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Critical Review and Personal Analysis of Scientific Management

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Critical Review and Personal Analysis of Scientific Management

Introduction
Comparing to the economic environment in past decades, in today’s economy, more and more large companies and firms tend to find suitable management methods to regulate and operate their labour forces in consideration of maximizing efficiency and profits. Certainly, without an applicable management method, firms and corporations will lack of dynamic and motive power to operate decently. Taylorism, also known as scientific management, is one of the most well-known and widely applied management method introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the late 18th century, and this theory was peaked in the early 19th century. Taylor argued that the fundamental of seeking wealth for both employers and employees is to have working efficiency and productivity maximized; to reach this working stage, a company is required to manage and operate scientifically rather than empirically. (Wikipedia, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management) In fact, Taylor’s scientific management is criticized by socialists and workers as it only focus on productivity and efficiency and treat workers as ‘machines and animals’, and it is also argued to be the tool of exploitation for capitalists. Indeed, in my opinion, despite the efficiency and productivity advantages that scientific management can generate, its inconsideration of employees personal affects and emotions will not only impair the future of a company, but also the entire personnel’s morale and motivations, therefore it may evoke a breakdown of the structure of the organization. In addition, scientific management can also be defined in seven aspects, which will be explained in the following paragraph. In this essay, the seven aspects and the positive impacts of scientific management will be discussed, and the manifest negative effects of

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