Scientific Management in Organizations

Scientific management is a school of management thought founded by American engineer Frederick W. Taylor in the early twentieth century. Scientific management involves studying jobs to break them down into their component tasks through time and motion studies (the analysis of complex tasks to determine their component parts and the concomitant time required to perform each part). This information allows analysts to determine the most efficient way of performing tasks and pay employees on a piece rate basis to encourage them to adopt these methods. Scientific management emphasizes the scientific analysis of jobs and tasks to determine the one best way to accomplish these. Additionally, scientific management emphasizes the training of individuals to do these tasks and the publication of standards, goals, and methods, as well as inspection to make sure that these are being implemented. Scientific management also encourages cooperation between management and employees and the use of special incentives to improve performance. Scientific management set the foundations for many of the sound practices used in business organizations in the twenty-first century.

Keywords Globalization; Industrialization; Innovation; Job Analysis; Job Description; Management; Motivation; Organization; Postmodernism; Return on Investment (ROI); Scientific Management; Scientific Method; Time & Motion Study; Turnover

Social Interaction in Groups & Organizations > Scientific Management in Organizations

Scientific Management in Organizations

Overview

It would be tempting to think that the management problems associated with industrialization are unique to our era. However, the truth is that for thousands of years, people have been organizing and managing other people to accomplish great tasks. Although the tools of the twenty-first century are different from those that came before, the need to be able to effectively manage others to accomplish large tasks has been going on for not only centuries, but even millennia. For example, the Egyptian pyramids are considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and are an engineering feat still unsurpassed, though they were accomplished without modern machinery. In part, this means that great numbers of people were required to work in a coordinated effort to accomplish their tasks. Similarly, the Coliseum of ancient Rome was built to hold between 40,000 and 60,000 people, an engineering feat unrivaled until the twentieth century. In many ways, these feats put the management problems of the twenty-first century into perspective.

However, businesses are still concerned with the effective management of employees to gain or maintain a competitive edge in the modern global environment. Although lowering prices is one option to do this, if the organization does not realize sufficient return on investment, it will not be able to remain in business. Except for the occasional loss leader that is offered to entice new customers, for the most part, there are typically certain price limits below which an organization cannot offer its goods or services and still be able to maintain a profit: Equipment must be maintained, the payroll must be met, products or services must be advertised, and raw materials or components must be purchased. Although, in theory, building a better mousetrap can cause the world to be a path to one's door, in actuality, the innovation process frequently cannot be rushed, and the organization must continue to sell the product or service that it already has. As a result, many organizations focus on management to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and profitability. In theory, this approach can allow an organization to maximize its profits by getting its employees to work smarter, harder, or both.

Management as a Tool

Although we may never know the management principles used by the ancient Egyptians or Romans (and they may not be applicable centuries later, even if we did), the idea of using management as a tool to improve the organization's effectiveness is not a new one even over the past few centuries. For example, in his 1776 book "The Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith discussed the division of labor in a pin factory. Factory managers of that era adapted what they considered to be rational procedures for increasing the efficiency of the workers in their factories. As industrialization wore on, however, and the demand for manufactured products increased, engineers and managers increasingly focused on improving employee performance and productivity to improve the organization's overall efficiency and concomitant viability.

One of the leading figures in this area was Frederick Winslow Taylor, an American engineer who started the school of management thought referred to as scientific management or Taylorism. Taylor believed that his management system was scientific because he gathered, classified, and tabulated data about workers' jobs and, through deductive reasoning, reduced these to general laws and principles that could be used to improve the productivity of the individual worker. Further, Taylor proposed that management takes on several additional duties including developing a "science" for each element of a person's work, scientifically selecting and training workers best suited for a given job, cooperating fully with the workers to support them in their efforts to increase productivity, and relieving workers of duties for which management was better suited.

