Research Topics: Scientific Management Examples

Thesis statements on the principles of the scientific management

Thesis Statement HISTORY OF MANAGEMENT THEORY                           Management of business has been a significant concept and a significant learning since it became a popular course in schools offering business courses. Management theory are normally found in every business course and training courses that are normally funded by companies for employee improvement. This study would not dwell however on the course itself.             This study would like to dwell more on its application. This study will primarily focus on a particular organization in New Zealand, and analyze whether the five major principles of scientific management is incorporated in their organization.             The five major principles of a scientific management are known to be standardization, selection, training, supporting workers and elimination of interruptions and lastly, productivity and performance based awards.             This study will basically be descriptive in nature, since it will basically observe the application of those five mentioned principles in the management and how it is implemented in the organization. Questionnaires may be given out to employees and to those who have undergone a course in management to properly assess their view on the current management. The study will analyze the impact and the effectiveness of the knowledge in management theories when applied in real business or organization.             At the same time, this study will discuss the history of management. It will likewise include some a brief discussion on the principles for better understanding of the readers.             This study will be beneficial to business establishments and business organizations that are planning to provide proper management training to their employees and to the management department as well.             Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Thesis statements on the principles of the scientific management

Thesis Statement HISTORY OF MANAGEMENT THEORY Management of business has been a significant concept and a si...

Strategic Management

Problem:  The Airline Industry is a very competitive business; the United Airlines should implement a new and innovative Strategic Management plan in order to stay on top of the competition.     Every business is subject to factors that affect the firm’s function as a whole.  These factors are the ones attributed for the success or even the failure of a business.  In the light of this, there are certain ways or techniques that can be considered in order to emerge and continue to be competitive within the market place. The marketing concept has been defined as ‘the key to achieving organizational goals’ and the marketing concept rests on ‘market focus, customer orientation, coordinated marketing and profitability’. In a profit making business the firm obviously has to try and achieve this level of customer satisfaction as a way of staying ahead of the competition and making a profit.               Analyzing the status, strategies and resources of businesses and their products or services is very essential as it allows operators to determine how they will progress in the years to come. This also enables them to identify their strengths and how they will optimize them. On the other hand, business analysis also makes operators realize their weak points, allowing them to address them immediately with effective strategic actions. Conducting a business analysis also helps organizations to prepare for their future development and growth. Considering that competition in the business field is continuously growing, implementing efficient strategies through business analysis is indeed significant for all operators in any industry. Traditionally, marketing has been utilized by the private sector in decisively increasing the capabilities of an organization. Marketing can be considered as one of the most important element underpinning successful business creation (Hills, 1994). Perhaps because of its complex applications, marketing have been defined in a variety of ways (Sheth, Gardner and Garrett, 1988). The marketing concept was first promulgated in the late 1950’s (Elliot, 1990). The importance of marketing concept incorporates oft-repeated elements such as: customer orientation; integrated marketing efforts; and resultant profitability.   Today, more and more people and organization are trying to be recognized in the business arena.  With this objective, these organizations had been able to competently and effectively adapt to the situation in the market place by using different strategies that enhanced their competitiveness. In lieu with this, the main purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive discussion of marketing and management strategies of the United Airlines, The critical evaluation of the marketing strategy also includes significant aspect such as market condition, competitors, and customers’ expectations. Company Profile The United Airlines declared bankruptcy of almost billion dollars. The downfall of the United Airlines was caused by the 9/11 terrorist attack. If one focuses on airline sales alone the potential is enormous. United Airlines, one of the first and most successful of the major international airlines to sell online, expects to be selling about 20 per cent of its tickets through the Internet by 2003. If one were to assume a similar penetration of Internet sales for both passengers and cargo among all the airlines of the four major alliance groupings then revenues generated would be around US billion in 2003. Perhaps not all the alliance members will be in a position to achieve such high Internet sales by 2003. However, any shortfall will be more than offset by Internet sales by several non-alliance airlines who will be achieving high Internet sales by 2003 or earlier. In the United States, forecasters predicted that 32 per cent of all US business travel will migrate online by 2003 and 10 per cent of leisure travel Strategic Management Primarily, the main reason for the need of the company to have a marketing strategy to the products/services is COMPETITION. Today’s market is characterized by highly competitive organizations which are all vying for consumer’s loyalty. Firms are faced with the challenge to maintain their own competitive edge to be able to survive and be successful. Strategies are carefully planned and executed to gain the ultimate goal of all: company growth. However, external factors are not the only elements which influence growth.   The possibility to bestow a competitive advantage is not intrinsic in all resources (Wernerfelt, 1989). Nevertheless, to a certain extent, in simply those that satisfy a thorough collection of situations (Barney, 1991; Peteraf, 1993). The first condition is that the resource has to be important. That is, it has got to supply the chance to make use of a number of environmental opportunities or counterbalance a few hazards. Resources are believed to be important when they allow an organization to conjure up of or put into practice strategies that perk up the organization’s competence or efficiency (Barney, 1991). A number of authors interpret importance in the context of satisfying a key consumer requirement (Aaker, 1989; Coyne, 1985).   Additionally, resources have to have the features of exceptionality. If important resources are owned by a great number of competitors or possible competitors, they no longer correspond to a source of competitive advantage. This is the key subject of heterogeneity fundamental to the resource-based view. In this context, organizations owning exceptional and inimitable collections of capacities and resources can accomplish a sustainable competitive advantage. Third, there have got to be the condition of imperfect mobility of resources. Where resources are effortlessly traded among competitors, no competitive advantage can be preserved. Imperfectly mobile resources take account of those that are characteristic to the organization (Williamson, 1979), those for which property rights are not well characterized (Dierickx & Cool, 1989), or those that are co-specialized assets (Teece et al., 1990). The imperfect mobility of assets is a decisive feature in businesses as the consumers are the key assets in a lot of circumstances, and their high mobility recurrently results in the shortfall of accounts and the materialization of new competitive threats as in the condition and eventually shifting to other companies that directly compete for the similar market.   