The Theory behind Scientific Management - Essay Example

Introduction: The Theory behind Scientific Management The definition of Scientific Management is that it is “the management thought concerned primarily with the physical efficiency of an individual worker.” (Business Dictionary, 2011) Though the famous economist Adam Smith, with his division of labour hypothesis is credited with using scientific management principles, it is widely believed that the father of scientific management is the management theorist, Frederick Taylor. Scientific Management and Taylorism are near synonymous due to the fact that the field of Scientific Management was pioneered by Frederick Taylor in the late 19th century. With the adoption of scientific management in virtually every aspect of management practice, the field of scientific management took off in a big way in the 20th century. This resulted in greater efficiencies and more productivity of the workforce as the application of scientific management theories meant that production processes were standardized and the principle of division of labour was applied leading to mass production of goods (Taylor, 2011, 80). An interesting aspect of the scientific management approach pioneered by Taylor is his emphasis on increasing efficiency from the “bottom up” where he concentrated on the shop floor to maximize productivity. When contrasted with the theories by Henri Fayol and Max Weber who favoured a top down approach, we find that Taylor’s approach is better suited to the rigours of modern day manufacturing and even service sector companies (Davis, 1975, 38). Taylor’s Influence: Fordism, Neo-Fordism Fordism developed as an offshoot of scientific management and was pioneered by the legendary founder of Ford Motors, Henry Ford. In this approach, standardization and mass production of automobiles was pioneered and when this approach was adopted, the small batch production was ceased. By adopting a mass production approach towards manufacture of cars, Henry Ford ensured that there would be greater productivity and the aims of using assembly line production were to increase throughput or the number of cars produced in a given period of time (Taylor, 2011, 93). The impact of Fordism on mass manufacturing can be seen in the way the assembly line was adopted as the de rigueur manufacturing process by many companies, both in the automobile and non-automobile sectors. The adoption of the assembly line by other companies like Toyota which has synthesized the use of robots and the assembly line concept to pioneer its own way of manufacturing cars is an example of how scientific management principles have mutated to serve the needs of the aim for greater efficiency and productivity (Bloisi, 2003, 9). Along with Fordism, there was another variant of Taylorism that was known as neo-Fordism. Whereas Fordism was conceptualized in accordance with scientific management principles, post Fordism implied a clean break with global capitalism. On the other hand, neo Fordism seeks to move beyond Fordism in general but shares some common characteristics with Fordist thought (Howell, 1995, 49). Taylor’s Influence: TQM, BPR and Offshoring The phenomenon of Offshoring or outsourcing can be directly traced to Taylorism. Since scientific management is all about breaking down the complex parts of the production processes into discrete, unambiguous pieces which can be done by individual workers, the process of outsourcing non-core components of the workflow (to some extent the core processes as well) to other countries is something that Taylor contributed to though no one could have foreseen this aspect when scientific management principles were first applied to management thought and practice. The way in which subsequent management theories like JIT (Just in Time) Manufacturing, TQM (Total Quality Management) and BPR (Business Process Reengineering) to name a few, developed as offshoots of the Taylorism school of thought is an indication to the extent to which scientific management principles were accepted internationally as well as in the United States. These processes that introduced greater efficiencies into manufacturing derived their basis from scientific management principles. However as with any other field, the passage of time and the evolution of management theory have meant that Taylorism per se has taken a backseat and it is the time for the other theories that have been discussed above to play a prominent role in guiding management practice (Wran, 2008, 42). Taylor’s Thought on Specific Management Practices Frederick Taylor pioneered the hourly and daily wages concept for payments to workers and his work included details on how to make payments according to output targets. For instance, in the manufacturing industries, an hourly or daily wage is fixed (in some cases, a weekly wage as well) depending on the number of units that were made by the workers. This method of payment ensures that workers are paid for the actual work that they do and hence is very efficient in determining optimal wages for workers. In recent years, the call centres which process information requests from customers have adopted these principles (Taylor, 2011, 99). Many call centres now require their employees to meet fixed production targets and they are paid only if they have exceeded or met the targets. Hence, adoption of scientific management principles by firms has resulted in greater efficiencies and more throughputs for the firms (Koen, 2005, 