Managing organisational behaviour - Essay Example

The concept of distribution of ‘power and pay’ was first introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the early twentieth century. According to him, the total planning and control of an organisation should be in the hands of the owner and the worker should simply perform as per the commands of the owner (Robbins and Coulter, 2006:58). He further added that this concept would lead to maximum productivity and maximum profits and therefore it was widely accepted all over the world. It still continues to be used today in big organizations and banks where senior level executives hold explicit power and enjoy exorbitant income in comparison to their employees (Kular et al, 2008).

However, before the analysis, understanding the concept of Organizational Behaviour, Taylor’s ‘Scientific Management’ theory and the ‘Needs Theory’ in brief is deemed necessary. Organizational behaviour is a subject that is concerned with studying the actions of people at work. It focuses on the fact that managers need to understand the elements which influence how employees work. Also, a manager’s success depends upon how well he can manage employees’ behaviour and gets things done through them (Robbins and Coulter, 2006: 372). . He incorporated his concepts in his book, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911) which became a guide book for every manager in every company across the world especially UK and US.

Soon ‘Taylorism’ spread to every corner from the workplaces to larger and bigger organizations and became one of the most acceptable patterns of working in the twentieth century (‘Frederick Winslow Taylor Criticism’, 2011). While working in a factory as an engineer, Taylor realized that workers lacked efficiency and wasted a lot of time. He started a series of time management studies and brought forward a system of work which would accomplish organizational goals efficiently without wastage of time.

His theory consisted of four main principles – to determine the most efficient way to perform each task; assign work to every worker according to his capability; closely scrutinize each worker’s performance and empower the management for planning and control of the organization (Walonick, 1993). In other words, he suggested that it is the sole responsibility of the manager to make a complete plan of every single task that every single worker needs to accomplish and also plan the procedures and means to fulfil the task.

According to him this system would lead to maximum profitability. Every single business house organized themselves according to the principles of ‘Taylorism’ and the top executives and managers were handed full control of the employees and the workplace, thereby curbing the independence of the employees (Pizzigati, 2004:159). The main objective of Taylor was to achieve maximum satisfaction and profit for the owners as well as to provide