For an advantage to be maintained, resources have got to be imperfectly imitable (Barney, 1991) or offer a few ex-post restrictions to competition. That is to say that following to an organization acquiring a superior position and receiving rents, forces have to be made that could limit competition for those rents (Peteraf, 1993). It was taken into account above that innovation such as the improvement of a new kind of account by a retail bank or a new promotion approach by a creative department recurrently triggers a multitude of replications from competitors. For an organization to be in a situation to make use of an important and rare resource, there have got to be a resource position obstruction averting replication by other companies (Wernerfelt, 1989). Preserving a competitive advantage over a period of time necessitates the attendance of separating instruments that thwarts replication. Quite a few such obstructions that have been taken down in the literature consist of causal ambiguity (Reed & DeFillippi, 1990) and uncertain imitability (Lippman & Rumelt, 1982), where the motivations of success are not easy to recognize. Replication may similarly be thwarted by the process of asset stock accumulation within the organization. Where these stocks have power over the features of time compression diseconomies, asset mass efficiencies, and interconnectedness, then replication is not easy (Dierickx & Cool, 1989). Without a doubt, the implication of asset stock accumulation in the business sector has been established elsewhere, when the reservoir of organizational and managerial knowledge that has been developed over the years can make available branch offices with information at a price very much inferior than a de novo indigenous organization would have to bring upon itself (Boddewyn, Halbrich, & Perry, 1986, p. 50) that is to say, an ownership advantage in global competition.             Along with the changing business world, customers change as well, becoming more demanding and knowledgeable than before. In turn, company management had shifted their focus on their clients or customers so as to stay successful in business. This transition meant that organizations have to completely reformulate their conventional business aims and purposes from being process-focused to customer-centered. Moreover, employing proactive customer commitment involves the consideration on culture and infrastructure (Lowenstein, 1997).   Organizations that capitalize on customers’ active participation in organizational activities can gain competitive advantage through greater sales volume, enhanced operating efficiencies, positive word-of-mouth publicity, reduced marketing expenses, and enhanced customer loyalty (Lovelock & Young, 1979; Reichheld & Sasser, 1990). Rather than going after every potential source of revenue, companies eliminate useless assets that do not add value for customers’ satisfaction. Business organizations implement bureaucratic policies and procedures for the benefit of the staff, customers and the company in general. According to Bowers, Martin and Luker (1990), if consumers somehow become better customers – that is, more knowledgeable, participative, or productive – the quality of the service experience will likely be enhanced for the customer and the organization.               The researcher considers COMPETITION as the strongest force to be considered in making the product/service marketing strategy. However, there are also some management perspectives to be taken at hand but it is no longer covered by the purposes of this report. Because competition is prevalent in the chosen target market and line of enterprise, it is essential to study its coverage including its limits and potential opportunities for the benefit of the business.             To formulate such marketing strategy for the service of United Airlines, the management must take into consideration some significant aspects such as market condition, competitor analysis, and consumer expectations as foundational considerations.             Market Conditions The United Airlines operates under the deregulation of the airline industry in 1978, the industry began to change and transform competitively into the model implemented by most airlines today. Hence, the company is struggling for its competitive advantage by using its implemented marketing strategy. Competitors The top competitors of United Airlines are the multinational airlines companies that are venturing in the same market and offering similar line of services to the chosen clientele. These airlines companies are: American Airlines, Delta, Lufthansa and Japan Airlines. The effects of the global business economy, globalization, and the changing consumer behaviour and needs are perceived reasons on why MNCs are predominant in their situated venue.   Client’s Expectations             The United Airlines offers a personalized line of service, the clients possess the freedom to choose from the line of services they offered. Every consumer is expecting for continuous and excellent service. They also anticipate for new service innovation that will suit their varying taste whenever new threats are present in the market. In general, consumer always expect for better products and services that will satisfy their needs. Cost Structure Being the most powerful tool in marketing, price is identified following the company’s established goals and objectives. These goals range from enhancing the market share of the products, improving the demands in the target markets, to extending the sales at an even rate for one whole day, week, month, or year. Pricing is utilized in several ways namely (1) to increase unit sales so that resources of the firm; (2) to restrict sales, or limit the quantities demanded per unit time;(3) to make the market less attractive to actual or potential competitors; and (4) to attract buyers so that they will buy other items once the transaction has begun. Further, the existence of Internet and the continued revolution in the world of Information Technology are certainly positive signs for the blossoming of many new advertising opportunities. For instance, pop-up ads and email ads have started to invade the Internet. Most advertising firms have also started to exert efforts to make their advertisements appealing to the public (McAndrews & Roberds, 2001).                                         References Aaker, D.A. (1989). Managing Assets and Skills: A Key to Sustainable Competitive Advantage. California Management Review, 31(1), 91-106.   Barney, J.B. (1991). Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management 17(1), 99-120.   Boddewyn, J.J., Halbrich, M. B. & Perry, A.C. (1986). Service Multinationals: Conceptualisation, Measurement and Theory. Journal of International Business Studies, Fall, 41-57.   Bowers, M.R., Martin, C.L. & Luker, A. (1990). Trading places: Employees as Customers, Customers as Employees. Journal of Services Marketing, 4 (Spring), 55-69.   Coyne, K. (1985). Sustainable Competitive Advantage: What It Is, What It Isn’t. Business Horizons, 29 (1), 54-61.   Dierickx, I., & Cool, K. (1989). Asset Stock Accumulation and Sustainability of Competitive Advantage. Management Science, 35(11), 1504-1511.   Dinglasan, V. (2001). Marketing mix: The 4Ps of marketing. In J Go, (ed.), Fundamentals of marketing. PH: Muezzin City: Design Plus.   Elliot, G.R. (1990). The Marketing Concept – Necessary, but Sufficient? A Environmental View. Graduate School of Australia, University Melbourne, Australia.   Hills, G.E. (1994). Marketing and Entrepreneurship: Research Ideas and Opportunities. Westport, CT, Quorum Books.   Lippman, M. & Rumelt, R.P. (1982) Uncertain Irritability: An Analysis of Interfirm Differences in Efficiency under Competition. Bell Journal of Economics, 13(1),  418-453.   Lowenstein, M.W. (1997). The customer loyalty pyramid. Westport, Ct: Quorum Books.   Lovelock, C. H. & Young, R. F. (1979). Look to Consumers to Increase Productivity. Harvard Business Review, 57 (May-June), 168-178.   Lowenstein, M.W. (1997). The Customer Loyalty Pyramid. Westport, CT: Quorum Books.   McAndrews, J. & Roberds, W. (8 October, 2001). A General Equilibrium Analysis of Check Float. Journal of Financial Intermediation, 353-77.   Peteraf, M.A. (1993) The Cornerstones of Competitive Advantage: A Resource-Based View. Strategic Management Journal, 14(3), 179-191.   Reed, R. & DeFillippi, R.J. (1990). Casual Ambiguity, Barriers to Imitation and Sustainable Competitive Advantage. Academy of Management Review, 15 (1), 88-102. Reichheld, F. F. & Sasser, W. E, Jr. (1990). Zero Defections: Quality Comes to Services. Harvard Business Review, 68 (September-October), 105-111.   Sheth J. N., Gardner, D.M. & Garrett, D.E. (1988). Marketing Theory: Evolution and      Evaluation. New York: John Wiley & Sons.   Teece, D., Pisano, G. & Shuen, A. (1990). Firm Capabilities, Resources, and the Concept of Strategy. Unpublished manuscript. University of California, Berkeley: Haas School of Management.   Wernerfelt, B. (1989) “From Critical Resources to Corporate Strategy.” Journal of General Management, 14(3), 4-12.   Williamson, O.K. (1979). Transaction-Cost Economics: The Governance of Contractual Relations. Journal of Law and Economics, 22 (2), 233-261.     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Strategic Management

