Scientific Management Theory - Essay Example

Scientific Management Theory Organizational behavior constitutes a broad ranging area of investigation. Among the most prominent such subdivisions are organizational culture, financial accounting theory, and supply chain management. Scientific management theory is slightly unique in that it draws from a cross-disciplinary sampling of these organizational subdivisions in a management approach that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Frederick Taylor proposed the theory itself, thus it is also known as Taylorism. Taylor was an American mechanical engineer who sought to make productive contributions to industrial efficiency (Boddy 2002). His ideas would go on to make him a seminal figure in the Efficiency Movement and today he is regarded as one of the first management consultants (Boddy 2002). This essay examines the various contextual dimensions of scientific management theory. In understanding Taylor’s scientific management theory it is necessary to first examine foundational elements. The proto-ideas of Taylor’s theory were first developed in the late 19th century. While Taylor was admitted to Harvard University he ultimately decided not to attend the school and instead enter the workforce(Kanigel 1997). Eventually Taylor became a lathe operator and foreman at Midvale Steel(Kanigel 1997). It was during his employment here that the baseline tenants of his theory emerged. Taylor recognized that the various workers all had various levels of productivity. These differing productivity levels were caused by a variety of elements, including personal talents and motivation. While management had general assumptions regarding these differences, no structured or scientific articulation of them had been established. Taylor set about developing a scientific management theory of human productivity. Taylor’s vision was to work towards establishing standardization through careful analysis and synthesis of results. Taylor’s initial steps in working towards this standardization were to abandon previous work reviews for a process that demanded close managerial scrutiny(Kanigel 1997). Indeed, this higher level of micromanagement was one of the major challenges of Taylor’s system. While Taylor’s method is referred to as scientific management theory, it’s other names attest to a variety of divisions in this approach. In addition to scientific management theory, this approach has been referred to as Taylorism. While in practice the two terms of oftentimes used synonymously, in much of the prominent literature a distinction is made between the two concepts (Archibald 1999). The main distinction the literature makes between these two categories is thatTaylorism is supposed to refer to the early incarnations of Taylor’s theory, or the ‘first form’ classical perspective. Conversely, scientific management theory is the more developed of the managerial processes. One considers that while Taylorism had been articulated as early as 1895 with Taylor’s text ‘A Piece Rate System’, and in 1903 with his text ‘Shop Management,’ it wasn’t until 1910 that Louis Brandeis first coined the term ‘scientific management’ (Kulliver 2001). The notion of Taylorism as a specific organizational approach died out in the 1930s, but scientific management has emerged and evolved throughout the rest of the 20th century. While scientific management is a specific approach, it fits within the context of late 19th century and 20th century economic efficiency movements. Broadly speaking the efficiency movements sought to increase human efficiency, decrease waste, and implement empirical methodology in doing so. Termed the Efficiency Movement among the prominent organizational elements that emerged during this period were lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, Fordism, and operations management. There are a number of prominent tenants to scientific management theory. One of the major elements of this approach is referred to as soldiering. The notion of soldiering is based on the understanding that while different employees have different levels of talent and intelligence, even the ‘smart’ employees will perform at levels that are beneath their maximum productivity. Specifically, employees whose work responsibility contains repetitive tasks tend to work at the slowest pace possible where they will not be punished(Kanigel 1997). This counter-productive behavior has been observed not only in Western culture, but also in developing regions. It is referred to as soldiering as the employee workflow has a slight metaphorical relation to the structure of an army of soldiers, particularly to the way soldiers follow orders (Dawson 2005). Scientific management theory argues that as employees have a vested interest in their well being it is wrong to assume that they will work any higher than their compensation entails. The response to this realization was to structure the work environment such that compensation was more closely linked to performance. Taylor’s own investigations into these work processes revealed a number of at-times counter-intuitive findings. Through his implementation of rationality and motions studies he came to recognize that if organizations, particularly in labor-intensive positions, included regular work breaks it would ultimately increase employee productivity (Kulliver 2001). The understanding was that the breaks allow employees to recuperate from fatigue and in-turn change their mental state such that they are more prone to engage in productive activities. Taylor also believed that there were different types of competencies that divided worker from administrator. The administrator is understood to have a mind that is more attuned to the science of the work process itself, while the laborer is more fit for the process of production (Taylor 2011). Throughout the 20th century scientific management theory has One considers that some of the