SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT THEORY - THEORIES OF ORGANIZATION

Many of the techniques used by managers today, have their roots in the scientific management movement that aroused enormous enthusiasm among managers in the first two decade of the twentieth century.


In simple words, scientific management is a term which is used to designate a body of theory and practice directed toward more efficient and rational performance in industry. While it was used originally with reference to the direct efforts to increase the productivity of labour, the  application of the term has since been extended to include the basic factors in the process of production as a whole.

Scientific management owes its origin to Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1917) who developed a number of guidelines for managers to replace the hitherto prevalent rule of thumb methods even though he did not create a science of management. Scientific management refers to that approach to problems of organization based on the work of Taylor. The first coherent theory of organization is referred to as Scientific Management, which came to be formulated in the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time, the conditions in the factories were rather unplanned.

There was complete absence of standardization of methods of work. The workers were left entirely to themselves in the matter of choosing the methods to be employed for doing the work. Whether these methods were the efficient ones and whether the tools were the right kind, were none of the responsibilities of management. It was against such a general background of managerial unconcern for methods and tools of work that scientific management emerged as a new philosophy of management. Frederick Winslow Taylor, an engineer by training, is regarded as the father of scientific management, for it was he who first advocated the systematic adoption of the methods of science to problems of management in the interest of higher industrial efficiency.

Taylor himself did not coin the word scientific management” to refer to his thoughts. This concept was first used by Louis Brandies in 1910. From that time onwards, Taylor also began using this term. He pointed out “Management is a true science, sting upon clearly fixed laws, rules and principles, as a foundation. He argued that management comprised a number of principles which commanded applicability in all types of organizations, the same principles can be applied with equal force to all social activities; to the management of our homes; the management of our farms; the management of the business of our tradesmen, large and small; of our churches, our philanthropic institutions, our universe and our government departments” . 

In short, at the end of the nineteenth century, workshop administration in manufacturing industry in North America and Europe was in the hands of foreman and skilled workers who, in addition to performing the physical tasks of production, decided how jobs were to be done, how the labour force was to be organized and supervised and who was to be hired. The scientific management movement of the early twentieth century, associated with the name of its main advocate, F.W. Taylor, attempted to transform the administration of the work place so as to increase productivity.
The scientific management stress rationality, predictability, specialization and technical competence. There are three assumptions of scientific management.
  1. That improved practice will come from the application of the scientific method of analysis to organizational problems.
  2. The second assumption concerns the relation of worker to his work. “There is a primary focus on work itself and not on the particular person doing the work. The good worker is viewed as one who accepts orders, but does not initiate actions. The worker is told ‘ how to do his job based upon scientific analysis of the job. 
  3. Each worker is assumed to be an economic man. He is interested in maximizing his monetary income. The organization is seen as a rational instrument of production.
Frederick Winslow Taylor, as already mentioned, is the most influential of the management pioneers. He applied the scientific methods to the solution of factory problems and from these analyses built up orderly sets of principles which were adopted in the place of the trial-and-error methods then in use. A detailed example of how he applied the methods which came to be called scientific management is contained in the famous paper, shop management which he presented at the meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1895. Taylor’s philosophy is described more specifically in The principles of scientific management a speech he delivered at a conference on the subject held at the Amos Tuck school, Darmmouth college, in October 1911. Here, Taylor also tells the stories behind two miles stones in management history; his study of the science of shovelling at the Bethlehem company at the Midvale steel works. The written record of Taylor’s achievements is found in three basic documents:  
Shop management (1903), The Principles of Scientific management (1911) and Testimony before the special house committee. 

These three documents have been published in one volume, “Scientific Management” in 1947. He first published his views on management in a paper, A piece Rate System. Before Taylor appeared on the scene, the manufacturers used piece work systems, under which workers receive higher wages for producing more output. Taylor criticized such systems, charging that the employers had no way of knowing how much work could really be accomplished in a given period of time. Taylor suggested to the managers to use scientific research methods to discover the best way of performing every piece of work. It would enable management itself to determine how much work should really be accomplished in a given period of time. It would also involve far reaching changes in the specifications for tools and materials, the selection and training of workmen, and the supervision of work. When these have been accomplished, then and only then, would it be possible to make proper use of bonuses and premiums for higher individual output. Management and management alone, can be responsible for carrying these methods into effect. Although it is important to obtain the co-operation of the workers, it must be a
forced co-operation. Taylor drives home this point as follows, “it is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adaptation of the best implements and working conditions and enforced co-operation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adaptation of standards and of enforcing this co-operation rests with the management alone”
 Taylor was anxious to increase the production rate. He realized that the attitudes of the workers towards their work were not enthusiastic. The workers were interested in doing as little job as possible, just sufficient to maintain their job. Taylor’s theory was that workers should be coerced, forced and motivated to work. Effort should be made to get more work out from them. The workers are controlled by reward and punishment. More reward should be given to the efficient workers’ and lazy workers should be punished for laxity. 

Taylor’s view thus, was that a manager should
i. Develop through scientific analysis and experiment, the best method for performing each work;
ii. Select and train workers to use the best method;
iii. Co-operate with workers to ensure performance in accordance with the principles of science;
iv. And view management and workers as two equal components in an enterprise. In Taylor’s own words: “The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for each employee’.

