1. Converse on the applicability of F.W.

Taylor 's Scientific Management

Theory to Public Administration

F.W. Taylor's study on how work was performed showed how the worker's productivity was
greatly affected. That is why his philosophy focused on the belief that making people work as
hard as they could was not as efficient as optimizing the way the work was done. This is highly
related to public administration in the sense that workers or employees that are pushed to work
hard usually does not generate great results.

This is in contrast with his principle that by optimizing and simplifying jobs, productivity would
increase. He also advanced the idea that workers and managers needed to cooperate with one
another. He believed that workers were motivated by money, so he prompted the idea of a "fair
day's pay for a fair day's work." In other words, if a worker did not achieve enough in a day, he
didn't deserve to be paid as much as another worker who was highly productive.

Furthermore, his theory promotes the idea that there is "one right way" to do something. As
such, it is at odds with current approaches such as continuous improvement initiatives. This
promote individual responsibility, and seek to push decision making through all levels of the
organization. The idea here is that workers are given as much autonomy as practically possible,
so that they can use the most appropriate approaches for the situation at hand. What's more,
front line workers need to show this sort of flexibility in a rapidly-changing environment. Rigid,
rules-driven organizations really struggle to adapt in these situations.

Teamwork is another area where pure Taylorism is in opposition to current practice. Essentially,
Taylorism breaks tasks down into tiny steps, and focuses on how each person can do his or her
specific series of steps best. Modern methodologies prefer to examine work systems more
holistically in order to evaluate efficiency and maximize productivity. The extreme specialization
that Taylorism promotes is contrary to modern ideals of how to provide a motivating and
satisfying workplace.

Where Taylorism separates manual from mental work, modern productivity enhancement
practices seek to incorporate worker's ideas, experience and knowledge into best practice.
Scientific management in its pure form focuses too much on the mechanics, and fails to value
the people side of work, whereby motivation and workplace satisfaction are key elements in an
efficient and productive organization.

2. Drawbacks of Taylorism

The following mentioned are a few limitations or disadvantages of scientific management.

1. Requires huge capital:

The theory requires an investment of huge capital and consider as a costly system. The
establishment of work study, planning department, training of workers, and standardization
requires more money.

2. Management takes control:

The management takes complete responsibility related to the control and planning of workplace
activities. Since the managers take up control of the employees, they lack creativity, another
reason for this is that since they repeat the same task, their chore is meaningless, monotonous,
and tedious which reduces employee motivation.

3. Planning reduces productivity:

Though the capability to plan is an advantage, the downside of planning is that it makes work
inflexible and rigid and may lead to carelessness and dissatisfaction. This directed to less
productivity.

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4. Demotivating approach:
With the application of the scientific approach of management, the employees focused on how
well they perform their job and their statistics and results produced along with a time frame.
With this result, the employees may feel underestimated and also feel alienated which may
direct them to absenteeism.

5. Overly bureaucratic:
Over bureaucratic activity may be a major disadvantage in any organization. A bureaucratic and
strict organization may make the employees feel dissatisfied and this may lead to high staff
turnover rates and may affect productivity.

New staff must be trained to adapt to new changes in the sector which leads to wastage of
productivity time.

6. Mechanistic:
The theory follows a specific approach for organizations and the employers gain control over
the workers. This activity makes work mechanistic and treats workers like machines.

The theory focuses on efficiency, where workers viewed as robots to speed up work. The
workers lose skill level and autonomy work level; they aren’t beneficial for state of the art
working conditions.

7. Not suitable for teams:

Scientific management theory doesn’t work fruitful for teams and groups as they have the
capability to abuse and exploit human beings which may lead to conflicts. There is no scope for
individual preference with this theory.

Functional foremanship followed by Taylor, where the workers required to report to eight
bosses. In this way, the unity of command broken, where the worker needs to report to just
one boss. When there is no unity of command, there is confusion and disorder in the
organization.

8. Work division:
By applying scientific management theory there is a separation of work such as in planning any
function and executing them. Since management takes complete responsibility, there is a
reduction in workers’ role in rigid and adherence procedures where the workers have no idea.

9. Avoids bargaining:
Since the scientific approach follows the piece work pay system, there is no chance for any
realistic bargaining regarding the wage rates, as the tasks timed, measured and rated
scientifically.

10. Loss:
There are more chances for financial loss as there are more changes that take place within the
organization.

3. Is there a merit system in the structural arrangement of Taylor? Support

your answer.

