TAYLORS SCIENTIFIC

MANAGEMENT THEORY: A
SUMMARY
I.

Introduction

Taylors Place in History

Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915), a engineer and machinist by training and practice,
characterised by a strong work-centred morality, enormous self-discipline and keen
awareness of socio-economic problems of his time, is regarded as the father of
scientific management. With his abilities, Taylor above any other single individual systematized and boosted American industrial production in the early 1900s
(incidentally, Taylor was the co-inventor of high-speed steel that increased machine
speeds by 200-400%). During the 1880s and 1890s he incrementally developed a
variety of techniques that become known as scientific management or the Taylor
system. Viewed as a theory of organisational effectiveness, it included determining
the one best way to perform - and to train workers in - narrowly defined and
systematised tasks and was essentially a prescriptive theory for motivating,
directing and controlling work performance. Taylor was the first to comprehensively
introduce the scientific method into a constant, consistent practice of management
which was quickly adopted not only by his fellow Americans, but also by
industrialists in Europe, Japan and Leninist Russia. It was novel the way Taylor fused
existing concepts into a unique management theory shaped by his own ideological
biases.

Taylors Social and Institutional Context

Taylors ideas were shaped by three conditions creating near-total confusion in
American industry - absence of middle managers and technical support staffs to
ensure systematic planning, inability of managers to exercise effective control over
employee productivity and increasing labour unrest and conflict. Taylor was also
troubled with the way American society was in terms of poverty, class conflict and
constraints on social mobility as it related to advanced industrialization. These
characteristics helped define Taylors social and institutional context in which
scientific management was developed.
Scientific management which was given purpose and coherence by Taylors deeply
felt social philosophy - was partly his solution to these problems. He essentially
argued that eliminating waste was both a moral duty and the key to economic
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prosperity and social harmony. Although both capitalists and socialists thought
Taylors remedy hopelessly naive, by 1911 after a highly publicised series of
hearings (Eastern Rate Case) regarding railroads rates, scientific management
dramatically caught the attention of the American public, becoming a household
word and no less than a social movement.

Taylor and Weber: Contemporary Theorists Compared and

Contrasted
Difference in analytical focus
Taylor
Max Weber
Organisations shop floor
Organisations administrative structure
Similarities in their work
Approach that is rationalistic / reason based.
Organisational structure is key to control.
Premise of organisational efficiency is the systematic control of physical and
human resources to produce goods and services with wondrous precision.

II.

Components of the Taylor System

Taylor espoused that each and every component of his system was essential to
achieving the goal of higher output and lower labour costs and as such should be
holistically adopted and carefully implemented in a prescribed way. He would
request from his clients 3-5 years to complete a customised conversion to scientific
management. As described below, the components represented a basic
implementing model for scientific management.

1. Systemization of the Production Process

This component of the Taylor system entails that the entire production process/line
should be laid out in sequential steps in the production process. Machines or
workers are grouped to perform the same task in the same section, overlooked by a
foreman. This element of the system further entails the development of charts to
track progress through each step of the production process.

2. Systemization of Tools
This component proposed that a systemize tools room should be established and a
specialist be charged with the responsibility of maintenance, storage, accountability
and distribution of tools to the workers according to their task.

3. Standardization of Work
Determining the best way of performing a task and communicating it to workers
through training and daily written instructions were involved in this component and
were facilitated by the two elements:

a. Task setting. The process of defining what workers are expected to do and
how long it should take to do it.
b. Time study. A three step process involving the use of a stopwatch to make
determinations on the standard time for each work element of the task.
By design, tasks were standardised at levels where only the strongest, quickest or
most dexterous tended to survive.

4. Wage Incentive System

Taylor developed a differential piece rate system that promised a high wage for a
timely and high quality completed task and a lower, punitive wage for any
production quantity and quality below scientifically determined levels. This rather
severe system was based on essentially a pessimistic view of the workers nature.

5. Functional Foremanship
Once the tools, methods and processes were standardised and incentive systems
put in place, the Taylor system charged managers with enforcing the natural laws
of production. This was to be fulfilled through a functional type group of 8 different
and specialised foreman or managers who were responsible for all the daily
specialised management and supervisory work.

III.

Taylors Implicit Theory of Organisational

Effectiveness

Taylors seminal work Principles of Scientific Management (1911) identified four

basic principles:
1.
2.
3.
4.

