Scientific Management

Taylor’s plan in mind was to remove all incapable work methods so as to increase production and revenue for the company. In this essay, we will attempt to compare the advantageous and disadvantageous of scientific management.


      Catherwood (1966) states that with scientific management, fundamental problems are directly dealt with unlike unscientific management which only sees the symptoms of the problem and try to deal with these symptoms directly, only to fail. A well known store Quiksilver, might find a decline in its customer traffic. The actual problem could lie in the poor services given, hence the decline. With scientific management, research is done to understand all problems before working at getting them right.


      Companies tend to use “time and motion” research to find the most competent work method. (Kidwell Jr, Roland & Scherer, 2001) This is true even for this age. Production companies still use this theory for achieving their goals. In a production line, staffs are usually trained to excel in a particular field once the best method has been researched and decided upon. Through training, they excel in their particular task assigned. With production efficiency, standards of living are also improved (Spender & Kijne, 1996).


      The theory of rewarding employees who excel in the tasks given is also an advantage of scientific management. High salary tends to motivate people to work harder and perform better. “Merit pay is defined as a compensation system” that actually pays a salary or increases the salary of a staff based on the fulfilments met. The idea is that when other workers see a colleague getting a higher pay raise due to the outstanding performance given, they too, will try to excel in their job in order to achieve that pay raise (Wood et al, 2010).


      On the other hand, Thompson (1916) argues that the incentives given to workers for increasing production through scientific management, is not justifiable. The... [continues]

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