MANAGEMENT AND

THE MODERN
CORPORATION
4 – Classical Management Views 2
Overview

 Key definitions
 Frederick Taylor
 Henry Ford
 Taylor and scientific management
 The spread of Taylorism beyond the United States
 Critique of scientific management
 Ford and Fordism
 Modern applications
 Frederick Taylor – Background
 Frederick Taylor (1856–1915) was born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, USA.
 Trained as an apprentice engineer and studied engineering at
night school
 Starting - apprentice, later - foreman and engineer at Midvale
Steel Company (1878–90)
 Plant manager (1890–93)
 Consultant (1893–1901)
 Publicist for his system of scientific management (1901–15).
 Published works are Shop Management (1903) and The
Principles of Scientific Management (1911).
Taylor – claim to fame
 Taylor worked in several factories before becoming a
consultant, installing his premium piece-rate system and
lecturing on what he called the ‘scientific’ study of work:
 Major influences on the development of modern
production management.
 Founder - ‘scientific management’ movement, through
applying systematic, scientific principles and practices to
industry and society.
 For Taylor there was only ‘one best way’ to organise
work and society – and that was his own system.
Concept of ‘systematic soldiering’
 ‘Systematic soldiering’ - the conscious and
deliberate restriction of output by operators.
 Reasons:
1. Workers’ view- increase in output will lead to
redundancies
2. Slow work – self interest – poor management
control
3. Choice of work method – own discretion –
inefficient and untested
Taylor’s objectives
 Efficiency – reduce ‘under working’ & increase
output per worker
 Predictability – of job performance – dividing tasks
into small, standardised subtasks
 Control – discipline through hierarchy and policy
decisions
Taylor’s main contribution
 Taylor built on the principles of division of labour
and extended them into management and
supervisory labour;
 Responsible for theorising the benefits of a
‘managerial division of labour’ or what Littler
(1982) calls the ‘bureaucratisation’ of shop-floor
management.
Taylor’s approach
Analysis –
 job divided into elementary motions

 Discarding non-essential motions

 Determine quickest and least wasteful means of

essential motions
 Describe, record and index these

Synthesis –
 Determine proper sequence of motions

 Optimal recombining of motions

 Presenting information to employees

Scientific approach to Shovelling

1. Select suitable job – variety but not complex – employs

many men
2. Select 2 steady workers
3. Time their actions
4. Use large shovels – heavy material – total amount recorded
5. Shovel size reduced – weight decreased – total amount rises
6. Best weight per shovel determined, correct shovel size
identified
7. Study actual movement of arms and legs
8. Science of shovelling – correct method for each material
and amount which should be shovelled per day
Principles of Scientific
Management
1. To establish a science of production;
2. To select and train workers to achieve the
scientific working of production;
3. To apply such a science to operatives’ tasks;
4. To build cooperation between workers and
management to achieve common goals.
Taylor’s deal :
 “You do it my way, by my standards, at the speed I
mandate, and in so doing achieve a level of output I
ordain, and I’ll pay you handsomely for it, beyond
anything you have imagined. All you have to do is
take orders, give up your way of doing the job for
mine.”
Replaces ‘Initiative and Incentive system’

