Management Theory
Management theory got its start during the Industrial Revolution when companies were interested in maximizing the productivity and efficiency of their workers in a scientific way. Here you will learn about a few of the major contributors to the field of management theory and how their ideas are used today.
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Over one hundred years ago, Frederick Taylor published Principles of Scientific Management, a work that forever changed the way organizations view their workers and their organization. You might think that a century-old theory wouldn’t have any application in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world. You’d be wrong, though! In fact, much of what you’ve already learned in this course is based on Taylor’s work, and plenty of what you’ll experience in the workplace will be indebted to him, too. If you recognize any of the following, you have already seen his principles of scientific management in action: organizational charts, performance evaluations, quality measurements and metrics, and sales and/or production goals.
At the time of Taylor’s publication, managers believed that workers were lazy and worked slowly and inefficiently in order to protect their jobs. Scientific management is a management theory that analyzes work flows to improve economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. Under scientific management, you didn’t need to find exceptional workers to increase productivity. You just needed to implement Taylor’s management theory.
Taylor’s Perspective
Taylor was a mechanical engineer who was primarily interested in the type of work done in factories and mechanical shops. He observed that the owners and managers of the factories knew little about what actually took place in the workshops. Taylor believed that the system could be improved, and he looked around for an incentive. He settled on money.
Taylor believed a worker should get “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”—no more, no less. If the worker couldn’t work to the target, then the person shouldn’t be working at all. Taylor also believed that management and labor should cooperate and work together to meet goals. He was the first to suggest that the primary functions of managers should be planning and training.
Taylor’s Studies
A significant part of Taylorism was time studies. Taylor was concerned with reducing process time and worked with factory managers on scientific time studies. At its most basic level, time studies involve breaking down each job into component parts, timing each element, and rearranging the parts into the most efficient method of working. By counting and calculating, Taylor sought to transform management into a set of calculated and written techniques.
Taylor suggested that productivity would increase if jobs were optimized and simplified. He also proposed matching a worker to a particular job that suited the person’s skill level and then training the worker to do that job in a specific way. Taylor first developed the idea of breaking down each job into component parts and timing each part to determine the most efficient method of working.
One of Taylor’s most famous studies was from his time at the Bethlehem Steel Company in the early 1900s. He noticed that workers used the same shovel for all materials, even though the various materials differed in weight. By observing the movements of the workers and breaking the movements down into their component elements, Taylor determined that the most efficient shovel load was 21½ lb. Accordingly, he set about finding or designing different shovels to be used for each material that would scoop up that amount.
Four Principles of Scientific Management
Scientific management has at its heart four core principles that also apply to organizations today. They include the following:
- Look at each job or task scientifically to determine the “one best way” to perform the job. This is a change from the previous “rule of thumb” method where workers devised their own ways to do the job.
- Hire the right workers for each job and train them to work at maximum efficiency.
- Monitor worker performance; provide instruction and training when needed.
- Divide the work between management and labor so that management can plan and train, and workers can execute their tasks efficiently.