Scientific Management Theory vs Critical Management Theory - Article Example

Scientific Management Theory v. Critical Management Theory: Reflections and Analysis Critical studies of management share the view that much of what passes for scientific or objective knowledge of management is little more that a recycled version of the thinking of elite groups institutionalized as received wisdom. Such thinking is collusive in reproducing a status quo that is systematically but unnecessarily exploitative, subjugating and/or restrictive by dint of its divisions of class, gender, ethnicity and so on." (Grey and Willmott: 2005:57) Introduction In one tribe in Southeast Asia, a man can get a wife in exchange of tools and other goods. The female's clan demands a certain number and amount of spears, baskets, and pigs. The male's clan evaluates the ability of the wife-to-be in terms of tending the pigs and the plot, and in making baskets and sorts of implements. Anything valued and exchanged in terms of tools is also expected to perform like a tool. In the past, the objectives of tribal wars were not only limited to acquiring resources. Captured people were no different from cows or horses. They could also be "consumed" like cows and horses; the Mayan civilization for example quenched the thirst of their gods with the blood of slaves. The slaves were simply organic tools fed just like cows or horses in order to create more tools or goods. Through coercive compulsion, subjugation is attained; through cultural conditioning, subjugation is maintained. These few examples show that while the Homo Sapiens create and command tools, they also possess the uncanny instinct to exchange and thereby evaluate their own kind as tools. That notion of human beings considered as tools and valued more for his or her productivity than anything else is the compelling force behind Critical Management Studies (CMS). Its is hinged on the overarching framework of Critical Studies, which seeks to dismantle hegemonic structures in society by first stripping them of their seemingly-benign coverings. Critical legal studies (CLS), for instance, a branch of Critical Studies, does away with the all-too-convenient givens of a legal system - that there is but one set of "correct" rules and that legal decisions are but logical outcomes of tested principles that are empirically-replicable (Altman, 1986). It aspires to expose the ideological content of the law obscured by layers upon layers of social conditioning by demonstrating how the large areas of legal indeterminacy provide fertile ground for the cooptation of the legal system to reinforce existing power arrangements. In like manner, Critical Management Studies attempts to unmask and expose the ideological agenda behind traditional management structures, obscured and sterilized by such terms such as "scientific" and "objective". Such school of thought in the words of Grey and Willmott is nothing more than "a recycled version of the thinking of elite groups institutionalized as received wisdom." (2005) The crux of Scientific Management Theory (SMT) is that the interests of labor and capital are one and the same, and that any antagonism between the two could only result in detriment for production. To quote Frederick W. Taylor (1911), "No one can be found who will deny that in the case of any single individual the greatest prosperity can exist only when that individual has reached his highest state of efficiency; that is, when he is turning out his largest daily output." This paper will analyze these two divergent schools of thought - Critical Management Theory and Scientific Management Theory - in terms of how it affects the hegemonic structures of organizations and society with an end in view of determining which school of thought can provide the better lens by which society at large can be viewed, analyzed and, it is hoped, reformed. Ontology and Epistemology of Scientific Management Theory "Scientific Management Theory" was coined in a social milieu wherein the benchmark of success of a business organization was the size of its assembly line. Work was mechanistic and routinized. Developed by Frederick W. Taylor in 1911, it may be collapsed into three basic formulations: Firstly, the most important thing that man should aspire towards is maximum efficiency, no more and no less. (Daft, 2002). He is not a person unto himself, with unique gifts and attributes, with a multi-faceted personality. He is merely part of a work force and must do his part accordingly so as not to break or disrupt the work process. Hence, according to Taylor, one of the biggest, if not the biggest culprit, in a lackadaisical economy is "underworking" or worker-laziness. Says Taylor: The elimination of "soldiering" and of the several causes of slow working would so lower the cost of production that both our home and foreign markets would be greatly enlarged, and we could compete on more than even terms with our rivals. It would remove one of the fundamental causes for dull times, for lack of employment,and for poverty, and therefore would have a more permanent and far-reaching effect upon these misfortunes than any of the curative remedies