Phooey-o Critically discuss the notion that Scientific Management was a 'good' idea in the history of management thinking. Since the thousands of years, people use the management in the great projects such as the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China. According to Robbins, et al.
(2006), Henry Payola said that all managers perform five functions: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling in the early part of the twentieth century.Robbins stated that, in the mid-sass, management functions changed to planning, organizing staffing, directing ND controlling. However, management functions have been reduced to four such as planning, organizing, leading and controlling. There are six major approaches to management: scientific management, general administrative theory, quantitative approach, organizational behavior, system approach, and contingency approach. This essay is going to focus on why is scientific management is still used in today's organization although there has some drawbacks.
As stated by Cole (2004), during industrial revolution in the 19th century, employers in the Western world had the robber which was how to organize to resources such as new factories, new plants and labors to get the efficient and profitable operation. Frederick W. Taylor who worked in the Medieval and Bethlehem Steel Companies in Pennsylvania, realized workers' inefficiencies because employees used enormously different methods to do same Job and believed that worker output was only about one-third of what was possible (Robbins et al. 2006). Taylor thought that he should find more efficient methods and procedures for co-ordination and control of work.
Scientific management became from his idea "Tailor's Four Principles of Management". Taylor said that both managers and workers needed a complete mental revolution. The first principle is the development of a true science for each person's work.Cole (2004) stated that Taylor produced the best method of doing a Job by studying Jobs of a sample of especially skilled workers, noting each operation and timing it with a stop- watch in the shop floor level and then this best method would become the standard to be used for all similar Jobs. The second principle is the scientific selection, training ND development of the workers. According to Mullions (2007), Taylor selected the employee based on the detailed instruction of the Job and trained the workers in order to get the highest productivity.
The employees were paid by a fair days work and on optimizing the level of workers' productivity. According to Burn (2008,p-633), each employee should be paid buy according to his or her own output rather than the output of the group. The third principle is co-operation with the workers to make sure that all work is done in accordance with the principles of the science that has en developed. Robbins et al.
(2006) stated that fourth principle is that dividing work and responsibility almost equally between management and workers. This is also called labor specialization.Management takes over all work for which it is better fitted than the workers are. Before scientific management, almost all the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown on the workers. (Robbins et al. , 2006) Another couple who contributed scientific management is Frank Gilberts and his wife Lillian.
According to Robbins et al. , (2006), the couple studied work to remove zestful hand-and-body motions and also experimented with the design and use of the suitable tools and equipment for optimizing work performance.A worker's motions and the amount of time spent doing each motion were recorded by micrometeorite which was invented by the Gilbert's and, therefore, the wasted motions missed by the eye could be identified and eliminated (Robbins et al. , 2006). According to Cole(2004, P-19), the couple said they could find the 'one best way of doing things according the ideal one after recorded by the micrometeorite. Henry Gaunt is a one of the contributor of scientific management who was a contemporary and colleague of Tailor's at the Bethlehem Steel Company.
Cole (2004, P-20) stated that Gaunt introduced a payment system that although the employee's performance was below on the individual's instruction card, he still qualified for the day-rate but performance of all the work allocated on the card qualified the individual for bonus. Gaunt found that when one worker found that he could achieve the task, the rest quickly followed. As a result, supervision improved, breakdowns were minimized. Giant's bonus system also allowed for the employee to challenge the time allocated for a particular task.There are a lot of benefits from scientific management. First, the productivity increases dramatically by improving the working method.
Second, the supervisors can measure the performance base on the working methods. Third, it motivates the employees by incentive payments base on the results on the performance. Finally, the physical working conditions for employees also improved because of scientific management. (Cole, 2004) Although scientific management has a lot of benefits, it also has some disadvantages.
Firstly, the worker's role is reduced by the rigid methods and procedures. Another drawback is the employees will be bore because of same steps of procedures. Next one is scientific management generates a 'carrot-and-stick approach to the motivation of employees by enabling pay to be geared tightly to output (Cole, 2004). As stated by Burn (2008), proponents of scientific management thought that payment of employee should be based on both personal output and task difficulty.
Most of the organizations still use the scientific management in their management techniques.According to Freedman, labor peculation uses in every department. The manager already divided all Jobs and who will responsible these Jobs. Every organization selects carefully every employee and trains them according to their needs to get the highest productivity.
Tailor's idea also influences on some techniques such as total quality management, Just-in-time production and business process re-engineering. All these techniques are aim to get the highest efficiency by eliminating wastes.Most of the organizations use the surveillance cameras, electronic pads and sensor to record the effective working ethos and monitor the behavior of employees. According to Wagner-Takeouts (2007), the modern architecture uses the idea of scientific management such as the working methods, standardization, planning the project and work division.
There was the link between scientific management and consumer interest. Inland and McLeod (2007) stated that consumer got the benefits from the productivity increases caused by the advances in technology techniques. Consumers could buy the product at the reduced price.On the other hand, according to Witless (2005), scientific management s criticized by the labor organization because they feared that some dishonest employers might use the piece-rate system to drive real wages down. In 191 5, Samuel Compeers of the American Federation of Labor complained that some companies were setting production targets, after when they were met, slashing the piece-rate, effectively forcing workers to produce more in order to stay even. (Witless, 2005) In conclusion, scientific management is a good idea or not in the history of management thinking is still a question to answer.
