Critical review of Scientific Management

 

Critical review of Scientific Management

Scientific Management is a theory of management that analyzes work flows in order to improve economic performance, especially labor productivity. This theory of management, founded by Frederick Winslow Taylor, was popular in the U.S. manufacturing industry in the 1880s and 1890s.

 

Scientific management eliminated the need for skilled labor by delegating each employee one simple task to repeat over and over. Although this method increased the productivity of factories, it stripped employees their freedom to choose their work, as well as how it should be done. (Ireh, 2016). Scientific management, although stressed people post match, more focus on jobs, rather than people, each post have standardized operation process and method, the workers have to do is training well according to the standard operation procedure to finish work, but in today's knowledge economy era, the staff engaged in mental labor, have no fixed standardization process, practice of this management mode. Therefore, we should pay more attention to the role of human beings, formulate corresponding incentives, maximize the potential of people, and enhance the competitiveness of organizations (Su, 2017).

However Taylorism could also be seen as a management theory that analyzes work flows to improve economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. This management theory was dominant in manufacturing industries in the 1880s and 1890s. (Ioana et al., 2014). One of the best examples is the adoption of this theory in Ford company in 20th century. After the adoption, the assembly-line process enabled Ford to produce cars more quickly, and at more affordable rates and by 1924, as a result of this advanced production methods, Ford had sold 10 million Model Ts (Saylor, 2005)

Conclusion

To summarize, scientific management was a huge improvement over the old factory systems with their tyrannical foremen and rules of thumb at a time when labor was cheap, supplies were plentiful, and manufacturing processes were relatively forgiving of quality control issues. However, it is well understood that progress is linked to human characteristics, and that scientific management cannot be considered as a long-term means of human advancement. Scientific management is criticized because it is thought to be a dangerous impediment to progress. Is there such a thing as a perfect management system? No, it's not true. However, its contributions to society and efficiency measurement cannot be denied.

 

 

References

Caldari, K., 2007. Alfred Marshall’s critical analysis of scientific management. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 14(1), pp.74-75.

Ireh, M., 2016. Scientific Management. Winston Salem.

Koumparoulis, D.N. & Vlachopoulioti, A., 2012. The Evolution of Scientific Management. Academic Research International, 3(2), p.425.