Time & Motion Studies

Proponents of scientific management posit that despite the fact different people tend to do things in different ways, there is only one best way to perform each task. To determine what the best way of performing a task was, the proponents of scientific management performed time and motion studies, in which complex tasks are analyzed to determine their component parts and the concomitant time required to perform each part. Under the concept of scientific management, the major goal of time and motion studies was to determine the one best way to perform a task and teach this to the employees performing the task to minimize waste and maximize output. Time and motion studies are also used to set performance goals, support pricing and pay decisions, and reduce employee fatigue or reduce accidents. Scientific management also assumed that the primary motivator for most workers was money or other economic rewards, and that productivity is constrained only by the physical limitations of the human being performing the work. Based on these assumptions and techniques, scientific management attempted to maximize human productivity through the application of scientific planning (e.g., based on time and motion studies), established performance standards, and close supervision of employees. The emphasis in this approach appears to be on the needs of the organization and how to motivate workers to meet these needs (with the assumption that this can primarily be done only through economic incentives) without regard for what the workers themselves need or want. However, Taylor believed that the interests of employers and employees were the same. Employers wanted lower labor costs, and employees wanted higher wages. By determining the best way to maximize productivity, the employee could work hard and meet their needs and the needs of the employer would be met as well. For example, Taylor analyzed the job of a pig-iron handler and introduced rest periods and close supervision of employees. As a result of the application of the principles of scientific management, Taylor was able to help a pig iron handler increase the amount of pig iron an employee loaded per day from 12.5 tons to 47.5 tons (i.e., 280 percent). This also allowed the pig iron handler to increase their salary from $1.15 per day to $1.85 (i.e., 61 percent) (Blum & Naylor, 1968).

The Scalar Principle

In addition to emphasizing the need to determine the best way to perform each task and requiring each employee to perform that task in that manner, there are many other principles of scientific management. One of these is the scalar principle. This principle emphasizes chain of command and a clear reporting structure so that each person in the organization knows to whom s/he reports and supervises. Another aspect of the scalar principle is that decisions need to be made as close to the process as possible rather than by executives or others higher in the organizational structure who do not understand the process or task well enough to make the decision. Scientific management also emphasizes unity of command. This principle means that each individual reports to only one supervisor and responsibilities within the organization are not duplicated or overlapping among multiple employees. A corollary to this principle is the exception principle: According to this principle, decisions that tend to recur routinely should be delegated as close as possible to where the action takes place and programmed, with only non-recurring decisions made by individuals higher in the chain of command. Another principle of scientific management is span of control. This principle assumes that there are a maximum number of subordinates that can be supervised by one person (usually between three and seven). The specialization principle states that work should be divided among employees so that common activities are meaningfully clustered to be performed by one employee or into one job or department, and that those tasks that do not fit into such a meaningful cluster should be included in another job or department or given to another employee. In addition, the principle of clarity of responsibilities means that the responsibilities of an employee should be clearly written and communicated to the employees so that they understand and can perform their tasks and jobs.

Applications

Critics of Taylor

To say that many modern management theorists are critical of Taylor and scientific management, in general, is to understate the situation. It is certainly true that although Taylor talked about science and scientific experiment to develop his theories, many of these are undocumented, and it is impossible to tell whether his conclusions are based on the scientific method or his own preconceived notions in many cases. In addition, management theory has come a long way since Taylor's time, specifically in understanding such concepts as worker motivation and job satisfaction. Yet, in many cases, scientific management worked. Although the application of the psychology of individual differences means that, in many cases, workers need some freedom in how they carry out their tasks, the importance of analyzing a job to determine its component tasks and teaching employees how to do these things is still reflected in the twenty-first century emphasis on the performance of job analysis, development of detailed job descriptions, and emphasis of on the job training.

In the main, scientific management is little more than a footnote in most management or industrial psychology books. However, it is important not to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Scientific management was a product of its times not only from a technical point of view with an emphasis on improving productivity, but also from the point of view of political correctness, an elitist view of the lower classes, and a primary focus on the needs of the organization almost to the exclusion of the needs of the workers. Scientific management had its critics at the time, and 100 years later, it has even more. However, these latter-day critics are frequently viewing this movement through the lens of postmodern sensibilities. Although Taylor's "The Principles of Scientific Management" is still being reprinted, it is primarily only of historical interest and no current books or manuals on the subject are in print. For example, Freeman performed a search of periodicals and could not find any organization that admitted to using scientific management by name (1996). Similarly, modern textbooks typically refer to scientific management briefly, if they mention it at all.