that are now being used to soften their consequences. It would insure higher wages and make shorter working hours and better working and home conditions. Secondly, the notion of the trickle-down effect is also forwarded, or the theory that benefit to the employer will result in benefit to the employee. While indeed remarkable changes have been taking place with respect to how businesses are being conducted and organizations are being run (Ackroyd, 2002), the "trickle down" theory remains stubbornly entrenched in public imagination and continues to be a compelling myth. Corollary to this idea is the last principle, which is that there is actually a union or an identity of interests between worker and management. To quote once more from Taylor: The majority of these men believe that the fundamental interests of employees and employers are necessarily antagonistic. Scientific management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employee and vice versa; and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants-high wages-and the employer what he wants-a low labor cost-for his manufactures. Ontology and Epistemology of Critical Management Studies Critical Management Studies believes that there is an inherent antagonism between labor and capital and its main purpose is to free or emancipate the worker from the bondage of his oppressive working conditions and empower him to develop to his fullest potential. According to Alvesson and Willmott (1992): "any substantial and lasting form of emancipatory change must involve a process of critical self-reflection and associated self-tranformation. From this perspective, emancipation is not to be equated with, or reduced to, piecemeal social engineering directed by a somewhat benevolent management. Rather, its conception of the emancipatory project encompasses a much broader set of issues that includes the transformation of gender relations, environmental husbandry, the development of workplace democracy, and so forth." CMS is clearly rooted in the Marxist framework wherein class society is the sphere of exchange-value. This is the sphere where the elite applies the price form on humans, on the proletariat. Humans become commodities. This is the sphere where proletarians succumb to false or inverted consciousness: they think that they are free to sell their own selves, and viciously compete freely with each other for sheer survival. More wealth in the form of commodities emanates from class society. Other capitalists churn out better tools for sale to other capitalists. Production becomes more specialized. Better tools for production generate a greater mass of commodities to overwhelm other competitor capitalists. All wealth assumes a price form, and thereby becomes commodities. The subject of class society is the commodity; its object is profit. Political society is the sphere of the capital form of wealth. This is the sphere where rulers declare that capital generates all wealth. Humans become capital. Through national treasuries or central banks, political society is the factory of virtual demand, of ideal money. Aside from organizing society, the rulers simulate the role of modern slave merchants, and sell their "captives"--the citizens--at a set price (minimum wage) to the capitalists. Those citizens sold by the state to the capitalists, the proletarians, become variable capital. The rulers administer the capital form on humans, thereby institutionalizing alienation even more. Alienation is finally obscured and concealed. Humanity enters a deeper paradox. All wealth assumes the form of capital. The subject of political society is capital; its object is more capital. This lofty tautology is the conclusive inversion of contemporary human existence. Interface and analysis Hatch (2006) warns that a simplistic analysis of organizations in contemporary times would fail to capture its many dimensions and nuances. She presents the many ways in which organizations may be analyzed - "as entities within an environment, as social structures, technologies, cultures and physical structures, and as the products of power and political processes." This view is shared by Clegg (1990), who believes that there is no one adequate approach to deal with the wide gamut of real-life organizations that exist. The idea of power and hierarchy is what is craftily obscured in the exhortation to adopt the Scientific Management Theory, and that could be precisely the basis for the accusation that the theory is nothing more than a recycled version of the thinking of elite groups institutionalized as received wisdom. The be-all and end-all is profit; how one can entrench himself in power and stay ahead, using the purchased human labor. In essence, Capitalism underscores the fact that the mass of the species can be owned at a price-as commodities. In the first place, the elite do not buy the proletarians wholesale. The elite are only interested in buying the reptilian and primitive mammalian capacities of the Homo Sapiens-or labor power, as Marx calls it. Proletarians are proletarians because what is bought at a price does not include the price of his humanity-his self-consciousness. Proletarians are