CRICOS Provider 00115M Contact THANK YOU INNOVATIVE RESPONSIBLE ENGAGED MGT1FOM TOPIC 2 Managing for efficiency and control Scientific ManagementLearning Objectives • At the conclusion of this topic, students should be able to: – Provide a detailed explanation of the principles of Scientific Management; – Describe the historical conditions which gave rise to the Scientific Management movement; – Illustrate the contributions of Fredrick Taylor’s contemporaries to our understanding of Scientific Management; – Demonstrate a critical understanding of the consequences of Scientific Management; – Provide pertinent examples of modern applications of Scientific Management principles.Scientific Management • During the industrial revolution, the first largescale factories were created; • For the first time, the owners of these factories had to consider how to organise and control a large amount of labour to achieve organisational goals; • One solution was offered by an engineer by the name of Frederick Winslow Taylor, which has become an important contribution to current day management practice.The context: dramatic industrial change • Brought a number of management problems in the 1880s; • Small factories grew to large plants; • Mass production —wealth for owners of capital; • Worker wages were low; and • Craft based work eroded by machines.The context • High numbers of immigrant labour and exrural people (shift from country to city); • Conflicts emerged between owners and workers; and • Rise in unionism.Management problems • Organisational inefficiencies; • Careless safety; • Arbitrary supervision; • Rising conflict and industrial unrest; and • Specific example: Soldering (worker foot dragging).Enter Taylor • Frederick Winslow Taylor; • Engineer, interested in efficiencies through work measurement and coordination of tasks; • Based on Midvale Steel, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; • Focused on the problems of dividing up labour tasks; • Contemporaries: Gantt, Galbraith.Principles of Scientific Management • Standardised work activity based on measurement and formulae; • Workers are matched to tasks; • Coordination of activities in order to execute a number of related tasks; and • Separation of planning and execution (“Managers should manage and workers work”).Scientific management principles • Science, not rule of thumb; • Harmony, not discord; • Cooperation, not individualism; • Maximum output, not restricted output; and • Development of each man to his greatest efficiency and prosperity (Taylor, 1915:140)Work under Taylorism • Way to organise labour; • Not based on technical superiority; • Focus on division of labour and integration of tasks; • Time and motion studies; • Management as a ‘science’; and • Integration of methods, policies, planning and people.Example of a changed job: supervisor to functional foremen • Gang boss: sets up jobs, kept materials flowing; • Speed boss: picked cutting tools and machine speeds; • Quality control inspector: sets standards; • Repair boss: maintained equipment; • Order of work route clerk: wrote production lists; • Instruction card clerk: tracked job specifications; • Time and cost clerk: kept score; and • Disciplinarian: handled insubordinationInternational impact of scientific management • Not taken up in UK until after WWI. After 1920 widely accepted (Bedaux system); • In Australia impact more gradual. Became central after WWII although resisted by unions.Implications of Taylorism • Separation of skilled and unskilled work; • Narrowed craft based work; • Did improve productivity; • But, problems with boredom, repetition; • Criticised as a means of control; • Argued to promote deskilling; and • Became an important feature of mass production and mechanised production (Fordism, see Topic 6).Scientific management today • Still embedded in mass production (manufacturing); • Pervasive in mass consumption industries (fast food, mass entertainment): – McDonalds; and – Disney. • Increasing in service organisations: – Call centers.Scientific Management today • Division of labour forms the basis of the way in which work is organised; • Still a focus on individual productivity of workers, via implementation of a ‘science of a job’; • Human resource managers still concerned with workplace harmony and fostering cooperation.Braverman’s deskilling thesis • Braverman argues that 3 of Taylor’s principles guided the organisation of work in the post-WW2 period: 1. The work itself should be divorced from the skill and control of the individual worker 2. Manual and mental labour should be separated – managers should monopolise ‘brain work’ 3. Managers should monopolise the knowledge to control the work processLabour process strategies Three basic strategies: • Re-design work to specialise and standardise tasks. This increases the substitutability of workers • Develop and select production technologies that de-skill workers. This makes them vulnerable to lower wages • Make supervision and surveillance simpler to execute. This shifts control from autonomous workers to supervisorsConsequences for workers • Decline in skill (Braverman uses clerical and retail workers as examples) • Loss of control over work • Decreased job security • But, accepted by workers because of generally increasing wage levels, and expansion of consumer-oriented lifestylesCritique • Evidence for universal trend for deskilling is not clear: – Increased education levels – Deskilling of some occupations countered by professionalisation of others (e.g. nursing) – Problems of assessing skill levels • Emphasises common class interests, but ignores labour market competition and divergenceCritique • Managements adopt a range of control strategies: – Direct control (as described by Braverman) – Responsible autonomy (Friedman) where workers exercise discretion within limits (direct control has an economic cost)Critique • Formal rules and procedures do not necessarily reflect reality • Formal rules may give an impression of formal control, but the work itself may depend on employee discretion and ignoring of rulesConclusionCRICOS Provider 00115M Contact THANK YOU THANK YOU INNOVATIVE RESPONSIBLE ENGAGED