Problem : The Airline Industry is a very competitive business; the United Airlines should implement a new and innovative Strategic Manag...

Defining Science

What is science? Science is a body of knowledge; science is what scientists do qua scientists; science is a tradition; science is any empirically involved research activity; science is a faculty in the university. All these answers are true and meet the question, yet they are highly unsatisfactory. Hence, the question was ill-put. Here it is in its proper wording: what is the essence of science? This is a tricky question; without entering the hoary matter of the critique of essentialism one can re-word it: what differentiates science from……? Taking it seriously requires the study in depth of many competitors to science. The study of alien cultures is, of course, highly recommended and even the bouncers will not object to it unless it is done from the viewpoint of the competition. Yet controversy about alien cultures abounds in the scientific departments devoted to it, and consequently the task of characterizing science in opposition to them gets increasingly harder. Example: is Claude Lévi-Strauss, who has created a revolution in the current view of myth and of magic, is he a bouncer or a competitor? He says he is a friend of science, a scientist indeed. Is he? The question is very difficult to settle and the anthropological literature is still struggling with it. Let us try to alter our strategy, then. Can we look at science rather than at the competition and find there some clear-cut characteristic that sets science clearly apart from all the competitors? If so, what is it? This is the problem of the demarcation of science as semi-officially understood. The most traditional answer to it, to repeat, is that science is a body of theories, and what characterizes them is their certitude, our ability to prove their perfection and finality. (Bechtel:1988) The more modern answer is the theory that science is a prestigious social class which lends prestige to its ideas. These two answers are contested these days, though the first is advocated mainly by philosophers of science and contested mainly by sociologists and historians of science, and the second suffers the reverse role-we have here two groups of self-appointed public-relations spokespeople of science competing for the same territory. Let us take the first answer first. In the twentieth century the impact of logic led to a shift on this matter. The scientific character of a sentence shifted: it was deemed not proof but provability. Now generally one cannot know if a sentence will prove true or false before it is compared with experience. So, a sentence was deemed not quite provable, but merely decidable; a sentence is decided if it is either proved or disproved (Brown:1977). This doubled the number of entries: not only a proven sentence but also its negation is scientific, as the negation of a proven sentence is disproved, and the couple of sentences taken together is decidable. Now the claim was that though generally a sentence cannot be declared a priori provable, it was declared that every well-formed sentence is a priori decidable. The justification for the relaxation of the criterion of demarcation of science to the extent of letting the negation of scientific claims be scientific was the wish to corner the competition once and for all by permitting the competition to contradict science openly. If the competition does contradict science, they will put themselves to ridicule, and if not, we will be able to expose them as saying nothing. The very idea that one can permit the competition or not, and decide that they say something or not, shows that the advocates of this view took anti-science to be passé, that they were serving science in the supposition that it is winning anyhow. In any case, they met the surprise of their lives when they learned that even in mathematics decidability is unattainable. In computer science it is at times an empirical affair: many tasks given to a computer for deciding the truth or falsity (called the truth value) of a sentence are performable, and demonstrably so; at times the demonstration is purely abstract, as when the time the task takes to complete is much too long (Chalmers:1999). And some tasks are not known to be performable or not. And then, if such a task is given to a computer, then, if the computer finishes the task, it is performable and the truth or falsity of the sentence in question is decidable; but until the task is completed it cannot be decided whether the task will be completed soon or not. The Philosophy of Science Science began in Antiquity as a branch of wisdom, and philosophy,  the love of wisdom) was distinguished from wisdom only by philosophers. Cultivators of science in its early modern times (c. 1600-1800) called themselves philosophers, and their activity was called not science but natural philosophy. What we call today the philosophy of science includes the theories of knowledge (epistemology) and of learning (methodology), as well as the study of the principles of science (metaphysics, the philosophy of nature) (Chalmers:1990). The first two disciplines were at the time neglected as they were considered marginal; the third, metaphysics, was deemed distinctly dangerous. Natural philosophers did not consider their work impractical; they called themselves ‘benefactors of humanity’, as they were convinced that their activities, in addition to their intrinsic merits, will bring peace and prosperity to the whole world (Godfrey-Smith:2003). But they insisted that the practical aspects of science, significant as they surely are, can only appear as by-products, not as the outcome of study directed to any goal other than the search for the truth: any other goal will render research biased and so worse than nothing.  It is hard to examine this, quite generally received, assessment, since the expression ‘the philosophy of science’ is new. To repeat, traditionally the word ‘philosophy’ designated learning in general and empirical science in particular. After the defeat of the French Revolution, some fashionable reactionary philosophers swore allegiance to unreason. Other, more old-fashioned philosophers understandably attempted to distance themselves from the new advocacy of unreason, and one way they did this was by naming their own views ‘scientific philosophy’. This name usually designated mechanistic philosophy; its adherents considered theology to be typically metaphysical and so they branded all metaphysics evil; this enhanced their claim for scientific status for their own, mechanistic metaphysics (Charlesworth:1982). This way the philosophy that upheld the traditional esteem of reason centered mainly on science and on reasonability in the moral life of the individual and the nation. It naturally tended to centre increasingly on epistemology, methodology and rational metaphysics as a main tool to combat unreason (O’Hear:1989). The philosophers of unreason had-still have-their own philosophy of science, but this is scarcely recognized: the philosophers who defend reason against the attack on it from the advocates of unreason took a monopoly on science and its defense. The philosophy of science thus evolved into a specific activity of philosophers of the rationalist persuasion-the activity of defending science against its detractors. This explains the poverty of the field today: today science has no worthy detractors to combat; and no dragons to slay, no heroic deeds (Newton-Smith:1981). Even the philosophers of science themselves are aware of this fact, as they defend science not only by singing its praise, but also by attempting to solve problems in epistemology and in methodology, and by seeking newer and better arguments to combat metaphysics with. They do this as a mere pious act, paying no heed to the possibility that the problems they pose are insoluble, at least insoluble as long as they are presented in the traditional manner and settings (Godfrey-Smith:2003). They cling to the pre-critical, optimistic view of science in the face of the risks to the very survival of humanity which scientific technology has originated: they relegate these risks to the new field of the philosophy of technology (which is less than half a century old), as if their philosophy of science does not include the philosophy of technology and as if their philosophy of science does not credit science with scientific technology as a great achievement (Charlesworth:1982). It really is a cheap trick to admit to the field of the philosophy of science the praise for science as the source of the benefits from scientific technology and its great achievements, and to banish to the philosophy of technology the possible and actual ill-effects of the same scientific technology. The efforts to solve the traditional problems of the philosophy of science, he says, are commendable even if these should turn out to be insoluble. For, he explains, the struggle is the ongoing defense of science and thus of traditional rationalist philosophy and thus of rationalism as such (Schick:2000). T.S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions begins with the observation that our image of science might well undergo a complete transformation if we took a dispassionate look at the actual history of science (Bechtel:1988). On this picture the scientist disinterestedly applies his special tool, the scientific method, and each application takes him further on the road to truth. In making this observation Kuhn is not simply looking forward to his own conclusion that between the ideology of science and the realities of scientific practice there falls a vast shadow. Rather he is suggesting that mere reflection on the source of our image of science is likely to prompt the conjecture that the image is gravely distorted. For the vast majority of us acquire our image either through contemporary scientific textbooks or through popular accounts of science the authors of which in turn derive their image from the standard texts. Such texts are designed to present contemporary scientific beliefs and techniques. In so far as we learn thereby anything about the history of science, it is through cleaned-up versions of past scientific triumphs (Chalmers:1999). The grasp of the struggles that preceded the great moments of science derives more often than not from what the makers of these moments themselves said about the struggle. If this is the source of one’s image of science one ought to worry about its viability, just as one should be worried about one’s image of the political process if that image was derived solely from, say, reading the memoirs of Wilson and Brezhnev. The weak or boring attack is launched by one who accepts both that there is some special method and some ideal mode of applying it but who thinks that the actual practice of the scientific community falls short to a greater or lesser extent from what could be achieved (Brown:1977). The strong or exciting attack, on the other hand, is waged by those who deny that there is any such defensible ideal with which actual practice can be compared. The investigations into the history of science, which Kuhn advises, lead him, initially at least, to embrace the exciting attack. However, in response to criticism Kuhn has so modified and altered or re-interpreted the position advanced in the first edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that it is no longer clear whether a rationalist is committed to denying anything that Kuhn asserts. To begin with I shall be concerned with the earlier strong Kuhnian position, which deserves to be taken seriously (more seriously than Kuhn himself now appears to take it). For it articulates the most basic challenge to the rationalist perspective, a challenge which has yet to be met in full. The model of science which Kuhn sees as emerging from a study of the history of science is to be explicated in terms of his notion of a paradigm. In his original essay Kuhn played fast and loose with this notion to the extent that one critic claimed to be able to discern twenty-two different senses in which the term was used. Indeed, several critics have maintained that this free and easy manipulation of the notion nullifies the value of his work (Chlamers:1999). This latter notion of a paradigm as a shared example was the genesis of Kuhn’s full notion of a paradigm, or as he now prefers to call it ‘a disciplinary matrix’. The notion of a shared example derives from his observation that we cannot give a rule specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for the applications of even simple, observational predicates such as ‘…is a swan’. Often we acquire a grasp of the sense of a predicate through the realization that certain objects constitute paradigm cases of the instantiation of the predicate. We acquire the ability to recognize other objects as being like the paradigm objects in the appropriate respect and apply the predicate to them. Epistemologically the exemplars of the predicates are prior to any rules for their application. In fact, it may not be possible, even having acquired the use of a predicate, to specify its sense in this way. This point about the application of predicates is both familiar and not particularly contentious. Kuhn seeks to extend the general idea to more sophisticated predicates than ‘…is a swan’. For instance, the notions of a successful scientific practice or a significant problem or a successful solution to such a problem are taken to be notions the application of which is grasped through exemplars or paradigms without prior or even post specification of rules giving the necessary and sufficient conditions of, say, solutions being successful (Newton-Smith:1981). These ‘shared examples can serve cognitive functions commonly attributed to shared rules’. Kuhn is right in maintaining that there are no such rules available for these sorts of notion. However, there is a danger in assuming too easily that this is the case. For an endeavor to search for rules may reveal some necessary and some sufficient conditions, and the articulation of these may be of considerable interest even though we cannot produce rules which specify conditions which are jointly necessary and sufficient. His point remains that an explicit grasp of these partial rules is not a precondition of the application of the predicate. In the end it is not clear just how much light this casts on the nature of the scientific enterprise since it has nothing particular to do with the science. As we noted, Kuhn was led to introduce the particular term ‘paradigm’ in the context of considering the application of predicates. It was, therefore, misleading to extend that term to cover the other four ingredients noted above. Kuhn also employs the notion of an exemplar in giving his account of the meaning of scientific terms: ‘The process of matching exemplars to expressions is initially a way of learning to interpret the expressions.’  The positive and salutary virtue of Kuhn’s use of his notion of a paradigm is to remind us that in looking at the scientific enterprise it is important to focus on more than the theories (in the narrow sense of the term) advocated within a given community (Chlamers:1990). The danger in using the notion is that we may be led to view the history of science as a sequence of discrete, clearly demarked, paradigms. The notion is far too vague and imprecise for this. Given his own characterization it simply will not do to say that ‘despite occasional ambiguities, the paradigms of a mature scientific community can be determined with relative ease’. Notwithstanding this danger, it remains a useful term. For, in general, it directs our attention to the fact that in understanding the scientific enterprise we must look not only at theories proper but also at a wider range of beliefs, attitudes, procedures and techniques of the scientific community. In particular it reminds us that in explaining the replacement of one theory by another it is essential to look at this wider nexus and its evolution. However, as noted above, in view of the absence of any associated criterion of individuation we cannot think of the term as identifying any delimited class of particular items (Newton-Smoth:1981). This severely limits its utility as a term of art within the history and sociology of science. It is too vague a term to allow us to ask questions as to why one particular paradigm gives way to another or to seek to devise laws or general theories about paradigms. Kuhn unfortunately writes as if it were a technical term capable of utilization in this way. Interestingly, he himself finds no need to use the term in his recent historical study of the origins of Quantum Mechanics. And, more seriously, as we shall see, Kuhn holds a number of untenable theses about this only vaguely delimited phenomenon of paradigm change.   References   Bechtel, W. 1988. Philosophy of Science: An Overview for Cognitive Science. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.   Brown, H. I.: Perception, theory and commitment, Precedent Publishing, 1977.   Chalmers, A. F. (1999) What is this Thing Called Science?, Hackett Pub Co Inc   Chalmers, A. (1990) Science and Its Fabrication, Hackett Pub Co Inc Charlesworth, M. (1982). Science, non-science and pseudo-science. Geelong: Deakin University Press. Godfrey-Smith, P. (2003) Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, University of Chicago Press. O’Hear, A. (1989) Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Oxford: Clarendon Press Newton-Smith, W.H. (1981) The Rationality of Science, New York: Routledge   Schick, T., Jr. (2000) Readings in the Philosophy of Science, New York: Routledge   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Defining Science