The development of a true science (i.e. the natural laws of production)

The scientific selection of the workman
The workmans scientific education and development
Intimate friendly cooperation between management and the men (i.e. a
mutually beneficial division of labor)

Effectiveness for Taylor is defined primarily in terms of productivity and total output
and implicit in those four basic principles are six concepts that define his underlying
theory of organisational effectiveness.

Taylors Defining Concepts for his Implicit Theory of

Organisational Effectiveness
1 Task Specialization. Taylor believed narrowly divided work provided the
basis for efficient task performance, cheap labor and sidelining of what he
deemed overrated and unscientific craft expertise.
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2 Work Standardization. As long as the one best way was determined, this
became the standard operating procedure and performance standard to fulfill
efficient task performance. Consistency and predictability, depersonalization of
authority relationships and a foundation for use of motivating economic rewards
were the three promised benefits of this concept.

3 Economic rewards. Regardless of other motivating factors, Taylor believed

that individual economic incentives were the best way to achieve maximum
output, purchase cooperation and destroy unproductive group solidarity.

4 Performance

measurement. More than a management tool for

monitoring performance based on factual data, Taylors performance
measurement systems determined wages, productivity and cost accounting as
integral to human and institutional control.

5.6 Centralised Planning and Control.

At the core of scientific
management theory is the idea that operations are to be centrally planned and
intensely and exclusively controlled by experts using scientific methods
completely out of the hands of the unknowledgeable and unwilling workers.

Overview of Taylors Implicit Theory

In this theory, management is in full control as these six concepts represent a topdown, control-oriented management approach. Historically, scientific management
was unquestionably successful in increasing global industrial production in the early
20th century. And today, because of its inherent logic, the influence of Taylors
theory continues on management thought and practice. Inevitably, criticisms have
followed Taylors theory.

IV.

CRITICISMS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT THEORY

Scientific management has been criticized from its inception to present on both its
theoretical premises and effects of its practical application.

Workers robbed of human dignity

It is clear that severe pressures were put on the employees to perform as fast as
possible like machines, or specifically in Taylors view like cogs in the industrial
machine. Critics saw this characterization and consequent treatment as
dehumanizing and enslaving to workers, robbing them of autonomy and personal
dignity. Nevertheless, Taylors metaphor of organizations running as well-oiled
machines is a powerful, abiding and influential management idea today.
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Hostile to values and goals of organised labour

Contrary to Taylors promise of industrial and social harmony, what actually
materialized was a counterattack from labour leaders who viewed scientific
management as a new system of authority and control that dehumanized workers,
greatly reduced workers involvement in management decisions and one that
threatened the very existence of unions. After all, the one best way reduced scope
for collective bargaining, reduced the work force, threatened to destroy trade and
craft unions and deprived workers of initiative and sense of achievement.
Interesting, after Taylors death, scientific management followers became foremost
advocates of union-management cooperation.

Scientific Management as Pseudoscience

Taylor's scientific management theory was criticized as not being an exact science,
therefore pseudoscience, a mere theory tainted in practice by value judgments,
questionable inferences and measurement errors, particularly in its highly
subjective methods used in selecting workers, carrying out time studies and task
setting. Critics noted that if the one best way cannot be scientifically determined,
then it undermines other key aspects of the theory such as exclusion of workers in
policy and operational decisions.

Obsession with Control - at expense of human needs

Taylors introduction of scientific management to the workplace attempted to gain
control over the worker. Taylor, obsessed with control wanted to develop one best
way to perform tasks, and to standardize that way using the best tool to perform
the task, even if this meant disregarding the needs of workers. He gave much
importance to efficiency and did not consider basic human needs workers had to
work at their quickest speeds.

Scientific Management in the Public Sector US Case

Study
The early 20th century saw progressive reformers using scientific management as a
means of reducing corruption and waste in the US government. In the factory, the
goal was to increase productivity, in the public service it was to improve the
responsiveness to public demand. With that aim, leaders in several US cities worked
to systematize and standardize government operations. The result was the
introduction of numerous innovations spanning administrative, monitoring and
evaluation, research and policy areas that soon become standard features of US
public management. This interest spread quickly to the state and federal levels with
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various commissions established to improve the public service at the federal, state
and local government levels.

Scientific Management Theory in Perspective

When scientific management as a top-down, control-oriented management
approach is viewed as a set of value-laden ideas rather than value-neutral methods,
it appears much less progressive. The logical consequences resulting from its
ubiquitous principle that everything can and should be controlled has provided
much fodder for critics.
After the prevalent view of scientific management changed from being modern and
progressive to being a nostrum, advocates of scientific management were willing to
separate Taylors core components from his personal and philosophical prejudices
and limitations. These same core concepts continue to be regarded by many today
as important contributors to organizational performance and can be seen as an
influence on planning to quality control.

