MGMT20001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Interchangeable Parts, Job Satisfaction, Deskilling
17 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Contrasting Management Styles
Scientific Management (Taylorism)
How people should be managed at work for maximum efficiency
1. Job Design:
â—‹ Managers should design job efficiently, specifying precisely every element of an
employee’s work
â—‹ Simple production processes and jobs that require minimum skill
â—‹ Each person engages in one simple, repetitive task
○ Passing pieces down the “assembly line”
○ Only one “best way” to do a task
2. Human Resource Management:
â—‹ Managers should select, train, teach and develop employees (previously
employees chose their own work and trained themselves)
â—‹ Managers tell workers exactly what to do and workers do as they are told
3. Performance Management: Managers should be responsible for ensuring all work is
done according to their specifications. Workers are paid according to output.
4. Development of Management Profession:
â—‹ A division of labour should be based on expertise.
â—‹ Managerial authority over workers should be based on scientific impartiality
Taylor’s Enduring Legacy:
1. The separation of Conception and Execution (Managers “think” and workers “do”)
2. Standardisation of tasks; deskilling
3. The belief that managerial authority is based on scientific impartiality
4. Financial reward is the employee’s main motivator (Taylor’s idea of the “Trained Gorilla”)
5. A “mechanistic” view of the organisation - people as interchangeable parts; just “cogs in
the machine”.
6. BUT plays down the psychological and social aspects of organisation (e.g. job
satisfaction, social affiliation, etc.)
Document Summary
How people should be managed at work for maximum efficiency: job design: Managers should design job efficiently, specifying precisely every element of an employee"s work. Simple production processes and jobs that require minimum skill. Each person engages in one simple, repetitive task. Only one best way to do a task: human resource management: Managers should select, train, teach and develop employees (previously employees chose their own work and trained themselves) Managers tell workers exactly what to do and workers do as they are told: performance management: managers should be responsible for ensuring all work is done according to their specifications. Workers are paid according to output: development of management profession: A division of labour should be based on expertise. Managerial authority over workers should be based on scientific impartiality. Workers undertake a variety of different tasks to complete a whole piece of work. Workers enjoy a degree of control over their work.