What is science? Science is a body of knowledge; science is what scientists do qua scientists; science is a tradition; science is any emp...

Scientific Management

‘Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management reflects an approach to managing that is no longer appropriate for today’s managers.’ Critically evaluate this statement, with particular reference to an example from a workplace with which you are familiar.     Introduction             Scientific management emerged as a system of achieving efficiency in the performance of employees and productivity of large-scale manufacturing companies. Frederick Taylor espoused scientific management and described this as the process of utilising scientific method in managing workers in order to improve productivity since scientific method involves an organised means of performing tasks and organising various tasks to simplify work assignments and ensure the easy trainability of employees. Scientific management emerged as a means of organising the process of specialisation in order to derive the greatest possible productivity from the workers as contributing units. ( 2003)             As such, many large manufacturing companies adopted this system. These firms welcomed the change because of their previous difficult experiences in obtaining workers with the minimum skills to contribute optimum output. Prior systems of skills development occurred through the apprenticeship system where skilled artisans pass their skills to other people by taking apprentices to train. This does not work well with large production firms because they require more skilled and trainable workers, which they cannot achieve through apprenticeships. During the boom of production, many companies adopted scientific management.             However, at present, scientific management has received a number of criticisms due to the changes in the business environment such as the growth of services sector that required flexibility from workers. The specialisation achieved through scientific management limited opportunities for creativity and innovation or room for flexibility to emerging issues in service industries. As such, the appropriateness of scientific method in current business environments became an important issue, which succeeding discussions seek to unravel. Principles of Scientific Management             Based on the studies made by Frederick Taylor on steel workers together with other studies, he identified four core principles of scientific management. First principle is the replacement of the rule-of-thumb methods of work with method aligned with the scientific study of tasks. This is done by conducting scientific studies of every aspect of tasks in order to develop the best way of accomplishing the task. Second principle is the active scientific selection, training and development of every worker instead of passively relying on the employees to initiate their personal training. This involves the active role of managers in developing appropriate and effective training and development programs using scientific method. Third principle is developing cooperative relationships with the workers to secure the workers’ adoption of methods derived through the scientific method so that there is need to communicate to the workers the methods planned for use in the production process and seek their approval and recognition to ensure compliance. Fourth principle is dividing work as equally as possible between management and workers in order to align the scientific planning and policies of management with the actualisation of plans and adherence to policies by the workers. The division of work involves the assignment of responsibility to managers to develop scientific plans and responsibility to workers to comply with the plans. By complying with these principles, production firms engaging in scientific management expected to achieve greater productivity required to meet increasing demand as large manufacturing companies expanded to the international market. (2005)             In Taylor’s study of the steel industry, he found that the workers were operating at a level below their output capacity. This situation was termed as soldiering, which is caused by three attitudes or perceptions of the workers. First cause is the general belief arising from the ranks of workers that enhancing their productivity would lead to the need for lesser labour resulting to the elimination of their fellow workers. The fear of losing their jobs resulted to the attitude of limiting their output to an extent that allows them to remain employed but at a lesser rate to maintain the importance of the number of labourers hired by the company. Second cause is the lower levels of productivity in cases on non-incentive wage systems with employees trying to convince the employer to accept the slow pace of production. This is based on the belief of workers that speeding up production would result to the increase in standards so that they end up producing more for the same pay. In case the workers receive pay for every unit produced, they also have the fear that increasing their output would result to a change in output expectations to the extent that they produce more at the same rate with the effect of decreasing their per unit pay. Third cause is the strong reliance of workers on rule-of-thumbs instead of determining work methods directed towards optimised productivity. (2003; 2005)             Due to the recognition of these problems among workers, Taylor conducted experiments resulting to the derivation of the principles as well as general approaches and various elements in decision and policy-making on the part of management. These were based on the optimal performance level of particular jobs together with the factors necessary in achieving this level of performance. These served as guides to production companies in developing plans intended to optimise performance.             Scientific management involves a number of general approaches. First is the importance of defining the set of skills required for every job so that there should be different requirements for the different jobs. By doing this, managers ensure that upon the engagement of workers or employees, these are informed of the requirements constituting the expectations of the firm for hiring the workers. Apart from defining the set of skills for various jobs, these should also be communicated to the workers to ensure the alignment and clarification of expectations. When this happens, the accomplishment of work is guided and directed towards the goals of the firm. Second is the selection of workers having the appropriate abilities for every job. Since there are already identified set of skills for the different jobs, this can be used as basis in matching workers with available positions. Third is the setting of standards in performing the various jobs. Standards are important to ensure that guidance is accorded to workers so that they are able to practice these guidelines. Fourth is the provision of training for the standard tasks so that business firms are able to accrue the basic skills they need in completing their tasks and deriving output.  Fifth is the detailed and organised planning of all work that needs to be done in order to eliminate delays and interruptions. Part of planning is the consideration of expected issues and problems as well as the provision of alternative solutions so that managers have ready solutions for application depending upon the context of emerging work-related situations. Sixth is the utilisation of wage as incentives for enhanced output. Wage is the basic incentive for employment so that providing acceptable wages would encourage greater outputs. (2003; 2005)             Apart from these basic principles, there are also elements inherent in the practice of scientific management. First element is the definition and delineation of labour and authority together with the corresponding responsibilities and legitimisation of official authority. Second element is the placement of workers and managers in a hierarchy where levels of authority and management relations are clearly defined to clarify the flow of communications and directives. Third element is the selection of workers based on their competence, experience and training in technical fields. Fourth element is the recording or reporting of all actions done and decisions made to derive continuity of effective actions and decisions to become best practices. Fifth element is the recognition of the delineation between the owners of the business firm and the managers. Although in small companies, owners could also play the role of managers, in large business firms management is distinguished from owners in terms of interests and roles. The distinction is necessary to define the responsibilities and roles of management in relation to the accomplishment of tasks. Sixth element is the compliance of managers with various rules and procedures that enables the reliable prediction of behaviour. Workers pattern the accomplishment of tasks with the actions and decision of managers so that predictability according to commonly established standards is necessary for the continuity of tasks. (2003; 2005)             Through these principles, general approaches and elements, scientific management has made significant contributions including rational business management, raising the importance of compensation, thorough understanding of task requirements, and salience of organised selection and development of workers.  Applications of Scientific Management             Scientific management involves an ideal system because it ensures the fulfilment of objectives of the company while at the same time advocating for the wage interests of workers by considering competitive wage as the primary incentive for the cooperation and enhanced performance of workers. The scientific approach also enables business firms to gain control over the production and fulfilment of orders through clearly communicated guidelines and standards.     However, in practice, application is varied largely because of the differences in the contexts of different business firms, even companies belonging to the same industry such as the production industries. As such, scientific management has no single application or results when applied by actual business firms in the US or in other regions. There are business firms that adopted only aspects of scientific management while others merged scientific management with other strategies. Regardless of the means of utilising scientific management, the important thing is for business firms to determine the effective ways of applying this strategy to meet their needs and objectives and achieve the desired results. Moreover, companies implementing scientific management experienced successes and problems alike. The cases discussed below express the application of scientific management in actual business settings.             