proletarians because as soon as they start their working shift, they throw their self-consciousness in the closet, and instantly become primitive mammals that tend machines. This is the application of the price form on humans in class society. The tasks of applying the capital form on humans rests in political society through the wage system. The minimum wage that is dictated by political society is the price of the proletariat as capital. The wage system ensures that the proletariat is just a capital input that can be owned at a price even if he or she becomes unemployed. There is no escape. Contemporary human society is a vast labor camp decorated with fancy neon signs. Natural society inherits the developments in natural science at a very high price, the dehumanization of the species. With the self-alienation of the species, anthropological corruption is the punishment for warped gains in natural science. Closely monitored today are qualitative changes in the character of the proletariat. The increasing technological content today is requiring a new breed of labor force. Engineers, architects, doctors, and other technological experts are replacing the mass of the proletariat in capitalist firms. The technological experts exhibit the character of a "new" proletariat, a highly educated proletariat. One technological expert can shove tens or even hundreds of workers to the expanding service sector or to the ranks of the unemployed. What is positive about this phenomenon is that it is indicative of the incessant advance of society's productive forces. They represent the new products from natural society going over to the realm of class society. The new breed is even capable of running the whole production outfit, thereby freeing the capitalists to concentrate more in their main function, i.e., regeneration of capital. What is clearly negative, however, is that it warns of greater contradictions and stratification in the ranks of the proletariat. The misery of those edged out in the so-called labor market increases geometrically in relation to the arithmetical rise of the technological experts in the ranks of the proletariat. To complicate matters, several of the technical experts and intellectuals fall into the army of unemployed. This despite the greater reliance of industry on knowledge. In the Market, Hierarchy and Trust Model propounded by Adler (2001), trust is fast becoming an important aspect of labor-capital relations, and this is due precisely to the fact that knowledge intensity is fast becoming a currency of exchange. Says Adler: A review of trends in employment relations, interdivisional relations, and interfirm relations finds evidence suggesting that the effect of growing knowledge-intensity may indeed be a trend toward greater reliance on trust. There is also reason to believe that the form of trust most effective in this context is a distinctively modern kind - "reflective trust"- as opposed to traditionalistic, "blind" trust. Such a trend to reflective trust appears to threaten the privileges of currently dominant social actors, and these actors' resistance, in combination with the complex interdependencies between price, authority, and trust mechanisms, imparts a halting character to the trend. But the momentum of this trend nevertheless appears to be self-reinforcing, which suggests that it may ultimately challenge the foundations of our capitalist form of society while simultaneously creating the foundations of a new, postcapitalist form. Reflective trust, however, can only take one so far. And knowledge, while certainly potent, is not enough if it resides only in the individual and is not used in a collective manner. The elite rule is not only systematic, it is also very calibrated. The elite had to create a special social tool, an organized force to do the dirty job of restraining the proletariat to submission. They endowed this organized force with bureaucratic authority to weigh down the proletariat. This special tool is the State. The slave state, the landlord state, and the capitalist state are all expressions of the state in relation to class society. However, the authority to stand over class society, in the form of the dominant state, entailed wielding an inherited function-the domination of natural society. The state inherited class society's hegemony over natural society. Strictures to regulate power relations in class society were not enough. The state has to create and enforce "universal laws" that directly envelope natural society and thereby permeate all throughout human society. Conversely, natural society gives its imprint on the state. In a sense, the organization is the microcosm of the State and the theory it chooses to espouse embodies the values of the ruling order (management) and determines and regulates the freedom and liberties of the ruled (labor). Unfortunate Symmetry, Unwitting Collusions: How both Labor and Capital Reinforce Hegemony The tragedy is that we witness an inadvertent collusion between labor and capital that serves to perpetuate the hegemony of the elite and entrench them deeper in power. James Scott (1985) elucidates as follows: But it is not sufficient