Source: Griffin R.W.

, Management, parts of Chapter 2

The Classical Management Perspective
At the dawn of the twentieth century, the preliminary ideas and writings of these and other
managers and theorists converged with the emergence and evolution of large-scale businesses
and management practices to create interest and focus attention on how businesses should be
operated. The first important ideas to emerge are now called the classical management
perspective. This perspective actually includes two different viewpoints: scientific
management and administrative management.
Scientific Management
Productivity emerged as a serious business problem during the first few years of this century.
Business was expanding and capital was readily available, but labor was in short supply. Hence,
managers began to search for ways to use existing labor more efficiently. In response to this
need, experts began to focus on ways to improve the performance of individual workers. Their
work led to the development of scientific management. Some of the earliest advocates of
scientific management included Frederick W. Taylor (1856–1915), Frank Gilbreth (1868–
1924), Lillian Gilbreth (1878–1972), Henry Gantt (1861–1919), and Harrington Emerson
(1853–1931).12 Taylor played the dominant role.
One of Taylor’s first jobs was as a foreman at the Midvale Steel Company in Philadelphia. It
was there that he observed what he called soldiering—employees deliberately working at a
pace slower than their capabilities. Taylor studied and timed each element of the steelworkers’
jobs. He determined what each worker should be producing, and then he designed the most
efficient way of doing each part of the overall task. Next he implemented a piecework pay
system. Rather than paying all employees the same wage, he began increasing the pay of each
worker who met and exceeded the target level of output set for his or her job.

Frederick Taylor developed this system of scientific management, which he believed would
lead to a more efficient and productive
workforce. Bethlehem Steel was among the first organizations to profit from scientific
management and still practices some parts of
it today.

After Taylor left Midvale, he worked as a consultant for several companies, including Simonds
Rolling Machine Company and Bethlehem Steel. At Simonds he studied and redesigned jobs,
introduced rest periods to reduce fatigue, and implemented a piecework pay system. The results
were higher quality and quantity of output, and improved morale. At Bethlehem Steel, Taylor
studied efficient ways of loading and unloading railcars and applied his conclusions with
equally impressive results. During these experiences, he formulated the basic ideas that he
called “scientific management.” Figure 2.2 illustrates the basic steps Taylor suggested. He
believed that managers who followed his guidelines would improve the efficiency of their
workers.
Taylor’s work had a major impact on U.S. industry. By applying his principles, many
organizations achieved major gains in efficiency. Taylor was not without his detractors,
however. Labor argued that scientific management was just a device to get more work from
each employee and to reduce the total number of workers needed by a firm. There was a
congressional investigation into Taylor’s ideas, and evidence suggests that he falsified some of
his findings.14 Nevertheless, Taylor’s work left a lasting imprint on business.
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, contemporaries of Taylor, were a husband-and-wife team of
industrial engineers. One of Frank Gilbreth’s most interesting contributions was to the craft of
bricklaying. After studying bricklayers at work, he developed several procedures for doing the
job more efficiently. For example, he specified standard materials and techniques, including
the positioning of the bricklayer, the bricks, and the mortar at different levels. The results of
these changes were a reduction from 18 separate physical movements to five and an increase
in output of about 200 percent. Lillian Gilbreth made equally important contributions to several
different areas of work, helped shape the field of industrial psychology, and made substantive
contributions to the field of personnel management.
Working individually and together, the Gilbreths developed numerous techniques and
strategies for eliminating inefficiency. They applied many of their ideas to their family and
documented their experiences raising 12 children in the book and original 1950 movie Cheaper
by the Dozen.
Henry Gantt, another contributor to scientific management, was an associate of Taylor at
Midvale, Simonds, and Bethlehem Steel. Later, working alone, he developed other techniques
for improving worker output. One, called the “Gantt chart,” is still used today. A Gantt chart
is essentially a means of scheduling work and can be generated for each worker or for a
complex project as a whole. Gantt also refined Taylor’s ideas about piecework pay systems.
Like Taylor, the Gilbreths, and Gantt, Harrington Emerson was a management consultant. He
made quite a stir in 1910 when he appeared before the Interstate Commerce Commission to
testify about a rate increase requested by the railroads. As an expert witness, Emerson asserted
that the railroads could save $1 million a day by using scientific management. He was also a
strong advocate of specialized management roles in organizations, believing that job
specialization was as relevant to managerial work as it was to operating jobs.

Source: www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/principles-of-management
The classical scientific branch arose because of the need to increase productivity and
efficiency. The emphasis was on trying to find the best way to get the most work done by
examining how the work process was actually accomplished and by scrutinizing the skills of
the workforce.
The classical scientific school owes its roots to several major contributors, including Frederick
Taylor, Henry Gantt, and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.
Frederick Taylor is often called the “father of scientific management.” Taylor believed that
organizations should study tasks and develop precise procedures. As an example, in 1898,
Taylor calculated how much iron from rail cars Bethlehem Steel plant workers could be
unloading if they were using the correct movements, tools, and steps. The result was an
amazing 47.5 tons per day instead of the mere 12.5 tons each worker had been averaging. In
addition, by redesigning the shovels the workers used, Taylor was able to increase the length
of work time and therefore decrease the number of people shoveling from 500 to 140. Lastly,
he developed an incentive system that paid workers more money for meeting the new standard.
Productivity at Bethlehem Steel shot up overnight. As a result, many theorists followed
Taylor's philosophy when developing their own principles of management.
Henry Gantt, an associate of Taylor's, developed the Gantt chart, a bar graph that measures
planned and completed work along each stage of production. Based on time instead of quantity,
volume, or weight, this visual display chart has been a widely used planning and control tool
since its development in 1910.
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, a husband‐and‐wife team, studied job motions. In Frank's early
career as an apprentice bricklayer, he was interested in standardization and method study. He
watched bricklayers and saw that some workers were slow and inefficient, while others were
very productive. He discovered that each bricklayer used a different set of motions to lay bricks.
From his observations, Frank isolated the basic movements necessary to do the job and
eliminated unnecessary motions. Workers using these movements raised their output from
1,000 to 2,700 bricks per day. This was the first motion study designed to isolate the best
possible method of performing a given job. Later, Frank and his wife Lillian studied job
motions using a motion‐picture camera and a split‐second clock. When her husband died at the
age of 56, Lillian continued their work.
Thanks to these contributors and others, the basic ideas regarding scientific management
developed. They include the following:
 Developing new standard methods for doing each job
 Selecting, training, and developing workers instead of allowing them to choose their
own tasks and train themselves
 Developing a spirit of cooperation between workers and management to ensure that
work is carried out in accordance with devised procedures
 Dividing work between workers and management in almost equal shares, with each
group taking over the work for which it is best fitted