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How Influential Is Scientific Management in 21st Century?

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Question: How influential is Scientific Management in 21st Century?

Please note: The referencing system used in this essay is NOT the Harvard System and therefore INCORRECT practice. Please ignore this style of referencing, the essay is shown as a model of good practice only re structure and analysis.

How influential is scientific management in the 21st century?

1. Scientific management was originally developed in the 1800s by an economist, Adam Smith. He was interested in a factory that operated and produced pins, and through the breaking down of tasks e.g. division of labour he increased output from 20 pins per employee per day to 4,800 pins. However the greatest break through in scientific management came in the 1900s during the peak of the industrial revolution, and due to the emergence of the factory system more attention was being given to methods or factors that could contribute towards increasing output levels. It was here that Frederick Taylor began his studies into this field and his ideas were later furthered by individuals such as Gilbreth and Gantt. Despite each individual having a significant input into the study of scientific management Taylor was widely regarded as the ‘Father of Scientific Management’ and hence the term ‘Taylorism’ being introduced.

2. Technically Scientific Management is the “management thought concerned primarily with the physical efficiency of an individual worker”[1]. However George Ritzer defined Scientific Management as a procedure that “produced nonhuman technology that exerted great control over workers”[2]. In this statement Ritzer refers to the effect of scientific management. Before the study by Taylor and most businesses followed the old ‘Rule of Thumb’ management procedure in which the worker had the ‘initiative’[3] and control and therefore it was only his hard work that resulted in the

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