Precisely, Taylor was interested in getting more work from the workers through the following techniques
1. Work Study:
Taylor gathered all the available knowledge about the management and improved upon it through analysis and experimentation. From analysis and experimentation, Taylor laid down certain laws, rules and even mathematical formulae. ‘By applying these rules, laws and mathematical formulae, Taylor felt that one could scientifically discover the one best method for doing the job.
2. Standardization of Tools: Taylor maintained that it is the duty of the management to standardize the tools in the light of the needs of specific jobs. In a historic experiment at the Bethlehem steel works on the shovelling of coal, Taylor found that the average shovel load varied from about 16-38 pounds. This was determined by scientific research. Further experiments showed that good workers were able to shovel more tons per day if they used a shovel carrying a load from 2 1-22 pounds. Subsequently, Taylor found out that with different types of material to be shovelled, about fifteen different types of shovels were needed. From then on, when workers arrived in the morning, they received written instructions on what to shovel and what shovels to use. After three and half years, 140 men were doing the work formally handled by 400-600 men.
3. Scientific Selection and Training of Workers: According to Taylor, the management should select the workers on scientific basis. Each worker should be given the job for which he was best suited and management must give him formal training and specific instructions on precisely how to perform the prescribed jobs with the standardized tools and material. This increases the efficiency of the workers.
4. Supervision and Planning: Taylor was completely against the military type of organization because orders are coming from one person only. Instead of military type of organization, he recommended functional type of organization. In this type, orders will come from eight different Gangbosses (bosses), each of whom will limit himself to his own particular function. Of these eight functional foremen, only four were to serve on the shop floor (workshop) to help the workers in the performances of their job. They are instructor, repair foreman-, speed boss and Gangboss. The other four would sit in a special establishment planning room and deal respectively with routine, preparation of instruction cards, time, cost-benefit analysis records and discipline.
5. Payment in Accordance with Out put (A piece Rate System) Having indicated how the methods and thus the rate of production can be planned in advance, Taylor and .is associates went on to develop ever new systems of paying workers in accordance with their output instead of the mere number of hours worked. The essence of all these various plans was the payment of extra sums or bonuses to workers who meet or exceed the defined task.
Task System: When he was a manager, he tried to increase the production by adding pressure on the workers. For this, there was conflict between the management and the workers due to the attitude of Taylor. Taylor adopted method study with the help A movie camera and stop watch. With movie camera, the motion of the workers can be shown. Time and motion study were also used. There was a standard time for performing each activity or job. If timing was not satisfactory, training was giving to the workers to improve their speed and time. Taylor emphasized on finding out the ideal working methods or what is called One best way of doing job.
Motivation of Workers:
Taylor said that the workers should be motivated to improve productivity. Motivation according to Taylor, is based on monetary and other economic incentives.
Slide Rules and Instruction Cards: Slide rules according to Taylor is one of the time saving devices. The use of instruction card system is to record what to do and how to do a particular task.
Division of Work and Responsibility Between Management and Workers: In the traditional management theory, the workers bore the entire responsibility for work and management had lesser responsibility. But Taylor’s scientific management assumes equal responsibility between management and the workers. The manager unlike in the past is equally busy as the worker. This division of work creates between them an understanding and mutual dependence. There will also be constant and intimate co-operation between them. All these result in elimination of conflicts and strikes and create healthy atmosphere in the organization and also help to promote industrial efficiency.
EVALUATION
Tile most strident criticism of Taylor and the scientific management has come from the Marxists. They ridicule the theory of scientific labour management or rational organization of labour. They describe the techniques of scientific management as a predominantly psychological adaptation of human mechanism to the mechanics of industry. They think that these techniques are more efficient tools to exploit the labour still more by the capitalist.
The Marxists quote statistics to prove that the profit of the enterprises where Taylor’s experiments were carried out, increased much more substantially than the meager increase in the wages of the workers which were disproportionate to rise in output. The implementation of Taylor’s principle resulted in the dissociation of the labour process from the skills of the workers. Workers were made to depend not upon their abilities, but entirely upon the practices of management. Work under this system is in reality mental and physical violence on the part of the capitalist over the mass workers. The Marxists think that under the scientific management a worker is reduced to an industrial robot. The workers are reduced to a part of factor of production, personnel and lastly a resource .... ‘‘ be precise, it is a process of dehumanizing the human beings. People become neurotic. The author of the theory F.W. Taylor himself was, it appears the very least, a neurotic crank.
As far as human motivation is concerned, scientific management made assumptions which have proved incomplete. The rational-economic man, as Taylor assumed man to be, has been replaced by “a far more complex interpretation of human behaviour and of the sources )f productivity in organizational settings.” The social and psychochemical factors which were ignored by the scientific management school have now become considerably important.
Despite this criticism, however, the. scientific management has’ greatly influenced public administration in the following ways. It made considerable contribution to the acceptance of efficiency as a primary goal of administration and management.

Its values and methods were n tune with the movement for reforms of government and civil service such as centralization of authority and accountability, establishment of merit systems, freeing public administration from partisan politics and  on throughout the period when the reform movement was active 1900-1930), the scientific management concepts were widely accepted by the administrators as well as the students of public administration.

It is also significant to mention that scientific management brought drastic change in the whole approach towards the management of  industries. Through it, wastage of human and material resources was  minimized. More accurate control system and planning were evolved. If a broad view is taken, the contributions of Taylor and his companions were really outstanding because many of the features of scientific approach have proved to be enduring.
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