The merit system in Taylor's structural arrangement provided incentives to the worker's hard
work. With the theory piecework pay system follow, where payment is monitored based on
piecework. Here incentives are considered to enhance productivity and provide high wages for
employees. With higher productivity, there is an increase in wages for employees. The
differential incentive plan provides higher wages to efficient workers. In this way, the standard
of living of the employees made better.

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The amount of time taken by the worker is of paramount importance in deciding how much he
is going to be paid, yet this system is independent of such constraints and time is not a factor
at all. The worker is free to take as much time as he thinks he needs in order to complete the
task so as to do it to the best of his ability and produce the best results.
With such system the workers never procrastinate; they simply work hard and try to earn as
much money as they can for their products. This payment system is not necessarily based on
the unit of work which is complete or product-wise, it can also be in terms of when a job is
completed entirely. If the workers fail to complete the task or give up midway then they will not
receive any payment amount at all.

One of the biggest and major advantages of this system is that it helps to increase the
efficiency of the employees keeping them busy all the time.

They are well aware of the fact that them getting paid or not is dependent on their own work
output. If they fail to work efficiently and quickly then that is going to bring about their own
downfall.

Having such efficient workers in the company not only ensures that the work is done quickly but
it also ensures that the company rises from strength to strength slowly making its way to the
top.

4. Relevance of the system approach to public administration

The Systems Approach to public administration looks at a business in the same way. We can
think of an organization as a series of systems and subsystems that interact with one another to
create the overall organizational system. In businesses, a system refers to a cohesive collection
of resources, activities and information.

Systems theory can be found everywhere in our world. We see it in science and medicine,
where it has been used to better understand the human body. In the business world, it is used
to improve the performance and results of businesses.

In the Systems Approach to public administration, employees are more focused on achieving a
collective goal for an organization rather than operational output.

Understanding how an organization functions is important for managers who are involved in
strategic planning. They need to know how various departments work together and affect each
other. This is where the systems theory of organization is very helpful. It allows managers and
other decision-makers to look at things like organizational change and organizational
development from a broader perspective.

Looking at the big picture instead of looking just at the individual functions and aspects of an
organization can be a valuable tool for those who need to make changes in an organization or
who want to implement new initiatives within their businesses.

Lastly, with large, multi-stakeholder projects, a systems approach allows for clear planning and
delegation from the outset. It helps managers account for the interdependence between
different verticals in an organization and assign ownership to achieve collective goals.

5. Comparison between Taylor's Scientific Management Theory and Mayo's

Hawthorne result in terms of :
● Structural Arrangemt
Rather than simply assigning workers to just one job, this theory urges managers to match
workers to their jobs based on capbility and motivation and train them to work. Unlike with
Hawthorne's principle whereinstructural arrangement of workers were highly respinsive to
additional attention from their managers and the feeling that their managers actually cared

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about and were interested in their work. In this sense, workers are encouraged to be more
efficient thus resulting to promotion.

● Merit system of workers in Taylorism is generally based on the piecework done.

Employees with higher productivity will be rewarded with higher wages. While in
Hawthorne's principle, social factors are important drivers of worker incetives not just
financial incentives, especially when the workers feel their workis values and appreciated
by their managers.
● Taylor's strict implementation of scientific work settingis keenly observed. Work input is
almost mechanical and has specific instructions for which the workers must perform.
Mostly, it is of repetitive work which most workers find it stagnant anf uninteresting in
the long run. Meanwhile in Hawthorne's effect as applied in the work setting has an
impact on productivity. Workers tend to be more enthusiastic and efficient in their
respective tasks when they know they are being merited or appreciated. With the
application of this principle, the work system will definitely improve thus achieving the
company's goals.
● Productivity and efficiency of Taylorism is influenced by financial merit received by
workers after high productivity rate while productivity and efficiency in Hawthorne's
principle is increased as workers achieved job satisfaction thru improvement on their
work situation. Logical factors were fare less important than emotional factors in
determining productivity.

References
Maheshwari, S. (2002). Human Relations Theory of Organization. In S. Maheshwari, A
Dictionary of Public Administration (pp. 261-262). Orient Blackswan.
Moss Wigfall, P., & Kalantari, B. (2001). Taylor, Frederick Winslow. In P. Moss Wigfall, & B.
Kalantari, Biographical Dictionary of Public Administration (pp. 132-133). Greenwood Publishing
Group.
O’ Brian, B. (2008). Structuralist Theory of Bureaucracy. In O. B. Booth, Canadian Political
Structure and Public Administration (p. 108). Emond Montgomery Publication.
Papesh, M. E. (n.d.). Frederick Winslow Taylor.

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