Scientific Management

Examples of Scientific Management in the following topics:

• Scientific Management: Taylor and the Gilbreths

  • Scientific management focuses on improving efficiency and output through scientific studies of workers' processes.
  • While the terms "scientific management" and "Taylorism" are often treated as synonymous, an alternative view considers Taylorism to be the first form of scientific management.
  • Scientific management was best known from 1910 to 1920, but in the 1920s, competing management theories and methods emerged, rendering scientific management largely obsolete by the 1930s.
  • However, many of the themes of scientific management are still seen in industrial engineering and management today.
  • During the 1940s and 1950s, scientific management evolved into operations management, operations research, and management cybernetics.

• Administrative Management: Fayol's Principles

  • Fayol's approach differed from scientific management in that it focused on efficiency through management training and behavioral characteristics.
  • Fayol was a classical management theorist, widely regarded as the father of modern operational-management theory.
  • Fayol is often compared to Frederick Winslow Taylor, who developed scientific management.
  • Fayol developed 14 principles of management in order to help managers conduct their affairs more effectively.
  • Outline Fayol's effect on administrative management through the recognition of his 14 management principles

• Flaws in the Classical Perspectives

  • Generally the classical view is associated with Taylorism and scientific management, which are largely criticized for viewing the worker as more of a gear in the machine than an individual.
  • Scientific management also led to other pressures tending toward worker unhappiness.
  • Both were made possible by the deskilling of jobs, which arose because of the knowledge transfer that scientific management achieved, whereby knowledge was transferred to cheaper workers, as well as from workers into tools.
  • The behavioral approach to management took an entirely different approach and focused on managing morale, leadership, and other behavioral factors to encourage productivity rather than solely managing the time and efficiency of workers.
  • Assess the comprehensive arguments underlining the flaws in utilizing classical organizational theory perspectives, primarily Taylorism and the scientific method

• Evidence-Based Management

  • Evidence-based management emphasizes the importance of managers using the scientific method to make decisions.
  • Evidence-based management bases managerial decisions and organizational practices on the best available scientific evidence.
  • This is quite challenging, because management is much less tangible and measurable than many other scientific disciplines.
  • An important component of evidence-based management is helping managers understand the importance of backing up decisions with sound scientific reasoning.
  • Evidence-Based Management is modeled after Evidence-Based Medicine, which emphasizes the importance of scientific research in decision-making.

• The Contingency Viewpoint

  • The contingency viewpoint of management proposes that there is no standard for management; instead, management depends on the situation.
  • The contingency approach claims that past theories, such as Max Weber's bureaucracy theory of management and Taylor's scientific management, are no longer practiced because they fail to recognize that management style and organizational structure are influenced by various aspects of the environment, known as contingency factors.
  • Debating which one of the previous approaches to management is the "best" approach is irrelevant in contingency theory, since the heart of the contingency approach is that there is no "one best way" for managing and leading an organization.
  • An example of the contingency viewpoint in action is a manager facing a situation with an employee who regularly shows up late to work.
  • A manager could have a written protocol for this situation in which there is only one option: give the employee notice.

• Classical Versus Behavioral Perspectives

  • Scientific management theory, which was first introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor, focused on production efficiency and productivity of employees.
  • He used the scientific method of measurement to create guidelines for the training and management of employees.
  • One example of Weber's management theory is the modern "flat" organization, which promotes as few managerial levels as possible between management and employees.
  • Fayol created six functions of management, which are now taught as the following four essential functions of management: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
  • McGregor's theory of management is an example of how behavior-management theory looks more into the "human" factors of management and encourages managers to understand how psychological characteristics can improve or hinder employee performance.

• The Behavioral-Science Approach

  • Behavioral science uses research and the scientific method to determine and understand behavior in the workplace.
  • Behavioral science uses research and the scientific method to determine and understand behavior in the workplace.
  • Many of the theories in the behavioral perspective are included in the behavioral-science approach to management.
  • For example, the Hawthorne studies used the scientific method and are considered to be a part of the behavioral-science approach.
  • Organizational development is considered both a field of applied behavioral science that focuses on understanding and managing organizational change as well as a field of scientific study and inquiry.

• Behaviorism: Follett, Munsterberg, and Mayo

  • This was, in many ways, a continuation of the scientific method, with the critical difference of incorporating the human factors involved in effective management.
  • Managers should enable, not dictate.
  • She also distinguished herself in the field of management by being sought out by President Theodore Roosevelt as his personal consultant on managing not-for-profit, non-governmental, and voluntary organizations.
  • This enabled him to make certain deductions about how managers should behave.
  • Mayo's studies contributed to the behaviorism movement in management as managers became more aware of the "soft" skills that are important to successful management.

• Evidence-Based Decision Making

  • It is analogous to the scientific method which uses experiments and data collection to advance knowledge.
  • Evidence-Based Management (EBMgt) enhances the overall quality of organizational decisions and practices through deliberative use of relevant and best available scientific evidence.
  • Evidence-based protocols have been adopted in non-scientific fields such as business, education, and law enforcement, demonstrating usefulness of this approach.
  • Scientific theories are the result of analysis applied to data, records, insights, and experiments.
  • Describe the concept and strategic implications of evidence-based decision making in management (EBMgt)

• Bureaucratic Control

  • PDCA (plan–do–check–act or plan–do–check–adjust) is a four-step management method used in business to control and continuously improve processes and products.
  • The theory underlying this is the scientific method, where observations are made and hypotheses generated, which are then tested in the next cycle.