Management and 21st Century Essay Example

Despite many criticisms, and a wealth of newer theories on the topic of managing people, Taylorism (i.e. Scientific Management) is alive and well in 21st century management practice. Taylorism, in todays society is ever present, from car companies to McDonalds it is constantly used. This form of Scientific management originated at the height of the industrial revolution, in the early 1900's, by a man by the name of Frederick W. Taylor. Over the one hundred years, this type of management has changed and reformed into many different types of management but it is still good and applicable in these modern times even though the practice has some basic flaws that limit its impact in current work places and therefore not all of the theory applies to modern organisations.

1. What is taylorism
It is hard to discuss and examine Taylorism without a definition due to the specific type of management being interpreted wrong .The main concept of taylorism is the "separation of conception from execution", which in simple words means that the oganisation is broken down in simple and basic parts from the managers who do the thinking to the workers who do the doing. Taylorism orginated from a book he produced in 1909, named "The Principles of Scientific Management." Other than the main concept, he also furthered the hypothesis that employees and managers need to work together to achieve maximum efficiency. This was a new revolutionary type of management, it was very different to the way it was done in organisations previously. A factory manager during this period of history had extremely little contact with his employees, and he left them on their own to produce the necessary product, this still occurs in some companies like many call centres around the world still to this day. Also during this time, employees key motivation was usually to continue working there, however there was absolutely no incentive to work and produce quickly and efficiently. In