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An Evaluation on Frederick Taylor's influence in contemporary management- Essay Outline

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An Evaluation on Frederick Taylor's influence in contemporary management- Essay Outline
HOW DO THE THEORIES PROPOSED IN YOUR CHOSEN READING INFORM YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS AND EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP?

The theories of Frederick W. Taylor’s Scientific Management proposed in Edwin A. Locke’s (1982) “The Ideas of Frederick W. Taylor An evaluation” point to Taylor’s tremendous influence on modern-day management. Because Taylor developed this principle in the early 1900’s focusing mainly on scientific decision-making and individualized work while working with manufacturing industry, it poses questions on it’s validity in the modern-day management and how effective his techniques in employer-employee relationship. this posed a lot of Locke indicates that Taylor’s Scientific Management theory led to the beginning of modern management principles and methods that are still being used by many managers around the world (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 2012).

There are 2 key elements of his theory - that is scientific Decision-making and management-labor cooperation. Locke (1982) provided a summary of these concepts wherein he agreed that most of Taylor’s philosophies and techniques in these 2 aspects are widely embraced in the management industry.

1. Scientific Decision-Making
a. Time and Motion Study
i. Taylor arrived at this technique facing challenges on efficiency in the manufacturing industries with the goal to increase profits (Kulesza et al., 2011).
b. Standardization
i. This focused on creating standard tools and procedures
c. Goal-setting
i. Originally called the task and believed to be the model used for development of Management by Objectives (MBO) technique by Pierre Dupont and the term Organizational Behavior modification (OB Mod)
d. Money as a motivator
i. Taylor believes that workers are motivated with the reward of money.
e. Management’s responsibility for training
i. Is a technique that advocates management experts are responsible for training of workers.
f. Scientific selection
i. To achieve



References: Derksen, M. (2014). Turning Men Into Machines? Scientific Management, Industrial Psychology, And The “Human Factor”. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 50. 148 – 165. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.newcastle.edu.au/store/10.1002/jhbs.21650/asset/jhbs21650.pdf?v=1&t=i0273cql&s=2b430ae6922ccb1c82be31594b71a702658ccc15 Fox, E.M. (1968). Mary Parker Follet: The Enduring Contribution. Public Administration Review, 28, 520. Kulesza, M. G., Weaver, P. Q., & Friedman, S. (2011). Frederick W. Taylor’s Presene in 21st Century Management Accounting Systems and Work Process Theories. Journal of Business and Management, 17, 105 – 119. Locke, E.A. (1982). The Ideas of Frederick W. Taylor: An Evaluation. Academy of Management Review, 7, 14 – 24. Robbins, S., Bergman, R., Stagg, I., & Coulter, M. (2012). Management, 6th Edition. Sydney, Australia: Pearson Australia. Vohra, N., & Mukul, K. (2009). Relevance of Peter Drucker 's Work: Celebrating Drucker 's 100th Birthday. The Journal for Decision Makers, 34, 1 – 7. Wren, D.A. (2011). The Centennial of Frederick W. Taylor 's The Principles of Scientific Management: A Retrospective Commentary. Journal of Business & Management, 17, 11 – 22. Zuffo, R. G. (2011). Taylor is Dead, Hurray Taylor! The “Human Factor” in Scientific Management: Between Ethics, Scientific Psychology and Common Sense. Journal of Business and Management, 17, 23 – 41.

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