Scientific management developed as an alternative system for large manufacturing companies so that best studies on the application of scientific management include Ford and Toyota, with Ford as the earlier model for the application of scientific management. Ford applied scientific management in its mass production plants through division of labour and specialisation of tasks. In the completion of tasks, Ford applied strong hierarchical control so that workers performing tasks in the production line were assigned to a single repetitive task. Scientific management had a number of manifestations in Ford’s employment policies. First is the mechanisation of its mass production processes so that management is highly technical and separated from humanistic consideration. In a way, scientific management propounded the view that workers constitute instruments or tools of production subject to allocation, control or direction. Second is the fragmentation of work into clear stages and the assignment of people to these stages to complete the tasks. Since the assembly line constitutes a single process divided into phases, there is need to ensure that the people assigned in each phase are able to complete their work efficiently in order to prevent delays in the production process. Third is the specialisation of tasks in order to provide unskilled workers with the experience they need to be able to accomplish their work efficiently. (2003)             Ford applied scientific management by establishing a strong management group and providing guidelines and standards for its workers so that there is a defined authority and task requirements forming part of the management plan of the company. Moreover, Ford provided basic technical training to its workers based on their specialisations. However, there are also deviations in Ford’s application of scientific management including the dehumanisation of the workforce so that the focus is only on the interests of the firm. This is different from scientific management because this process provides that through cooperative employment relations, both the interests of the company and the workers can be achieved through detailed plans. This means that workers cannot be treated merely as tools for production. Nevertheless, Ford’s management strategy applied the general approaches of scientific management to achieve positive results such as the speeding up of the production process to allow the company to gain higher revenue.             Another large manufacturing company that patterned its management strategy from scientific management is Toyota. The company established Toyota Production System, which finds basis on the idea that plans and organises not only the manufacturing process but also dual relationships with its suppliers and end consumers. The purpose of the production system is to address the overburdening of aspects of production and relationships, the prevention of inconsistencies in the work or phase alignments, and the elimination of wastes or delays. As such, the production system was intended to address a number of objectives including: 1) the continuity of motion of workers and machine; 2) minimisation of the waiting period of workers and machine; 3) conveyance or logistics to transport raw materials to the plant and finished products to distribution channels; 4) processing of orders and keeping schedules; 5) organising inventory of raw materials to ensure that resources are available to meet sudden surges in demand without resulting to waste in case of decreases in demand; and 6) making efficient the correction of errors through the reworking and scrapping of resources to prevent wastage by recycling parts. (2004)             Toyota applied scientific management with managers taking charge of the processes and workers through thoroughly applied standards and guidelines in order to ensure that whenever the products are sold there are always new products as replacement in order to always have products that meet demand. As such, through strong leadership and direction, Toyota was able to minimise lead-time as well as reduce cost while at the same time enhancing product quality. The scientific aspect of Toyota’s production system involves the correlations arising between certain events and processes that enable the company to take charge of present production as well as derive expectations of future levels of production. As such, other companies have used Toyota’s production system as a model, although no other company has achieved the greatest results more than Toyota.             It is the early experiences and successes of Ford and Toyota that urged Jim Beam to adopt scientific management. Jim Beam is a bourbon whiskey brand produced in Kentucky established in 1795. The company addresses international demand so that the bulk of production needed required the company to consider management strategies that enabled the company to meet international demand. As such, the firm applied work standards that allowed workers three bathroom breaks, including one before lunch, one during lunch, and the last one after lunch. Workers are also given one bathroom break that is unscheduled. The failure of workers to meet with these limits is subject to warnings, fines and even dismissal in case of frequent infractions. These guidelines were implemented as part of the organisation of the production process intended to meet scheduled demand. As such, scheduled and limited bathroom breaks was necessary to ensure control of production process and ensure that workers are able to effectively meet the targeted quota. ( 2002)              applied scientific management system that adhered to Ford’s application of scientific management by having a planned production process that includes the expected actions of workers so that even bathroom breaks are regulated. By controlling processes,   ensured the achievement of its goals. However, similar to the other companies, Jim Beam applied scientific management without its humanistic factors. Issues of Scientific Management             Issues or criticisms of scientific management came about because of a number of reasons. First, is the difficulty in applying the scientific system in its entirety because of the difficulty in accommodating the interests of both employers and workers. The manager takes the role of balancing this interest in order to achieve intended results with both the employer and workers satisfied with the results. However, in practice, the manager usually favours the interest of the employers such as the reduction of costs to the extent that this adversely affects the workers. This is expressed in the case of . Even if  achieved their expected levels of production and accomplished its lead-time reduction goal, workers had complaints resulting to high turnover rates. Issues raised by workers included low wages when the work is heavy as well as stringent regulations considered to be unreasonable especially the controlled bathroom breaks in Jim Beam. In the case of wages, many labour-based business firms consider the provision of higher wages as unreasonable cost so that depending upon the abundance of labour and the market price of labour; companies are usually unwilling to offer wages higher than the market price to encourage their workers to continuously and diligently contribute to output. These also represent the common practices in the many production companies. As such, the objective of scientific management of selecting and matching workers to tasks and providing basic training to employees cannot be achieved in a work environment with high turnover rates.             Second is the appropriateness of scientific management in contemporary contexts. Human rights received popular support among the ranks of workers by constituting criticisms to existing business strategies or employment relations. In the case of Jim Beam, workers protested the limitation to the bathroom breaks of employees so that it the company has been given a citation for not providing bathroom facilities to employees that the company protested. Although the company was not fined, this represented problems that business firms applying scientific management can expect to experience. (2002) The emergence of labour laws and labour conflict resolution channels has provided workers with the means of challenging one-sided policies and firm-oriented guidelines.             Third is the rationality of strictly scientific management approach without considering humanistic factors. At a time when human relations has become an important factor in competitiveness and competitive advantage, business firms cannot deny the importance of considering the interests of employees and workers to ensure satisfaction expected to influence customer service and eventually customer satisfaction. Moreover, people management has also provided important aspects such as open communications between top management and front line employees to ensure that the policies applied by the company fit with the guidance needed by workers and employees especially those that directly service employees. The practice of taking bottom-up feedbacks instead of relying only on feedbacks coming from the top management has received acceptance by many production and service companies. (2005) These developments indicate that the human side of employment relations has become an important aspect of business management. As such, scientific management has received criticism as limited only to an aspect of human resource management, non-encompassing of the various issues actually faced by business firms, and insufficient to meet the contingencies faced by contemporary business firms.             These issues indicate that although the idea of scientific management envisioned the success of business firms with both owners and workers satisfied, this is not easily achievable in actual business operations. This has dual divergent implications. On one hand, this could mean that scientific management has lost its importance to contemporary business firms because of the incompatibilities between the tenets of scientific management and the needs and objectives of business firms. As new management approaches emerged that focused on the human side of employment relations and production processes, these have been adopted by many companies especially those involved in the services and knowledge-based sectors that operate in a labour market with limited skilled workers. On the other hand, scientific management remains an important management approach even in present settings because of the integration of its approaches and elements in emerging management strategies. Even if scientific management emerged as a system governing production companies, its tenets still apply to service and knowledge-based companies. The reason for the difficulties or issues in applying scientific management is that its core principles are highly misconstrued in actual application. Although scientific management is aligned with scientific reasoning, this does not exclude the human aspects as applied by production companies. Although companies require control and planning of processes, this does not deny the importance of humanism. Conclusion             Scientific management remains an important management approach because of its valuable contributions to strategic management but its application should match the context of firms. One important contribution of Taylor is the recognition of money as the most basic motivation strategy. This is because money constitutes the initial purpose of employment, which is to provide income to employed individuals. This means that income constitutes the initial consideration of workers in making employment and work-related decisions. Moreover, Taylor also provides the importance of incentive-based people management. This means that managers should establish performance measurement systems and use this system in assessing the performance of employees together with the provision of incentives, recognition and rewards to employees to support their development of high esteem for their contribution to the company. This then results to enhanced performance, job satisfaction, and even firm loyalty.              Another important contribution of scientific management is the organised and future or long-term oriented approach. Since scientific management governs present as well as future management decisions, this constitutes an important management perspective for companies seeking long-term viability and continuous enhanced performance and productivity. Long-term goals are achieved through various practices such as the development of cooperative atmosphere for business firms as well as the utilisation of commonly known standards. Regardless of whether the application is in production or service delivery, these general approaches covered by scientific management remain important. Even if contemporary issues require flexibility, there is still need for scientific reasoning and analysis in management-level decision-making.           Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Scientific Management

