Scientific Management

(noun)

A theory of management intended to maximize labor productivity and economic efficiency. Also known as "Taylorism," it was developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s, and involved the rational analysis of workflows. It attempted to adjust the time and motion of workers' activities so as to maximize their efficiency. This theory was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management.

Related Terms

Examples of Scientific Management in the following topics:

  • Modern Management

    • Railroads gave rise to the development of modern management techniques, such as the use of clear chains of command, statistical reporting, and complex bureaucratic systems.
    • Railroad companies systematized the roles of middle managers and set up explicit career tracks.
    • Career tracks were offered to skilled blue-collar workers and white-collar managers, starting in railroads and expanding into finance, manufacturing, and trade.
    • Frederick Winslow Taylor, a mechanical engineer by training, is often credited with inventing scientific management and improving industrial efficiency.

  • The Second Industrial Revolution

    • During the Gilded Age, America developed its mass production, scientific management, and managerial skills.

  • Efficiency

    • Progressive reformers tried to apply scientific principles and rational problem-solving to social problems.
    • This system is part of the council-manager style of government.
    • A major influence on this efficient style of governing was the "Scientific Management" movement.
    • Scientific management, also called "Taylorism," was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows.
    • Describe how Progressives applied scientific reasoning to social and economic problems

  • The Progressive Era

    • Another theme was building an Efficiency movement in every sector that could identify old ways that needed modernizing, and that could bring to bear scientific, medical, and engineering solutions.
    • A key part of the Efficiency movement was scientific management, or "Taylorism."
    • Although scientific management as a distinct theory or school of thought was obsolete by the 1930s, most of its themes are still important parts of industrial engineering and management today.
    • Progressives transformed, professionalized, and made "scientific" the social sciences, especially history, economics, and political science.
    • Some Progressives strongly supported scientific methods as applied to economics, government, industry, finance, medicine, schooling, theology, education, and even the family.

  • The Environmental Impact of Cities

    • The early national conservation movement shifted emphasis to scientific management, which favored larger enterprises.

  • The Transformed National Economy

    • Taylor pioneered the field of scientific management in the late 19th century, carefully plotting the functions of various workers and then devising new, more efficient ways for them to do their jobs.

  • Education and the Professions

    • Railroads invented complex bureaucratic systems, using middle managers, and set up explicit career tracks.
    • Career tracks were invented for skilled blue collar jobs and for white collar managers, starting in railroads and expanding into finance, manufacturing and trade.
    • At the end of the century, workers experienced the Second Industrial Revolution, which involved mass production, scientific management, and the rapid development of managerial skills.

  • Reactions to Sputnik

    • Increased support for scientific research.
    • Project management as an area of inquiry and an object of much scrutiny, leading up to the modern concept of project management and standardized project models such as the DoD Program Evaluation and Review Technique, PERT, invented for Polaris.
    • Sputnik, which means "satellite" in Russian, was the Soviet entry in a scientific race to launch the first satellite ever.

  • Pioneer Women

    • Pioneer women took care of child-rearing, fed and clothed the family, managed the housework, and fed the hired hands.
    • This meant women were fully employed in farm-centered labor, including child-rearing, feeding and clothing the family, managing the housework, and feeding the hired hands.
    • The scientific housekeeping movement was promoted across the land by the media and by government extension agents, as well as through county fairs which featured achievements in home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm papers, and home economics courses in the schools.

  • The Environment

    • Cooney is now known to have edited government climate reports in order to minimize the findings of scientific sources tying greenhouse gas emissions to global warming.
    • This could occur by giving local forest managers the ability to open up the forests to development without requiring environmental impact assessments and without specific standards to maintain local fish and wildlife populations.