Relevance for Public Management

The relevance of scientific management theory for public management and agency
performance is explored using three analytical frameworks:

Framework 1: Models of Organisational Effectiveness

(Adapted from Robert Quinn and John Rohrbaugh Spatial Model of Effectiveness
Criteria,1983)
Identifying scientific management within framework
Relevant Framework Component
Correlation with scientific
management
1. Rational Goal Model
a. Centralised planning and goal
a. Means: planning and goal setting
setting
b. Ends: efficiency and productivity
b. Every aspect of work must be
designed to increase output
2. Internal Process Model
Maximize predictability by
a. Means: formal communication,
systematizing internal
information management to
processes, routinizing work,
ensure rational and predictable
monitoring work performance.
execution of work processes.
b. Ends: stability and control
Analysis of Relevance for public management
Areas of Relevance
Constraints to Relevance
1. Contribution to
Troubling emphasis and focus on goal attainment and
development and
integrative functions because:
use of information
1. The adaptive function may be neglected even
management in
though public managers function in turbulent and
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management
practice.
2. Important values
of efficiency,
productivity and
predictability

politicised environments where change is

constant.
2. Efficiency and productivity may be achieved at
expense of openness, trust and social cohesion
which limits the theorys relevance.

Framework 2: Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work

Activities
(Based on Henry Mintzbergs Structures in Fives, 1993)
Identifying scientific management within framework
Relevant Framework Component
Correlation with scientific
management
1. Standardisation of work processes
1.
Task Specialisation
2. Standardisation of work outputs
2.
Work Standardisation
Analysis of Relevance for public management
Areas of Relevance
Constraints to Relevance
1. Theoretically, use of impersonal
1.
Work process standardisation is
controls reduces conflict between
limited in government work
supervisors and workers.
environment of ambiguity,
2. Standardisation of work processes
uncertainty and is complex, nonmost relevant to production
routine and highly discretionary.
agencies.
2.
Many public agencies cannot
3. Standardisation of work outputs
satisfy the criterion of observable
more relevant to complex and
outputs and outcomes for effective
high discretionary tasks.
use of work outputs
4. Standardisation of work outputs
standardisation.
often mandated for government
3.
Standardisation of work outputs
use, under the banner managing
can lead to steering behaviours
for results.
towards easily measurable results
while neglecting those that are
not.

Framework 3: Strategies of Motivation

(Based on Daniel Katz and Robert Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organisations,
1966)
Identifying scientific management within framework
Relevant Framework
Correlation with scientific management
Component
1. Instrumental rewards
Economic rewards (i.e. Pay Bonuses)
strategy Rewards for
Performance
2. Legal compliance strategy
Expectation of workers to render prompt
obedience because of formal authority and
nature of the orders / instructions to encompass
the natural laws of production.
Analysis of Relevance for public management
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Areas of Relevance
1. Pay-for-performance
incentives especially
in agencies whose
outcomes are readily
observable and
measurable
(production and
craft agencies).

Constraints to Relevance
1. Some public agencies would not have the
authority to offer bonuses.
2. Difficulty in developing fair and accurate
performance appraisal systems.
3. Greater use of extrinsic rewards can lead to
greater decrease in intrinsic motivation.
4. Reflects a pessimistic view of human nature.

Conclusion
Scientific management can be understood in a variety of ways.
First, viewed as an implicit theory of organisational effectiveness, several important
principles can be applied to public management and organisational performance elimination of waste; rational basis for management; standardisation of work and
economic rewards.
Secondly, as a general business orientation, scientific management is a way of
doing things that has relevance and value for all organisations, transcending it
original factory setting. This would entail systematising operations, reducing waste,
researching better ways of doing things and using performance data to keep focus.
This is in keeping with good management practice and is therefore of much use to
public agencies.
Thirdly and more controversial is the perspective as a prescriptive, value-laden
theory of management with its inherent distrust of human motives and insistence
on orderliness and control. Many feel that scientific management in this light
ultimately robs the organisation of the full value of its human resources and
undermines its adaptive capacity.
In conclusion, because of the complex, ambiguous and uncertain nature of the
public agencys environment, the top-down, control-oriented approach of scientific
management may have limited relevance for public agencies.