‘Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management reflects an approach to managing that is no longer appropriate for today’s managers.’ Criticall...

Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System

Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System               Understanding the success of Toyota in the market entails decoding its production system. This type of production system molds and creates a community of scientists, which are responsible with defining and establishing sets of hypotheses that can be tested. The success of Toyota’s Production System uses a rigorous process of problem solving, including a detailed assessment of the current state of affairs and plan for improvement of the company. In general, the production system of Toyota involves teaching its workers the scientific method at every level of the organization. The scientific method involves ‘Four Rules’, which is regarded as the DNA of the Toyota Production System.             The first rule emphasizes how the employees of Toyota work, which is highly specified with regards to content, sequence, timing, and outcome. Exactness is applied in all of the activities of the workers, regardless of their functional specialty or hierarchical role. As a part of the scientific method, the first rule forces the workers to test hypotheses through action, where the first hypothesis states that the person doing the activity is capable of performing it correctly, and the second states that performing the activity actually creates the expected outcome or result. Variations and providing solutions to problems independently is not tolerated in the production system of Toyota, as each worker in the production line must be guided by his or her supervisor to prevent further problems once shipped and delivered to clients. In this sense, the production system of Toyota aims for perfection, even in how workers or employees do their individual job. The second rule emphasizes how people connect with one another, including workers, suppliers and customers. This rule specifies that the connection between people must be standardized and direct, thus, in the event of encountering problems within the production line, the possibility of variance is reduced. In this way, the persons involved in the production system of Toyota continues to constantly test hypotheses, thus, keeping the system flexible and adjusting the system constructively. The third rule of Toyota’s Production System emphasizes the construction of the production line, such that every product and service flows along a simple, specified path. This rule points out that all individuals connected to the pathway or specific assembly line is essential. With this, it can be perceived that every individual involved in the process of production is equally important. The fourth and last rule in the production process of Toyota involves the improvement of people and the process of production. The last rule emphasizes that Toyota continually teaches its workers to improve, and not expecting them to learn strictly from personal experiences. This rule stresses that any improvement in terms of the production process must be made accordance with the scientific method, under the guidance of a teacher, and at the lowest possible organizational level. Improvements are continually achieved through continuous learning, stating of logic, and through the supervision of teachers. In essence, the success of Toyota’s production system involves the implementation of a scientific method in all stages of development, providing improvement in the entire organization at every level. Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System

Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System Understanding the success of Toyota in the market entails decoding its ...

