Classical Management

The classical school of management derives from the sociology of Weber, the scientific management findings of Taylor, Gantt and Gilbreth, and the administration perspective findings of Fayol, Urwick and Brech. The classical school looks for universal principles of operation in the striving for economic efficiency. The organisation works within itself and only within itself. It emphasises management separated from labour, and labour specialised down to the smallest specialised tasks to which the most suitable (in each case) personnel are trained. They need to be trained to nothing else.
The classical organisation theorists dealt almost exclusively with the anatomy of formal organisation. Organisation is treated like a machine and so making each individual, working in the organisation efficient, can increase efficiency. For instance, F.W. Taylor emphasized on division of labour, fixing everybody’s work for the day and functional foremanship. That is why; Taylor’s scientific management has been referred to as ‘machine theory’. It may be noted that scientific management group emphasized efficiency of lower levels of organisation. It was Henri Fayol who showed concern for efficiency at the higher levels for the first time.
The origin of the movement is traceable to the work of F. W. Taylor, an American engineer, for many years a manager in the works of the Bethlehem Steel Co., Midvale, Pa. His investigations, leading later to the development of his methods and principles of management, sprang from the attempt on his part to lay down a standard fair day's work and to see that he got it from the men under his control. This led him into a deep analysis of the elements affecting the amount of work that could be done in a given time, and in turn by the kind of steps already indicated to the formulation of his system. One of the largest single pieces of investigation carried through by him was concerned with establishing the laws governing the rate of removal of metal by