need for affiliation at middle management and need for power at the upper management level. At the lower level of management, an employee is motivated to do challenging tasks as he desires to get recognition for competencies acquired. Hence need for achievement at lower management level is higher. SERVICE INDUSTRY The two theories mentioned above are not restricted to the manufacturing industry only as they can be applied to the services industry as well. Scientific Management theories became popular in the early 20th century and majorly flourished between the 1930s-50’s and with time they were applied to the services industry (James W. Harrington, 2006). Health services in UK have shown remarkable efficiency lately. The English National Health Service (NHS) encouraged general practitioners to have a cost-effective approach so that healthcare was affordable for everyone. NHS asked primary care services to purchase health care services so that they could provide quality services to people registered with them. Commissioning by primary health clinicians was done so that nurses could know their patients better and cater to their healthcare needs promptly. In this example of NHS and general practitioners, scientific management was applied as NHS wanted practitioners to adopt cost effective methods. Reducing costs and giving maximum output within a fixed budget is efficiency. When general practitioners (or nurses) tried to be cost effective, they cut down on costs for their organization and also their productivity also increased as per NHS’ demands. Nurses have to attend a lot of patients at a time and their work gets monotonous and hectic. In order to make sure that they did not get demotivated and deliberately loitered, NHS had to give them good incentives. Hence Taylor’s notion of maximum prosperity was achieved as both the nurses and their organizations benefitted from efficiency (Smith, 2005). When nurses were given a set budget and made responsible, a need for power and need for achievement was instilled in them. They knew they were responsible for their actions and they were given a chance to prove themselves by undertaking the complex budget management task. Hence McClelland’s theory was also applied in this particular service industry. McDonaldization is a term used for efficiency and standardization. It can be rightly called tendency towards hyper-rationalization as tasks are simplified so much that they become standardized and interchangeable. This term was used for Higher Education in UK because government funding was being sliced down and also universities were asked to add value to their education in order to make students’ education a high quality and cost effective product. If university graduates were groomed well, they will be more employable. So standardization in terms of education quality all over UK was sought. McDonaldization has a lot in common with Taylor’s scientific management and efficiency theories. Education is one of the best services provided in UK and it is also expensive. For the maximum prosperity of students, universities and the society in general it was necessary to provide education at affordable fee and also that the universities provided quality education (Garland, 2008). To conclude the above given two theories it won’t be incorrect to mention that Taylor’s scientific management theory has more relevance for manufacturing industry. The examples mentioned above illustrated the application of Taylor’s Scientific Management Theory and McClelland’s Needs theory to two of UK’s service industries. However it should also be borne in mind that these theories cannot be applied to services that require high human contact. Service of a psychiatrist cannot have Scientific Management principles as there is high degree of trust involved and a psychiatrist cannot attempt to be productive like an automaton. These theories can be applied to some of the services industries, not all. References Cole, G.A. (2004) Management Theory and Practice , 6th edition, London: Geraldine Lyons. Garland, C. (2008) 'The McDonaldization of Higher Education?: Notes on the UK Experience', Higher Education. James W. Harrington, P.W.D. (2006) Knowledge-based services, internationalization and regional development , Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Jordan, G. (1994) The British Administrative System: Principle Versus Practice, London: Routledge. Smith, J. (2005) 'Practice based commissioning: applying the research evidence', British Medical Journal (BMJ), December. Whitston, K. (1997) 'The Reception of Scientific Management by British Engineers', Business History Review, vol. 71, no. 2, pp. 207-229. Read More