 Workers given task to perform

 Financial incentives
 Initiative to complete the task
 Which tools to use

 Problems:
1. Craft secrets
2. Agreed production rate – below capacity
3. Non-cooperative
Taylor’s system
 Divide foreman’s task into eight separate functions
dealing with work speed and repairs
 ‘Mental revolution’: more systematic division
between production, planning, recruitment and
selection, and rewarding workers
 ‘Work study’: accurate assessment of
worker performance
 Detailed breakdown and timing of tasks
Functional Foremanship
Merits of Taylorism
 Greater cooperation
 End arbitrary decision making
 Plan and organise work
 Worker motivation
 Mutual gains for employer and employee
 More careful selection of workers
 Concern with friendly supervision
 Criticisms of Taylorism
 Taylor’s limited view of human capability, focused as it is on a strictly
‘economic’ view of human motivation.
 Subjective side of work neglected – personal and interpersonal aspect
 The strict separation of worker and manager, and the polarisation of
mental and manual work.
 The essentially hierarchical (not cooperative) view of knowledge flow
and development.
 Ignored psychological needs, drive to deskill craft workers and
degrade the nature of work (Braverman, 1974).
 Functional foremanship – too complex to understand
 His role as an advocate of the ideological empowerment of
management over workers.
Lecture 2
 Lecture 2
Henry Ford
 Henry Ford was an entrepreneur
 Ford provided a practical example of the benefits (for
consumers) of mass production
 Ford is associated with:
1. the ‘moving assembly line’
2. ‘flow production’
3. the speeding up of production and
4. reducing the costs of production by using capital
equipment and unskilled labour
5. high volumes in order to achieve economies of scale
Fordism: Model T Ford
 The early ford company was associated with one
brand, the model T
 Between 1908 and 1927, ford made over 17 million
model ts – more volume than all the other car
companies’ combined production for the period;
 The model T was cheap, standardised, inflexible
and robust;
 It was the mass-market car.
The Model T: Motorcar for the Great Multitude
Fordism as an industrial process
 Process of breaking down complicated tasks into
simpler and smaller tasks
 skilled workers to be replaced by unskilled 
workers.
 Under mass production, not only the parts were 
interchangeable, so were the assemblers.
 Division of labor was carried to the ultimate
extreme, simplifying once complicated tasks to the
nth degree.
Standardisation
 Standardization- hallmark of Ford system
 standardize components, manufacturing process
and repair
 This required nearly perfect interchangeability of
parts 
 Fordize "to standardize a product and manufacture
it by mass means at a price so low that the common
man can afford to buy it"
Single-Purpose Machine
 Single – purpose machines called ‘Farmer
Machines’
 No skilled operators required, only fast workers
Significant Innovation 
  Introduction of a moving assembly line
 This significantly sped up the output
 lowered average production costs,
 Profitable sale of less expensive vehicles
Assembly line
 Each assembler performed a single repetitive task
within the line
 The assembly line force workers to work at a certain
pace with very repetitive motions which led to more
output per worker 
 The practice of moving the work from one worker to
another until it became a complete unit
 then arranging the flow of these units at the right time
and right place to a moving final assembly 
line from which came a finished product.
Assembling Cars before Ford
Ford’s Assembly Line: 1910
Ford’s Assembly Line
Assembly Line
Assembly Line

Joining
Engines to
Frames,
1914,
Highland
Park
Ford’s Highland Park Factory
Highland Park Plant
Transformation from craft-based to mass production

 Fordism displaced predominantly craft-based

production in which skilled laborers exercised
substantial control over their conditions of work
 This helped create the market as we know it, based
on economies of scale and scope, and give rise to
giant organizations built upon functional
specialization and minute division of labour
The Workforce
Key elements
 Distinctive division of labor
 Highly standardized parts and components
 Machines are arranged in the correct sequence
required for manufacturing a product
 Various parts and process are linked together by an
assembly line
Achievements
 1913 – 90 mins for car assembly
 1914 – 13000 workers produced 267,720 cars
(other car companies – 66000 workers produced
287,770 cars)
 1920 – 1 car per minute
 1925 – 1 car every 10 seconds
Problems with the Human Element of Production

 Taylor’s methods claimed higher rates of efficiency

than Ford achieved.
 Ford discovered his “labor problems.”
 absenteeism: 10% a day
 high quit rate (300% turnover in 1913)
 soldiering and output restriction
 unionism
 immigrant culture
Problems associated
 ‘speed-up king’
 Monotonous job – 1913 – hit by turn over
 70% workers - ‘5 day men’

Solutions:
 Work hours reduced from 9 to 8

 Doubled minimum wage from $2.5 to $ 5 a day

 Absenteeism reduced from 10% to 0.5%

Five Dollar Day: 1914
 Prevailing auto worker wage was $2.40 /day
 Ford promises $5.00/day if one ‘qualified.’
 How did one qualify? Through an investigation of
one’s home life by the “Sociological Department.”
 Marriage proved
 “Good home conditions”
 Good personal habits
 Demonstrated thrift
 If single, must be age 22, for ‘profits’
Ford’s work
 Ford built on and extended Taylorism
 He took the ideas of task simplification through an
extended division of labour by breaking down the
production process into thousands of separate
actions performed by detailed workers, called
‘operatives’ or assemblers
 However, Ford did not use piece rates
Ford’s work
 Both payment and production are decided centrally.
 High day rates (wages) came to symbolise Ford
factories and ‘Fordism’, for, as Ford noted, ‘high
wages make bigger markets’.
 linking of worker to consumer:
Ford recognised the need to ensure workers had
sufficient wages to buy his products
 Foundation of today’s society - system of mass
production, high wages and mass consumption
Criticisms to Fordism
 Destroyed craftsmanship and deskilled jobs.
 Short-cycle repetitive work – worker alienation and
stress
 Assembly line – invisible control line
 Difference between Taylorism & Fordism

Taylorism Fordism
Approach to Organised labour Eliminated labour
machinery around existing with new machinery
machinery
Technology and work Took production Used technology to
design process as given and mechanize the work
sought to re-organise processes, workers
work and labour fed and tended
processes machines
Pace of work Set by his workers or Set by machinery –
his supervisor the speed of assembly
line
Lecture 3
 Lecture 3
THE MCDONALDIZATION OF SOCIETY
- GEORGE RITZER

