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Frederick Wilson Taylor’s Scientific Management Theory

Dr. Roopinder Oberoi

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Kirori Mall College, University of Delhi

Scientific management also called Taylorism is a theory of management that analyzes and

Works from 500 to 140. This work, and his studies on the handling of pig iron, greatly

contributed to the analysis of work design and gave rise to method study.

Taylor had identified serious flaws while observation of operations at factories. Some of them

were:

i) management lacked clear understanding of worker-management responsibilities;

ii) lack of effective standards of work;

iii) restricted output and failure to design jobs properly;

iv) unscientific decisions by management;

v) lack of proper studies about division of work among departments

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and applied just as much to managers as workers. In his own words he explained:"The old

fashioned dictator does not exist under Scientific Management. The man at the head of the

business under Scientific Management is governed by rules and laws which have been

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developed through hundreds of experiments just as much as the workman is, and the standards

developed are equitable."

Taylor, a mechanical engineer by training, seeks to apply a positivistic, rational perspective to

the inefficient work organization. Another "misfortune of industry" that impedes the progress

of improving work is what Taylor refers to as the "soldiering" of the worker, which

essentially means to make a show of work not necessarily doing one's best. The worker tries

to balance the inner conflict he feels as a result of worry about job security versus

to Taylor’s view, soldiering would disappear as workers’ productivity and security improved.

Taylor proposes four principles of the scientific management of work. He asserts that even

though the average businessman believes that if workers were to go fast, thus increasing

efficiency resulting in a money saving decrease of workforce, just the opposite would be true.

Taylor believes increasing the efficiency of the workman scientifically would increase not

only the opportunity for more work, but also the real wealth of the world, happiness, and all

manner of worthwhile improvements in the life of the working person. For Taylor, increased

workman output will result in improved quality of life.

country has scientific management working successfully." (Shafritz p.69) According to

Taylor, the workman, on the average, in those industries where scientific management has

been introduced, has turned out double the output and been the beneficiary of many

improvements in working conditions.

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goals so as to be consistent with rules of logic like Taylor’s scientific principles. Decisions

are made to increase efficiency in the Taylor model. Social systems such as schools often

confront ambiguous situations requiring flexibility. There can be no “one best way.” When

confronted with decision-making in a complex social organization, political power can be

expected to influence coalitions and cause conflicting interests, create disorder, cause

disagreement, bargaining, and struggle for position. All aforementioned effects of political

power in a complex social organization are unacceptable and unthinkable in the rational

model represented by Taylor.

consider the motivation of workers, the needs of healthy human beings, or the possibility of

sharing responsibility for leadership. The other three frames presented by Bolman and Deal

have little or no alignment with the Taylor model. The Taylor model does not take into

consideration the needs of human beings regarding motivation and security. Political power is

not distributed and remains with the expert authority that exercises control over the one best

way for the worker to function in the work organization. Finally, the symbolic frame offers

no alignment with the Taylor model; symbols in the Taylor model are neither strategically

constructed nor recognized.

Frederick Taylor identified 4 principles of Scientific Management:

Develop a science of work- The science of work would be achieved by measuring output,

specific job, and also to scientifically train every worker in the most productive way of

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performing the specific task. By doing this correctly, every worker would be selected and

trained to achieve his/her utmost potential.

Educate workers and managers in the benefits of Scientific Management-Both workers

and managers should be educated in understanding the benefits of scientific management.

Specialization and collaboration between workers and managers - Management should

focus on developing, designing and supervising improved systems, whereas workers should

concentrate on performing their manual duties. If everyone fulfils their respective role, no

conflict would arise between management and workers, since the Scientific Management

approach would find the best solution for all parties concerned.

Frederick Taylor strongly believed that the Scientific Management approach would solve

conflicts between workers and managers, and that the approach had the potential of highly

machine.

Despite all criticism, Taylorism had a huge impact on the industrialization process in the

western world, and many companies have adopted Frederick Taylor’s ideas over time.

Taylorism can be seen performed in many modern companies, such as fast food restaurants,

today, and is oftentimes highly reflected in the work processes of many modern service and

manufacturing companies.

Contributions

The Scientific approach led to process improvement, it initiated the process of scientific study

of time –motion and task to be performed and emphasized proper selection criteria for the job.

This sort of task-oriented optimization of work tasks is nearly ubiquitous today in industry,

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slowest rate that goes unpunished. This slow rate of work he opined, was based on the

observation that, when paid the same amount, workers will tend to do the amount of work the

slowest among them does: this reflects the idea that workers have a vested interest in their

own well-being, and do not benefit from working above the defined rate of work when it will

not increase their compensation. He therefore proposed that the work practice that had been

developed in most work environments was crafted, intentionally or unintentionally, to be very

inefficient in its execution. From this he posited that there was one best method for performing

a particular task, and that if it were taught to workers, their productivity would go up.

The assumptions underlying his work were:

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Criticism

According to Taylor, Scientific management in its essence primarily involves a complete

mental revolution on the part of workers and management as to their duties, towards their

fellow workers, and towards all of their daily problems. It demands the realization of the fact

that their mutual interest is not antagonistic and mutual prosperity is possible through

cooperation. The revolution was needed in mental attitudes of workers and managers.

However applications of scientific management sometimes fail to account for two inherent

a) Individuals are different from each other: the most efficient way of working for one

person may be inefficient for another;

b) The economic interests of workers and management are rarely identical, so that

both the measurement processes and the retraining required by Taylor's methods

are frequently resented and sometimes sabotaged by the workforce.

Both difficulties were recognized by Taylor, but are generally not fully addressed by managers

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Taylorism but that both approaches are rather complementary: Taylorism determining the

actual organization of the work process and human relations helping to adapt the workers to

the new procedures. However, Taylor's theories were clearly at the roots of a global revival in

theories of scientific management in the last two decades of the 20th century, under name of'

corporate reengineering'. As such, Taylor's ideas can be seen as the root of a very influential

series of developments in the workplace. Peter Drucker saw Frederick Taylor as the creator

of knowledge management, as the aim of scientific management is to produce knowledge

about how to improve work processes. His writings have predicted many of the major