Critically Discuss the Contribution of the Work of Frederick W. Taylor to Management Thought and Practice. Pay Particular Attention to How His Ideas Were Shaped by the Cultural Context of His Time, and to the Competing Interpretations of His Legacy.
Grey offers a number of opinions on management thought in his book “A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Organisations” (2009). He outlines his opinions through a number of themes within the book such as looking at bureaucracy and scientific management together, his views on human relations theory (HRT) and its links with people management, the theme of organization culture and post-bureaucracy and how it is effecting change management. The final theme I will discuss in my essay is fast capitalism and how it is ending management. While looking at the themes I will also be evaluating Grey’s arguments within them and try to relate them where applicable to Wren and Bedeian’s book “The Evolution of Management Thought” (2009).
Grey views on bureaucracy are that he sees it as a highly efficient way of management in this book bureaucracy is not seen as red tape but a management type as put forward by Weber whereby rules and regulation are used to become as efficient as possible. Grey tells us how Weber saw an emergence of an ideal called “rational legal authority” (Grey, 2009). Grey tells us how rationality links with bureaucracy using a number of examples such as formal or instrumental rationality the idea of this is to adopt a means to meet and end using the most efficient way possible. Grey uses an excellent example to illustrate this being the Nazi Holocaust it is as Grey (2009) says the extreme application of bureaucratic logic. It operated under a set of rules which were applied impersonally. This allowed it to be unbelievably efficient. Grey’s ideas on bureaucracy are linked to the ideas explored in Wren and Bedeian’s “The Evolution of Management Thought” (2009) both books emphasise how Weber did not mean red tape when he said bureaucracy, they also share similar views of the disadvantages of bureaucracy such as how workers will work to the rules and therefore know exactly what they must do to stay in the job or to achieve
Grey views on bureaucracy are that he sees it as a highly efficient way of management in this book bureaucracy is not seen as red tape but a management type as put forward by Weber whereby rules and regulation are used to become as efficient as possible. Grey tells us how Weber saw an emergence of an ideal called “rational legal authority” (Grey, 2009). Grey tells us how rationality links with bureaucracy using a number of examples such as formal or instrumental rationality the idea of this is to adopt a means to meet and end using the most efficient way possible. Grey uses an excellent example to illustrate this being the Nazi Holocaust it is as Grey (2009) says the extreme application of bureaucratic logic. It operated under a set of rules which were applied impersonally. This allowed it to be unbelievably efficient. Grey’s ideas on bureaucracy are linked to the ideas explored in Wren and Bedeian’s “The Evolution of Management Thought” (2009) both books emphasise how Weber did not mean red tape when he said bureaucracy, they also share similar views of the disadvantages of bureaucracy such as how workers will work to the rules and therefore know exactly what they must do to stay in the job or to achieve
Bibliography: Grey, C. (2009). A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Organizations. London, Sage. Delbridge, R. (1998) “Life on the Line in Contemporary Manufacturing” Oxford: Oxford University Press, Ogbonna, E. and Wilkinson, B. (1988) “Corporate Strategy and Corporate Culture: The View from the Checkout” Personnel Review, Vol. 19 Iss: 4, pp.9 - 15 Wren, Daniel A . Bedeian Arthur G. December 2008, ©2009. “The Evolution of Management Thought. 6th Edition”. USA: John Wiley & Sons Inc.