Modern Scientific Management

However, as mentioned above, this does not mean that none of the principles of scientific management are used in modern organizations. In fact, in the twenty-first century nearly 100 years after Taylor first published his theories, some management theorists still believe that scientific management has applications for twenty-first century jobs. Freeman reviews several case studies in which the principles of scientific management are still being used. One of the founding principles of scientific management is the use of time and motion studies. Not only are such studies still being used, some industrial engineers still perform time and motion studies using computer simulations. In other cases, workers perform their own time and motion studies to determine better ways of performing their tasks. For example, employees in the human resources department of a medical center used a barcoding technique to analyze their daily activities to track the calls received and determine better ways to communicate. The results of the study revealed that most of the calls received by the department regarded employee benefits and to redesign the system so that one knowledgeable person could handle all the benefits calls, thereby freeing up the other employees in the department to do other tasks and providing better service to individuals calling in with questions about their benefits (Freeman, 1996).

Another basic principle of scientific management is to scientifically select new employees and then train and develop them so that they can best use their potential on the job. Pic 'n Pay stores, for example, instituted a centralized employee selection process with a computerized interview, attempting to reduce employee turnover. Further, as mentioned above, most business and management experts still agree that a thorough job analysis should inform the employee selection process. This is also important from a legal standpoint by setting up the bona fide requirements of a job on which hiring, firing, and promotion decisions can be rationally made. The government also requires the preparation and distribution of manuals in safety-related fields (e.g., aviation, shipping), and many manufacturing organizations also follow this practice. This helps ensure not only that tasks are performed in the most efficient way possible, but also that they are performed in the safest way possible. Taylor also called for management to cooperate with workers to help them better obey the rules. Although modern management science typically looks beyond this practice and uses management/worker cooperation and communication to support workers in realizing their creativity and potential on the job, the fact remains that cooperation was a founding principle of scientific management. Scientific management also recommended the use of inspection to maintain established standards or to determine reasons for deviating from them. Quality control practices are still in place to improve the productivity of production lines and processes to maximize the efficiency of both the individual worker and the organization. Finally, Taylor recommended tying monetary rewards (including not only piece rates but bonus systems as well) to on-the-job productivity. Such financial reward systems are still successfully used in many organizations.

Conclusion

Scientific management—at least in its entirety—is little more than a historical footnote in most organizations. This is due to many reasons, including that many workers of the time viewed scientific management primarily as a method to improve the profits of management at the expense of the workers. Certainly, it is true that Taylor and his followers were also concerned with increasing the monetary rewards of workers. However, this was not in proportion to the increases realized by management. Further, scientific management assumed that workers were only motivated by economic incentives. However, both research and theory since that time showed this not to be true. In addition, much of Taylor's research is undocumented, making it difficult to understand on what observations his conclusions were based and whether these were justified. Another problem with the foundations of scientific management as promulgated by Taylor is that he is often dismissive of workers, such as categorically stating, for example, that he "firmly believe[d] that it would be possible to train an intelligent gorilla, so as to become a more efficient pig-iron handler than any man can be" (Blum & Naylor, 1968). In addition, although industrial jobs still abound, many people in the 2020s are involved in more mental than physical labor, activities that are much more difficult to reduce to a time and motion study.

Despite its flaws, however, scientific management has made an invaluable contribution to modern management theory. In the twenty-first century, we still analyze jobs as a basis for using the information to make decisions on performance rewards such as promotions, bonuses, and raises. Reducing tasks to the number of seconds and the exact movements needed to accomplish these most efficiently may be overkill in most cases and, perhaps even counterproductive in others, but thorough job analyses are still essential for fair employment practices. Although scientific management has received much criticism, it is foundational for many of the sound management practices that we still use.

Terms & Concepts

Globalization: The process of businesses or technologies spreading across the world. This creates an interconnected, global marketplace operating outside the constraints of time zone or national boundaries. Although globalization means an expanded marketplace, products are typically adapted to fit the specific needs of each locality or culture to which they are marketed.

Industrialization: The use of mechanization to produce the economic goods and services within a society. Historically, industrialization is a society's transition between farm production and manufacturing production. Industrialization is associated with factory production, division of labor, and the concentration of industries and populations within certain geographical areas and urbanization.

Innovation: Products or processes that are new or significant improvements over previous products or processes that have been introduced in the marketplace or used in production.