Definition: the process by which the principles of the fast-food

restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of
American society as well as of the rest of the world.
Origins of McDonaldization
 Max Weber’s concept of rationalization which is a
sociological term that simply means the substitution
of logically consistent rules for traditional (or
illogical) rules.
 Henry Ford was the first McDonaldization pioneer
with his vision of an assembly line for improving the
production of automobiles. His revolutionary idea
dramatically changed how many automobiles could
be produced and was very efficient.
The process of McDonaldization
 Take a task and break it down into smaller tasks.
 This is repeated until all tasks have been broken down
to the smallest possible level.
 The resulting tasks are then rationalized to find the
single most efficient method for completing each task.
 All other methods are then deemed inefficient and
discarded.
The result of McDonaldization
 An efficient, logical sequence of methods that can be
completed the same way every time to produce the
desired outcome.
 The outcome is predictable.
 All aspects of the process are easily controlled.
 Additionally, quantity (or calculability) becomes the
measurement of good performance.
Four Main Dimensions of McDonaldization

1. Efficiency
2. Calculability
3. Predictability
4. Control
Efficiency
 The optimum method of completing a task. The
rational determination of the best mode of
production.
 Individuality is not allowed.
 In a McDonaldized society, efficiency is thrust
upon a person, so instead of choosing your own
methods of efficiency, you are forced to accept the
efficiency of the surrounding institutions.
Calculability
 Assessment of outcomes based on quantifiable rather
than subjective criteria.
 Quantity over quality.
 Ritzer goes on to point out that this emphasis leads to
the erroneous conclusion that more is better.
 If there is a lot of a product then it must be good.
This is why we "super size" our "Double" Big Mac
"extra" value meal. It is thought of as a better
product.
Predictability
 The production process is organized to guarantee
uniformity of product and standardized outcomes.
 All shopping malls begin to look the same and all
highway exits have the same assortment of
businesses.
 This has a two-fold effect.
 It makes the experience of the consumer the same at every
location of a McDonaldized company.
 It also makes the work routine for the employees of that
company.
Control
 The substitution of more predictable non-human
labor for human labor, either through automation or
the deskilling of the work force.
 Ritzer's focus involves control through the
substitution of non-human for human technology.
 By making tasks repetitive and forcing employees
not to think, employers can maintain a tighter control
over them.
Advantages of McDonaldization
 Wider range of good and services available to more
people in more places
 Able to get what you want instantly and
conveniently
 Goods and services are far more uniform and
consistent
 Far more economical
 People have less time efficiency helps
Irrationality
 A side effect of over-rationalized systems. Ritzer
himself hints that this is the fifth dimension of
McDonaldization.
 An example of this could be workers on an assembly
line that are hired and trained to perform a single
highly rationalized task.
 Although this may be a very efficient method of
operating a business, an irrationality that is spawned
can be worker burnout.
Deskilling
 A work force with the minimum abilities possible
to complete simple focused tasks.
 This means that they can be quickly and cheaply
trained and are easily replaceable.
 They can get McJobs but can they do anything
else?
Consumer Workers
 One of the sneakiest things about McDonaldization is
how consumers get tricked into becoming unpaid
employees.
 They do the work that was traditionally performed by
the company.
 The prime example of this is diners who bus their
own tables at the fast food restaurant.
 They dutifully carry their trash to friendly receptacles
marked "thank you."
 The extreme rationalization of this is the drive-thru;
consumers take their trash with them!
 Other examples are many and include: ATM's, salad bars,
automated telephone menus, and pumping gas.
Other Applications
Seen in
 Education

 Work

 criminal justice

 health care

 travel and leisure

 dieting
Further Reading
 Buchanan & Huczynski (7th edition), Chapter 14
 Rosenfeld & Wilson (2nd edition), pp. 11–12
 Handouts given
 Past Questions
 Critically discuss the main features of Taylorism, and how it influenced Fordism and
McDonaldization. (2013) or
 Critically assess the view that McDonaldisation is merely a logical extension of
Scientific Management. (2006)
 Critically analyze how the rise of modern management and its three crucial processes
relate to the work of Taylor and Ford. Provide a comparative analysis of their
perspectives. (2012)
 Based on the work of Taylor and Ford and their common principles, identify and
critically analyze the use of classical management techniques in the service sector.
Support your arguments with appropriate examples from one or a few modern
companies of your choice. (2011)
 Outline the main principles of classical management thinkers, such as Fayol and
Taylor, and critically evaluate their relevance to management in the contemporary
business environment. (2009,2010) or
 Outline the main principles of writers such as Fayol and Taylor and critically evaluate
the classical conception of management in the light of more modern views. (2005)
Thank you