88). Effect of Taylorism across the World The influence of scientific management on 20th century management thought and practice can be seen in the way various authors have embraced the principles embodied in the theory and have applied them to their working lives. We have already seen how Fordism which is an offshoot of Taylorism led to mass production of automobiles. The other examples of how Scientific Management influenced other fields can be seen in the adoption of scientific management practices by McDonald’s and the Call Centres that are part of the knowledge economy (Ritzer, 1996, 203). The example of how McDonald’s embraced scientific management principles is an indicator of the way in which scientific management influenced 20th century management thought and practice. It is also indicative of the internationalization of the principles of Scientific Management since the international transfers of the concepts were mediated because of the reach of McDonald’s across the world. The pervasive influence of scientific management on 20th century management thought and practice is typified by the example of McDonald’s where the same burger is delivered in the same way at all locations wherever they are in the world. There can be no better affirmation of scientific management than this example alone (Roth, 1994, 29). Institutionalization of Taylor’s Thought: McDonaldization of Society The fact that the “McDonaldization of Society” has proceeded apace with the development of scientific management is a testament to the influence of the latter on all aspects of society. The term “McDonaldization of Society” implies “a search for maximum efficiency in increasingly numerous and diverse social settings.” (Ritzer, 1996, 180) This phenomenon can be seen in the way almost every aspect of our society has been transformed with the adoption of scientific management principles. To take an example, the way in which we use home appliances for carrying out our domestic chores is indeed the McDonald’s effect at work wherein we seek to maximize efficiency and minimize waste and loss of productive time. The pursuit of efficiency is at the heart of scientific management and the adoption of such pursuits in all aspect of our daily lives and in diverse settings means that as a race, we have become more efficient in the use of resources and producing more for the same effort (Ritzer, 1996, 129). The other companies that use the scientific management principles included retail giants and consumer clothing companies for whom scientific management proved to be a boon as they could derive efficiencies from their processes because of the application of the principles (Ritzer, 1996, 38). Americanization of Management Thought Another aspect of the influence of scientific management on the 20th century management can be seen in the way the Americanization of the key concepts of scientific management happened. This Americanization happened because the business schools around the world adopted the curricula of business schools in the US and hence the teaching of scientific management became the norm across the world. This resulted in the spread of the concepts of scientific management and their adoption by manufacturers all over the world. The institutionalization of the scientific management principles was mainly due to the effect that Japanese companies had on management theory and practice. This was possible because as a country, Japan institutionalized the management practices espoused by the scientific management school of thought and this confluence of institutional arrangements and the culture of efficiency in Japan led to a “reverse flow” of ideas from Japan to the West. The examples of this are the adoption of TQM, JIT and other practices by western multinationals who borrowed these ideas from Japanese companies. Hence, there was a two way exchange between the west and the east in terms of how the management principles and theories were assimilated by either by borrowing from the other. The role of institutions is significant as is the role of the transnational capitalist class which by virtue of setting up subsidiaries of transnational companies was able to spread scientific management theories across the world and learn from the local practices as well. This symbiotic exchange benefitted both and greatly helped the cause of scientific management theories (Wagner-Tsukamoto, 2007, 111). Criticism of Taylorism The discussion so far has concentrated on the positive effects that scientific management had on management thought and practice in the 20th century. However, there were dissenting voices against Taylorism as can be seen from the theories of Abraham Maslow (Hierarchy of Needs) and Frederick Herzberg (Hygiene) both of whom pointed to the need for the workers to fulfill their higher needs of fulfillment and motivation. Considering that Taylorism and Fordism alienate the worker from the larger processes, these and other management theorists felt that deskilling an employee would demotivate him or her. Further, adoption of Taylorism and the principles of scientific management would also result in the workers becoming specialists and hence resistant to change when newer skills have to be learned. The specialization of labour served its purpose well but given the rapidly changing landscape of management science, the ability to learn new skills and be versatile is something that more and more companies are cherishing in their employees (Koen, 2005, 95). The