Scientific Management Was the Product of 19th Century Industrial Practices and Has No Relevance to the Present Day. Discuss.
MN1001: 1st Formal Assignment
Title: Scientific Management was the product of 19th Century industrial practices and has no relevance to the present day. Discuss.
Guide Length: c.2000 words
George Ritzer defined Scientific Management as a procedure that “produced a non-human technology that exerted great control over workers” (Ritzer, 2011, p30). Scientific management is primarily concerned with the physical efficiency of an individual and can be dated back as far as the early 1800’s to a man named Adam Smith. Smith explains the optimum organization of a pin factory to determine that a division of labour in the workforce would cause an increase in productivity. Before he came in, pin makers constructed a mere few dozen pins a day as they constructed the entire pin themselves. Smith felt that when workers were organised in a factory with each worker performing a limited task and thus different workers producing separate parts of a pin and then putting them together, they could produce thousands daily. Adam smith stated that “Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only.” (Smith, 1776), p23). This explains how much Smith favoured division of labour as he claims that a commodities real price is labour and not money. These were the primary findings of scientific management. It is important to look at how scientific management has developed since Smith and to see if its methods are still used and how effective they are in the modern world.
Following Smith, in 1898 often credited as being the creator of scientific management, Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) ‘devised a means of detailing a division of labour in time-and-motion studies and a wage system based on performance’ (Green, 2012, p83). According to Taylor, “Scientific Management is an art of knowing exactly
Title: Scientific Management was the product of 19th Century industrial practices and has no relevance to the present day. Discuss.
Guide Length: c.2000 words
George Ritzer defined Scientific Management as a procedure that “produced a non-human technology that exerted great control over workers” (Ritzer, 2011, p30). Scientific management is primarily concerned with the physical efficiency of an individual and can be dated back as far as the early 1800’s to a man named Adam Smith. Smith explains the optimum organization of a pin factory to determine that a division of labour in the workforce would cause an increase in productivity. Before he came in, pin makers constructed a mere few dozen pins a day as they constructed the entire pin themselves. Smith felt that when workers were organised in a factory with each worker performing a limited task and thus different workers producing separate parts of a pin and then putting them together, they could produce thousands daily. Adam smith stated that “Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only.” (Smith, 1776), p23). This explains how much Smith favoured division of labour as he claims that a commodities real price is labour and not money. These were the primary findings of scientific management. It is important to look at how scientific management has developed since Smith and to see if its methods are still used and how effective they are in the modern world.
Following Smith, in 1898 often credited as being the creator of scientific management, Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) ‘devised a means of detailing a division of labour in time-and-motion studies and a wage system based on performance’ (Green, 2012, p83). According to Taylor, “Scientific Management is an art of knowing exactly