BUSM 4185

Introduction to Management
The Evolution of Management
Online Review

- Division of Labour
- Industrial Revolution

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Scientific Management
The formal study of management started in 1911 when
Frederick Winslow Taylor, who is considered as the first
efficiency expert, published his book: “Principles of Scientific
Management”

Frederick W. Taylor
(1856-1915)
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Taylorism
Taylorism is the process of determining the division of work
into its smallest possible skill elements, and how the process
of completing each task can be standardised to achieve
maximum efficiency. In his book Taylor present 5 principles:
• Maximum job fragmentation
• Separate planning and doing
• Separate direct and indirect labour
• Minimisation of skill requirements
• Minimisation of handling components and materials

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Taylorism today
1. Develop a science for each element of an individual’s work with
standardised work implements and efficient methods for all to follow
2. Scientifically select workers with skills and abilities that match each job
and train them in the most efficient ways to accomplish tasks
3. Ensure cooperation through incentives and provide the work
environment that reinforces optimal work results in a scientific manner
4. Divide responsibility for managing and for working, while supporting
individuals in work groups doing what they do best. Some people are
more capable of managing, whereas others are better at performing
tasks laid out for them

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Scientific Management - Henry Ford
An American industrialist and the
founder of the Ford Motor
Company.
Ford was the first to introduce
the assembly line approach with
use of similar components in
order to achieve cost effective
mass production of cars.

(1863 – 1947)

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Fordism
Henry Ford had ambitions to build a motorcar that would be
affordable to a great number of people, which he believed
could be achieved by changing the way the car was being
manufactured.
To that end, he applied the principles of scientific
management in his car factory and added the assembly line
technology that allowed for greater division of labour, as well
as time and motion management.

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Scientific Management: Today

In today’s modern organisations, managers apply the

principles of scientific management as follows:
• Analyse basic work tasks
• Use time and motion studies to eliminate time waste
• Hire the best qualified workers
• Design incentive systems based on output

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General Administrative Theory
An approach to management that focuses on describing
what managers do and what constituted good management
practice.
This approach focuses upon the entire organisation with the
most prominent advocates of this approach being:
• Henry Fayol
• Max Weber

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Henri Fayol
The Father of Strategic Management
Managing Director at a large French coal
mining firm.
“Management is a Universal Set of Functions”
• Planning
• Organising
• Leading
• Controlling (1841 – 1925)

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 Max Weber
A German Sociologist who studied
organisations and developed a theory of
authority structures and relations based on an
ideal type of organisation he called a
bureaucracy. (1864 – 1920)
• Division of labour
• Clearly defined hierarchy
• Detailed rules & regulations
• Impersonal relationships

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 The Human Relations Movement

Human Relations – a management approach that emphasises

the importance of social processes in the organisation.
Dissatisfaction with the Technical Approach design led to the
development of the Human Relations school of thought.
The Hawthorne studies (1924 – 1932) at the Western Electric
Company (Chicago) by Elton Mayo, present a positive link
between management style and productivity.
• Attitudes toward people are linked with productivity
• Group norms are linked with productivity
• The workplace is a social environment

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The Quantitative Approach
The use of quantitative techniques, such as data collection and
mathematical manipulation of that data to improve decision
making processes.
TQM – Total Quality
Improvement: A
management philosophy
devoted to continual
improvement and
responding to
customer needs and
expectations

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 Systems Approach
“A system is: a set of interrelated and interdependent parts
arranged in a manner that produces a unified whole”.
Open systems: interact with their environment.
Closed systems: are not influenced by and do not interact with
their environment.
Any working system takes inputs, transforms them and
produces an output. Work organisations are systems as they
take inputs from the environment (materials, energy, people and
finance), transform them into services or products, and
discharge outputs in the form of products and services into the
external environment.

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The Organisation as an Open System
Environment

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Questions?

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