other less favourable aspect of Taylorism was that in the early decades of its adoption, it made the workers’ jobs unpleasant and in later decades, it made the jobs to disappear. To explain this further, when scientific management principles were first adopted, the effort of the workers’ increased in intensity and led to decreased morale and more friction. This led to the jobs becoming unpleasant for the workers and which gave rise to unions and collective bargaining where the workers banded together to demand extra compensation and benefits for what they perceived were jobs that demanded greater effort. In later decades, with automation and outsourcing emerging from the application of Taylorism, jobs started to disappear altogether in the developed world. Hence, along with the dissenting voices that were mentioned in the previous paragraph, these side effects of Taylorism need to be highlighted as well to provide an objective and balanced view of the influence of scientific management (Wran, 2008, 53). Recent Trends The last decades of the 20th century witnessed the emergence of the systems view of the organization and a resource based view in Human Resource Management which treated employees as assets rather than cogs in the machine. This categorization of employees as sources of competitive advantage meant that the deskilling of employees was considered passé and the new thinking were to be valued for their expertise and not treated individually rather than like they were being treated earlier. With the adoption of the open systems approach and discarding of the mechanistic views of the organization, the organization as a machine metaphor was no longer in vogue. Instead, the emphasis was on the symbiotic relationship that organizations had with their environments and how employees contributed to the competitive advantage of firms. The point here is that Taylorism was being discarded by those companies that subscribed to the emerging paradigm. And most of these companies were part of the rapidly emerging service sector where the production processes and assembly line mode of manufacturing were not the norm. Hence, for these companies at least, Taylorism became something of an anachronism. The reason for including these oppositional theories to scientific management is to provide an understanding of the way in which management science has progressed since the days of Frederick Taylor. While Taylor himself would not have anticipated the success of his theories, the evolution of management science has moved beyond Taylorism, Fordism and other manufacturing concepts that were the hallmark of 20th century management thought and practice (Bloisi, 2003, 9). Argument of this Paper The guiding principle behind Taylor’s thought is to place the best person for the job and hence the scientific management theories relied on objective, measurable ways of determining who the best person for the job is. Instead of subjective measures that have inherent biases built into them, Taylorism sought to introduce scientific principles in determining productivity, efficiency and to inculcate a spirit of scientific enquiry into management thought and practice. In this respect alone, Taylor can be thought to have made a huge impact on 20th century management thought and practice (Davis, 1975, 30). Though I have listed some of the drawbacks of his theory and the way, in which it was implemented, those are the interpretative elements that developed around Taylorism. Hence, the purpose of pointing out the drawbacks is as much to critique Taylorism as it is to show how subsequent management theorists improved upon and developed their own theories taking Taylor’s thought as the starting point. This can be seen as further testament to the genius of Frederick Taylor. In conclusion, Frederick Taylor towers over other management theorists of the 20th century for his pioneering efforts to inculcate a scientific spirit among management practitioners and to provide a theory of production, efficiency and productivity based on scientific management principles. Indeed, Frederick Taylor is called the “Father of Scientific Management” and in my opinion, rightly so. References Bloisi, W. (2003), Management and Organization Behaviour, London: Routledge, p.6-10. Business Dictionary (2011) Definition of Scientific Management, [online] Available at: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/scientific-management.html [Accessed: 7th Nov 2011]. Davis, M. (1975) The Stopwatch and the Wooden Shoe: Scientific Management and the Industrial Workers of the World, Radical America, 9(1), p.23-42. Howell, C. (1995) Toward a History of Management Thought, BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC HISTORY, 24(1), p.41-50. Koen, C. (2005) Comparative international management, London: McGraw-Hill, p.83-97. Ritzer, G. (1996) The McDonaldization of Society, London: Pine Forge Press, p.35–58, 121–142, 177–204. Roth, W. (1994) The Evolution of Management Theory, London: Roth & Associates, p.20-90. Taylor, F. (2011) The Principles of Scientific Management, 10th ed. New York: Free Press, p.80-120. WAGNER-TSUKAMOTO, S. (2007) AN INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMIC RECONSTRUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT: ON THE LOST THEORETICAL LOGIC OF TAYLORISM, Academy of Management Review, 32(1), p.105-117. Wran, D. (2008) THE EVOLUTION OF MANAGEMENT THOUGHT, 5th ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons, p.31-56. Read More