The History of Scientific Management Theories Essay -- administrative

In the history of management thinking, there are many ways to manage an organization, such as scientific management and administrative management. This essay will discuss the notion that scientific management was a ‘good’ idea in the history of management thinking, by looking at the historical backgrounds and political beliefs of economist, also how the develop management theory by conducting experiments, and how their theories made it into the managing business does and how do they work. First of all, what is management itself? Management as explained in the Organizational Behaviour book, is a set of activities such as planning, decision making, organizing, leading and controlling the organization’s resources including human, financial, physical, and information. In order for high performance result, achieving organizational goals efficiently and effectively. (Wood et al, 2006. pp12-13) This essay would focus on the scientific management theories; it is where the concept of job specialization and division of labour are born, during that time it was the days of industrial era. The business was expanding, yet the productivity was labour intensive since technology was not much help at that time. Thus managers must find a way to improve the performance of individual workers, and that; the scientific management theory was created. The history of scientific management closely related with Fredrick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), known as the father of scientific management. Other than Taylor, there are other four renowned economist; Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, and Henry Ford. Each manager has their own way of scientific managing, Taylor who is considered to be the father of scientific management, as explained in the book prepared by... ...rove output production and efficiency of an organization. We could see this specialization everywhere in a workplace, the easiest way to create an example of this in department store; everyone has their own task, the cashier work on the cashier machine, the customer service work on helping visitors and pointing out information. Also in the restaurant, in the kitchen itself, there different task done by different people, the high chef manage the other workers and guiding them with the cooking recipe, then they have other workers who would just do one task such as boiling, frying, cutting, and then the waitress deliver the food. Those are few examples of specialization in the line of work we see today. With that fact, it is clear that scientific management was a good idea in the history of management, providing ways in organizations to achieve more productivity.