To what extent could it be argued that scientific management is good management - Essay Example

Scientific management perspective has its origins from the work of Fredrick Winslow Taylor in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The management approach evolved during the industrial revolution when factories recognised the need for automation and mechanisation of some work processes. Some themes of industrial revolution and engineering included the need for rationality, efficiency, work ethic and standardisation of the best practices in order to eliminate waste (Taylor, 2010). Fredrick Taylor is considered the father of scientific management since he sought to introduce the ‘one best practice’ rather than allowing employee discretion in the tasks.

Through ‘time and motion studies’, Taylor managed to fix job performance standards through introducing standardised ‘time, quality of work and costs’ associated with each job in the organisation (Taylor, 2010). Frank and Lillian Gilbreth advanced the fatique and motion studies that proved that proper job design and coordination of movements in the workplace reduced to efficiency through minimising time wastage and idle time. Henry Gantt introduced Gantt charts that demonstrated the priority of tasks and stages of production thus enabling employees to prioritise work and adhere with the work schedules.

Thesis statement: scientific management is a good management in contemporary business environment since it increases organisational productivity and ensures efficiency in the production methods. Taylor based his scientific management on four principles that entail scientific study of work in order to determine the best efficient method of performing a specific task. Tsutsui (2001) claims that scientific study of work principle aims at replacing the ‘rule of thumb’ or common sense manner of doing jobs with a scientific manner than breaks down the job in to tasks and determines the most efficient method of doing the job in order to maximise efficiency.

In this case, scientific management aims at enhancing workflow efficiency through redesigning the layout of the work environment in order to reduce time wastage and distractions. The second guiding principle of scientific management is the scientific selecting of workers for each job and training them to efficiently perform the tasks (Guillen, 1994). This principle is aimed at matching employees to their jobs depending of the required skills, capabilities and motivation of each individual worker in order to enhance productivity.

The third principle entails monitoring worker performance, provision of job instructions and supervision in order to ensure workers are using the most efficient methods in their jobs (Taylor, 2010). In this case, Taylor advanced the notion that employee motivation is equivalent to incentive theory since employees are motivated by financial rewards. Taylor advocated that improvements in job productivity should be accompanied by equivalent increase in the piece-rate pay in order to encourage the workers to commit more efforts and maximise their productivity.

Lastly, the fourth principle of scientific management aims at dividing the wok between the managers and workers so that managers could concentrate on the application of scientific methods in designing tasks and supervision while workers can concentrate on the execution of their job according to the already established scientific methods