Job Analysis: The systematic, empirical process of determining the exact nature of a job, including the tasks and duties to be done; the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to adequately perform these; and the criteria that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable performance. The results of a job analysis are typically used in writing job descriptions and setting standards for use in performance appraisals.

Job Description: A document that lists the duties and tasks related to a job. Job descriptions may also specify the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the job as well as the performance standards that differentiate acceptable from unacceptable performance.

Management: The process of efficiently and effectively accomplishing work through the coordination and supervision of others.

Motivation: An internal process that gives direction to, energizes, and sustains an organism's behavior. Motivation can be internal (e.g., "I am hungry, so I eat lunch.") or external (e.g., "The advertisement for the ice cream cone is attractive, so I buy one.").

Organization: A group of persons who are associated for a particular purpose into an orderly, functional, structured social entity.

Postmodernism: A worldview beginning in the latter half of the twentieth century that questions or rejects claims of absolute certainty and objective truth.

Return on Investment (ROI): A measure of the organization's profitability or how effectively it uses its capital to produce profit. In general terms, return on investment is the income that is produced by a financial investment within a given period (usually a year). There are several formulas that can be used in calculating ROI. One frequently used formula for determining ROI is (profits—costs) / (costs) x 100. The higher the ROI, the more profitable the organization.

Scientific Management: A school of management thought founded by American engineer Frederick W. Taylor in the early twentieth century. Scientific management involves studying jobs to break them down into their component tasks (see "time and motion study") to determine the most efficient way of performing the tasks and paying employees on a piece rate basis to encourage them to adopt these methods. Also referred to as "Taylorism."

Scientific Method: General procedures, guidelines, assumptions, and attitudes required for the organized and systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and verification of data that can be verified and reproduced. The goal of the scientific method is to articulate or modify the laws and principles of a science. Steps in the scientific method include problem definition based on observation and review of the literature, formulation of a testable hypothesis, selection of a research design, data collection and analysis, extrapolation of conclusions, and development of ideas for further research in the area.

Time & Motion Study: The analysis of complex tasks to determine their component parts and the concomitant time required to perform each part. Under the concept of scientific management, the major goal of time and motion studies was to determine the one best way to perform a task and teach this to the employees performing the task to minimize waste and maximize output. Time and motion studies are also used to set performance goals, support pricing and pay decisions, and reduce employee fatigue or reduce accidents.

Turnover: The number of new employees that an organization must hire to replace those that have left the company in a given period.

Bibliography

Bass, B. M. & Barrett, G. V. (1972). Man, work, and organizations: An introduction to industrial and organizational psychology. Allyn and Bacon.

Blum, M. L. & Naylor, J. C. (1968). Industrial psychology: Its theoretical and social foundations (rev. ed.). Harper & Row, Publishers.

Freeman, M. (1996, Spring). Scientific management: 100 years old; poised for the next century. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 61, 35-41.

Meiksins, P. F. (1984). Scientific management and class relations: A dissenting view. Theory & Society, 13, 177–209. Retrieved November 1, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text.

Schaefer, R. T. (2022). Sociology: A brief introduction (14th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Sharma, S. (2013). Three paradigms in management: American, Japanese and Indian. International Journal Of Organization Theory & Behavior (Pracademics Press), 16, 30–41. Retrieved November 1, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text.

Thompson, C. (1914). The case for scientific management. Sociological Review (1908-1952), 7, 315–327. Retrieved November 1, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text.

Suggested Reading

Butler, G. R. (1991). Frederick Winslow Taylor: The father of scientific management and his philosophy revisited. Industrial Management, 33, 23-27.

Gilbreth, L. M. (1947). Scientific management and human resources. Occupations: The Vocational Guidance Journal, 26, 45–49. Retrieved November 1, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text.

Hodgetts, R. M. & Greenwood, R. (1995). Frederick Taylor: Alive and well and ready for the 21st century. Academy of Management Proceedings, 218-222. Retrieved August 11, 2008, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Premier.

Jones, O. (2000). Scientific management, culture and control: A first-hand account of Taylorism in practice. Human Relations, 53, 631–653. Retrieved November 1, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text.

Robinson, T. L. (1992). Revisiting the original management primer: Defending a great productivity innovator. Industrial Management, 34, 19-21. Retrieved August 11, 2008, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Premier.