early tenants of scientific management theory viewed much of the lower-tier workforce in a condescending way. Taylor himself viewed lower-tier works as having limited intelligence and capacities for higher-level work(Weisbord 2004). One of the prominent criticisms of Taylor’s approach was that it did not properly account for these workers(Weisbord 2004). While he recognized that intervening periods were needed throughout the workday, his vision of the employment cycle did not take into account larger questions of personal meaning and desire. It wasn’t until later evolutions of scientific management theory that these worker’s concerns were addressed(Weisbord 2004). These ideas would eventually culminate in what became the human relations school of management. This version of scientific management theory increasingly established modes of concern for worker’s humanity and attempted to implement increased levels of responsibility in the process. Among other prominent challenges in the implementation of scientific management theory are the approaches to differences in workers. To a great degree Taylor viewed all the people as fundamentally the same in that if the organization were to structure its work processes, it would uniformly achieve higher levels of worker production. In practice, this has oftentimes proven an erroneous assumption. One considers that in reality workers differ in their modes of production, so it is impossible to enact larger scale uniform change without correspondingly decreasing the modes of efficiency for other workers. Another major shortcoming of scientific management theory is that it did not go far enough in recognizing the fundamental interest difference between owners and workers. This difference is such that they regularly work towards opposing interests, further disrupting work efficiency. Later incarnations of scientific management theory attempted to reconcile these challenges by establishing processes where the workers would share in the profit creation. One recognizes some of the prominent such elements in the modern workforce where even lower-tier laborers are frequently offered stock options. High productivity workers are also regularly given bonuses contingent on the amount of profit that they produced for the organization during a given period. Ultimately, such processes would attempt to be fused with more human centered understandings of work that took into account the individual’s personal goals and desires rather than treating them like a simple cog in the work machine. The various incarnations of scientific management theory have had corresponding differences in impacts on the subsequent workforce. Theorists recognize two major periods. Throughout the first period scientific management theory largely ignored human desires and interests for a strict emphasis on productivity. Among prominent occurrences in this period was a 1912 strike at the Watertown Arsenal("Frederick taylor and," 2009). This occurrence led to an investigation of scientific management theory by the United States House of Representatives. The committee determined that while scientific management theory had a number of strong and meaningful tenants, it gave the upper levels managers far too much uncontrolled power. These perspectives would ultimately lead to fundamental shifts in scientific management processes. Through the earlier challenges, the second form of scientific management theory emerged that took into consideration employee human concerns. Still, workplace and larger-scale economic issues have plagued even later forms of scientific management. In addition to encouraging the rapid emergence of labor unions these increased efficiency measures have been criticized for their automation of the workforce("Employee motivation," 2010). Such occurrences have had the corresponding negative impact of reducing employee interaction, as well as reducing the amount of available jobs("Employee motivation," 2010). In conclusion, this essay has examined scientific management theory. In this context of understanding it has examined foundational elements, beginning with founder Fredrick Taylor’s experience as a foreman and lathe operator in a steel plant. From this experience Taylor would go to establish the major foundational element of scientific management theory. Within these understandings the theory would come to consider the varying ways that human productivity is advanced or hindered by workplace elements. Scientific management would go through a variety of alterations, but would its primary concerns would largely remain the same. Ultimately, the fundamental tenants of scientific management theory remain a cornerstone element of modern organizational theory. References Archibald, James. (1999). Organizational Processes. Business Quarterly. 20 (2): 12- 20. Boddy, David (2002). Management: An Introduction (2nd ed. ed.). New York: Pearson Education. Dawson, Michael (2005), The Consumer Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life (paper ed.), Urbana, IL, USA: University of Illinois Press Employee motivation. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.accel- team.com/scientific/scientific_02.html Frederick taylor and scientific management. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/scientific/ Kanigel, Robert (1997), The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, New York, NY, USA: Penguin-Viking Kulliver, Johnson. (2001). Organizational Culture.Watershed Series. 45 (1) 65-70. Rinehart, J.W. (1975). The Tyranny of Work, Canadian Social Problems Series, 17 (1): 35–51. Taylor, F. (2011). The principles of scientific management. Retrieved from http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/taylor/index.htm Weisbord, Marvin (2004). Productive Workplaces Revisited (Chapter 2: Scientific Management Revisited: A Tale of Two Taylors; Chapter 3: The Consulting Engineer: Taylor Invents a New Profession. Templeton Press. Read More