Scientific Management

‘Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management reflects an approach to managing that is no longer appropriate for today’s managers.’ Critically evaluate this statement, with particular reference to an example from a workplace with which you are familiar.     Introduction             Scientific management emerged as a system of achieving efficiency in the performance of employees and productivity of large-scale manufacturing companies. Frederick Taylor espoused scientific management and described this as the process of utilising scientific method in managing workers in order to improve productivity since scientific method involves an organised means of performing tasks and organising various tasks to simplify work assignments and ensure the easy trainability of employees. Scientific management emerged as a means of organising the process of specialisation in order to derive the greatest possible productivity from the workers as contributing units. ( 2003)             As such, many large manufacturing companies adopted this system. These firms welcomed the change because of their previous difficult experiences in obtaining workers with the minimum skills to contribute optimum output. Prior systems of skills development occurred through the apprenticeship system where skilled artisans pass their skills to other people by taking apprentices to train. This does not work well with large production firms because they require more skilled and trainable workers, which they cannot achieve through apprenticeships. During the boom of production, many companies adopted scientific management.             However, at present, scientific management has received a number of criticisms due to the changes in the business environment such as the growth of services sector that required flexibility from workers. The specialisation achieved through scientific management limited opportunities for creativity and innovation or room for flexibility to emerging issues in service industries. As such, the appropriateness of scientific method in current business environments became an important issue, which succeeding discussions seek to unravel. Principles of Scientific Management             Based on the studies made by Frederick Taylor on steel workers together with other studies, he identified four core principles of scientific management. First principle is the replacement of the rule-of-thumb methods of work with method aligned with the scientific study of tasks. This is done by conducting scientific studies of every aspect of tasks in order to develop the best way of accomplishing the task. Second principle is the active scientific selection, training and development of every worker instead of passively relying on the employees to initiate their personal training. This involves the active role of managers in developing appropriate and effective training and development programs using scientific method. Third principle is developing cooperative relationships with the workers to secure the workers’ adoption of methods derived through the scientific method so that there is need to communicate to the workers the methods planned for use in the production process and seek their approval and recognition to ensure compliance. Fourth principle is dividing work as equally as possible between management and workers in order to align the scientific planning and policies of management with the actualisation of plans and adherence to policies by the workers. The division of work involves the assignment of responsibility to managers to develop scientific plans and responsibility to workers to comply with the plans. By complying with these principles, production firms engaging in scientific management expected to achieve greater productivity required to meet increasing demand as large manufacturing companies expanded to the international market. (2005)             In Taylor’s study of the steel industry, he found that the workers were operating at a level below their output capacity. This situation was termed as soldiering, which is caused by three attitudes or perceptions of the workers. First cause is the general belief arising from the ranks of workers that enhancing their productivity would lead to the need for lesser labour resulting to the elimination of their fellow workers. The fear of losing their jobs resulted to the attitude of limiting their output to an extent that allows them to remain employed but at a lesser rate to maintain the importance of the number of labourers hired by the company. Second cause is the lower levels of productivity in cases on non-incentive wage systems with employees trying to convince the employer to accept the slow pace of production. This is based on the belief of workers that speeding up production would result to the increase in standards so that they end up producing more for the same pay. In case the workers receive pay for every unit produced, they also have the fear that increasing their output would result to a change in output expectations to the extent that they produce more at the same rate with the effect of decreasing their per unit pay. Third cause is the strong reliance of workers on rule-of-thumbs instead of determining work methods directed towards optimised productivity. (2003; 2005)             Due to the recognition of these problems among workers, Taylor conducted experiments resulting to the derivation of the principles as well as general approaches and various elements in decision and policy-making on the part of management. These were based on the optimal performance level of particular jobs together with the factors necessary in achieving this level of performance. These served as guides to production companies in developing plans intended to optimise performance.             Scientific management involves a number of general approaches. First is the importance of defining the set of skills required for every job so that there should be different requirements for the different jobs. By doing this, managers ensure that upon the engagement of workers or employees, these are informed of the requirements constituting the expectations of the firm for hiring the workers. Apart from defining the set of skills for various jobs, these should also be communicated to the workers to ensure the alignment and clarification of expectations. When this happens, the accomplishment of work is guided and directed towards the goals of the firm. Second is the selection of workers having the appropriate abilities for every job. Since there are already identified set of skills for the different jobs, this can be used as basis in matching workers with available positions. Third is the setting of standards in performing the various jobs. Standards are important to ensure that guidance is accorded to workers so that they are able to practice these guidelines. Fourth is the provision of training for the standard tasks so that business firms are able to accrue the basic skills they need in completing their tasks and deriving output.  Fifth is the detailed and organised planning of all work that needs to be done in order to eliminate delays and interruptions. Part of planning is the consideration of expected issues and problems as well as the provision of alternative solutions so that managers have ready solutions for application depending upon the context of emerging work-related situations. Sixth is the utilisation of wage as incentives for enhanced output. Wage is the basic incentive for employment so that providing acceptable wages would encourage greater outputs. ( 2003; 2005)             Apart from these basic principles, there are also elements inherent in the practice of scientific management. First element is the definition and delineation of labour and authority together with the corresponding responsibilities and legitimisation of official authority. Second element is the placement of workers and managers in a hierarchy where levels of authority and management relations are clearly defined to clarify the flow of communications and directives. Third element is the selection of workers based on their competence, experience and training in technical fields. Fourth element is the recording or reporting of all actions done and decisions made to derive continuity of effective actions and decisions to become best practices. Fifth element is the recognition of the delineation between the owners of the business firm and the managers. Although in small companies, owners could also play the role of managers, in large business firms management is distinguished from owners in terms of interests and roles. The distinction is necessary to define the responsibilities and roles of management in relation to the accomplishment of tasks. Sixth element is the compliance of managers with various rules and procedures that enables the reliable prediction of behaviour. Workers pattern the accomplishment of tasks with the actions and decision of managers so that predictability according to commonly established standards is necessary for the continuity of tasks. (2003; 2005)             Through these principles, general approaches and elements, scientific management has made significant contributions including rational business management, raising the importance of compensation, thorough understanding of task requirements, and salience of organised selection and development of workers.  Applications of Scientific Management             Scientific management involves an ideal system because it ensures the fulfilment of objectives of the company while at the same time advocating for the wage interests of workers by considering competitive wage as the primary incentive for the cooperation and enhanced performance of workers. The scientific approach also enables business firms to gain control over the production and fulfilment of orders through clearly communicated guidelines and standards.     However, in practice, application is varied largely because of the differences in the contexts of different business firms, even companies belonging to the same industry such as the production industries. As such, scientific management has no single application or results when applied by actual business firms in the US or in other regions. There are business firms that adopted only aspects of scientific management while others merged scientific management with other strategies. Regardless of the means of utilising scientific management, the important thing is for business firms to determine the effective ways of applying this strategy to meet their needs and objectives and achieve the desired results. Moreover, companies implementing scientific management experienced successes and problems alike. The cases discussed below express the application of scientific management in actual business settings.             Scientific management developed as an alternative system for large manufacturing companies so that best studies on the application of scientific management include Ford and Toyota, with Ford as the earlier model for the application of scientific management. Ford applied scientific management in its mass production plants through division of labour and specialisation of tasks. In the completion of tasks, Ford applied strong hierarchical control so that workers performing tasks in the production line were assigned to a single repetitive task. Scientific management had a number of manifestations in Ford’s employment policies. First is the mechanisation of its mass production processes so that management is highly technical and separated from humanistic consideration. In a way, scientific management propounded the view that workers constitute instruments or tools of production subject to allocation, control or direction. Second is the fragmentation of work into clear stages and the assignment of people to these stages to complete the tasks. Since the assembly line constitutes a single process divided into phases, there is need to ensure that the people assigned in each phase are able to complete their work efficiently in order to prevent delays in the production process. Third is the specialisation of tasks in order to provide unskilled workers with the experience they need to be able to accomplish their work efficiently. (2003)             Ford applied scientific management by establishing a strong management group and providing guidelines and standards for its workers so that there is a defined authority and task requirements forming part of the management plan of the company. Moreover, Ford provided basic technical training to its workers based on their specialisations. However, there are also deviations in Ford’s application of scientific management including the dehumanisation of the workforce so that the focus is only on the interests of the firm. This is different from scientific management because this process provides that through cooperative employment relations, both the interests of the company and the workers can be achieved through detailed plans. This means that workers cannot be treated merely as tools for production. Nevertheless, Ford’s management strategy applied the general approaches of scientific management to achieve positive results such as the speeding up of the production process to allow the company to gain higher revenue.             