merely to understand the obviously self-interested basis of these social relations of production. What is critical for my purpose - that is, the analysis of ideological conflict - is to grasp the nature of the normative filter through which these self-interested actions must pass and how and why they are socially transformed by this passage. Why, in other words, is economic power "euphemized" in this fashion and what are the consequences of its euphemization' From one perspective, what the wealthy did was to transmute a portion of their disproportionate economic means into forms of status, prestige and social control by means of acts they passed off as voluntary acts of generosity or charity. This social control was, of course, again convertible into labor services - and hence, again into material wealth. James Scott uses a very defined space to illustrate his thesis on charity as a mechanism to reinforce existing hierarchical relations. He gives the example of a tenant who, understanding that his employer is in a position to provide him with work and benefits, couches his requests for assistance in words that he knows the employer is comfortable with. The tenant uses words like "help" and "assistance", words that convey the idea of generosity and liberality. The worker gets what he wants through this strategy, and at the same time, the class dynamic is reinforced in a manner advantageous to the employer. And that precisely is what is wrong with the benevolent/charitable management framework espoused by Scientific Management Theory. Charity can be legitimately withheld; justice cannot. It is entirely dependent on the magnanimity of the giver. With charity comes the discretion to decide who deserves it the most and to what extent. This offends the idea that every person has a demandable right to food and shelter and protection. 'Justice distributes power; charity empowers only the giver. They are the kind-hearted benefactors, smiling indulgently as they watch the hungry hoi polloi enjoy their crumbs. The obscenity of their wealth in the face of so much want has become sanitized by strategically-timed acts of grace and generosity. And as Scott posits, it is a two-way thing. The poor reinforce this hierarchical construct with their servile mien and their blubbering gratitude, knowing that this will have a greater chance of getting them what they want than taking any real steps to cure the malaise. Finally, charity as substitute for justice does not solve the problem; it aggravates it. The problem is that of class. The problem is that of hegemony. 'And this twisted dance of double symbolic manipulation wherein both the ruling class and proletariat subscribe to the euphemization of economic power to achieve their own ends, results in the ruling class' long term interests being satisfied and the proletariat's short term interests being satisfied temporarily. And at the end of the day, the tangible costs of this inequality are borne solely by the marginalized. Conclusion The biggest gap in Scientific Management Theory is that it fails to recognize the inherent threat of exploitation in a set-up where you have a ruler and the ruled (management and labor). The discrepancy in power has historically given rise to conflict, subjugation and self-alienation. (Mingers, 1992). Again, the most concrete manifestation of this self-alienation is that majority of the species is used as tools by a minority of the species, and that the minority who are divorced from direct tool-wielding utilizes the majority as tools. Culture degrades into supra-human culture and subhuman culture. Culture prevaricates to elite political power, it degenerates to proletarian labor power. Culture-as-social power screws up and assumes a deeper paradox. The more basic relationship of the sexes enters deeper complications. The boundless array of ideologies and all forms of lesser-cultures, previously direct products of being and consciousness, now appears as products of culture. Logical existence inverts. What this results in is not only the exploitation of workers, but also the subjugation of gender and other marginalized ethnic groups. While certainly efficiency is good to aspire towards (Jaffee, 2001) - for this is what Scientific Management Theory aims for - it cannot be done at the expense of divesting people of their humanity and treating them as merely tools to achieve maximum profit. In the long run, an organization that puts more premium on respect and acceptance rather than profit and productivity is an organization that will thrive and become more robust. Works Cited Ackroyd, S. (2002). The Organization of Business. USA: Oxford University Press. Adler, P. (2001). Market, Hierarchy and Trust: The Knowledge Economy and the Future of Capitalism. Vol. 12, No. 2. 215-234. Altman, A. (1986) Legal Realism, Critical Legal Studies and Dworkin. Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 15, no. 2. 217-244. Alvesson, M. & Willmot, H. (1992). On the Idea of Emancipation in Management and Organization Studies. The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 17, No. 3. 432-464. Clegg, S. R. (1990). 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