Another large manufacturing company that patterned its management strategy from scientific management is Toyota. The company established Toyota Production System, which finds basis on the idea that plans and organises not only the manufacturing process but also dual relationships with its suppliers and end consumers. The purpose of the production system is to address the overburdening of aspects of production and relationships, the prevention of inconsistencies in the work or phase alignments, and the elimination of wastes or delays. As such, the production system was intended to address a number of objectives including: 1) the continuity of motion of workers and machine; 2) minimisation of the waiting period of workers and machine; 3) conveyance or logistics to transport raw materials to the plant and finished products to distribution channels; 4) processing of orders and keeping schedules; 5) organising inventory of raw materials to ensure that resources are available to meet sudden surges in demand without resulting to waste in case of decreases in demand; and 6) making efficient the correction of errors through the reworking and scrapping of resources to prevent wastage by recycling parts. (2004)             Toyota applied scientific management with managers taking charge of the processes and workers through thoroughly applied standards and guidelines in order to ensure that whenever the products are sold there are always new products as replacement in order to always have products that meet demand. As such, through strong leadership and direction, Toyota was able to minimise lead-time as well as reduce cost while at the same time enhancing product quality. The scientific aspect of Toyota’s production system involves the correlations arising between certain events and processes that enable the company to take charge of present production as well as derive expectations of future levels of production. As such, other companies have used Toyota’s production system as a model, although no other company has achieved the greatest results more than Toyota.             It is the early experiences and successes of Ford and Toyota that urged Jim Beam to adopt scientific management. Jim Beam is a bourbon whiskey brand produced in Kentucky established in 1795. The company addresses international demand so that the bulk of production needed required the company to consider management strategies that enabled the company to meet international demand. As such, the firm applied work standards that allowed workers three bathroom breaks, including one before lunch, one during lunch, and the last one after lunch. Workers are also given one bathroom break that is unscheduled. The failure of workers to meet with these limits is subject to warnings, fines and even dismissal in case of frequent infractions. These guidelines were implemented as part of the organisation of the production process intended to meet scheduled demand. As such, scheduled and limited bathroom breaks was necessary to ensure control of production process and ensure that workers are able to effectively meet the targeted quota. ( 2002)             Jim Beam applied scientific management system that adhered to Ford’s application of scientific management by having a planned production process that includes the expected actions of workers so that even bathroom breaks are regulated. By controlling processes, Jim Beam ensured the achievement of its goals. However, similar to the other companies, Jim Beam applied scientific management without its humanistic factors. Issues of Scientific Management             Issues or criticisms of scientific management came about because of a number of reasons. First, is the difficulty in applying the scientific system in its entirety because of the difficulty in accommodating the interests of both employers and workers. The manager takes the role of balancing this interest in order to achieve intended results with both the employer and workers satisfied with the results. However, in practice, the manager usually favours the interest of the employers such as the reduction of costs to the extent that this adversely affects the workers. This is expressed in the case of Jim Beam. Even if Jim Beam achieved their expected levels of production and accomplished its lead-time reduction goal, workers had complaints resulting to high turnover rates. Issues raised by workers included low wages when the work is heavy as well as stringent regulations considered to be unreasonable especially the controlled bathroom breaks in Jim Beam. In the case of wages, many labour-based business firms consider the provision of higher wages as unreasonable cost so that depending upon the abundance of labour and the market price of labour; companies are usually unwilling to offer wages higher than the market price to encourage their workers to continuously and diligently contribute to output. These also represent the common practices in the many production companies. As such, the objective of scientific management of selecting and matching workers to tasks and providing basic training to employees cannot be achieved in a work environment with high turnover rates.             Second is the appropriateness of scientific management in contemporary contexts. Human rights received popular support among the ranks of workers by constituting criticisms to existing business strategies or employment relations. In the case of Jim Beam, workers protested the limitation to the bathroom breaks of employees so that it the company has been given a citation for not providing bathroom facilities to employees that the company protested. Although the company was not fined, this represented problems that business firms applying scientific management can expect to experience. (2002) The emergence of labour laws and labour conflict resolution channels has provided workers with the means of challenging one-sided policies and firm-oriented guidelines.             Third is the rationality of strictly scientific management approach without considering humanistic factors. At a time when human relations has become an important factor in competitiveness and competitive advantage, business firms cannot deny the importance of considering the interests of employees and workers to ensure satisfaction expected to influence customer service and eventually customer satisfaction. Moreover, people management has also provided important aspects such as open communications between top management and front line employees to ensure that the policies applied by the company fit with the guidance needed by workers and employees especially those that directly service employees. The practice of taking bottom-up feedbacks instead of relying only on feedbacks coming from the top management has received acceptance by many production and service companies. (2005) These developments indicate that the human side of employment relations has become an important aspect of business management. As such, scientific management has received criticism as limited only to an aspect of human resource management, non-encompassing of the various issues actually faced by business firms, and insufficient to meet the contingencies faced by contemporary business firms.             These issues indicate that although the idea of scientific management envisioned the success of business firms with both owners and workers satisfied, this is not easily achievable in actual business operations. This has dual divergent implications. On one hand, this could mean that scientific management has lost its importance to contemporary business firms because of the incompatibilities between the tenets of scientific management and the needs and objectives of business firms. As new management approaches emerged that focused on the human side of employment relations and production processes, these have been adopted by many companies especially those involved in the services and knowledge-based sectors that operate in a labour market with limited skilled workers. On the other hand, scientific management remains an important management approach even in present settings because of the integration of its approaches and elements in emerging management strategies. Even if scientific management emerged as a system governing production companies, its tenets still apply to service and knowledge-based companies. The reason for the difficulties or issues in applying scientific management is that its core principles are highly misconstrued in actual application. Although scientific management is aligned with scientific reasoning, this does not exclude the human aspects as applied by production companies. Although companies require control and planning of processes, this does not deny the importance of humanism. Conclusion             Scientific management remains an important management approach because of its valuable contributions to strategic management but its application should match the context of firms. One important contribution of Taylor is the recognition of money as the most basic motivation strategy. This is because money constitutes the initial purpose of employment, which is to provide income to employed individuals. This means that income constitutes the initial consideration of workers in making employment and work-related decisions. Moreover, Taylor also provides the importance of incentive-based people management. This means that managers should establish performance measurement systems and use this system in assessing the performance of employees together with the provision of incentives, recognition and rewards to employees to support their development of high esteem for their contribution to the company. This then results to enhanced performance, job satisfaction, and even firm loyalty.              Another important contribution of scientific management is the organised and future or long-term oriented approach. Since scientific management governs present as well as future management decisions, this constitutes an important management perspective for companies seeking long-term viability and continuous enhanced performance and productivity. Long-term goals are achieved through various practices such as the development of cooperative atmosphere for business firms as well as the utilisation of commonly known standards. Regardless of whether the application is in production or service delivery, these general approaches covered by scientific management remain important. Even if contemporary issues require flexibility, there is still need for scientific reasoning and analysis in management-level decision-making.           Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Scientific Management

‘Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management reflects an approach to managing that is no longer appropriate for today’s managers.’ Criticall...