Taylorism

11 Key excerpts on "Taylorism"

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  Organization Theory and Technocratic Consciousness

  • Mats Alvesson(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  The basic thought behind scientific management can be summarized as follows: The overall assumption behind the scientific management theory was that by simplifying work the job could be carried out more efficiently, less qualified workers could be employed, the company management's control of production could be increased and, finally, the profits of the organization could rise. (Hackman and Lawler, 1971: 215) Hackman and Lawler express themselves still more concisely when they write that the aim of scientific management was to find means by which work could be simplified, specialized, standardized and subjected to routi-nes. According to Braverman (1974) it is just these particular job conditions which are characteristic of modern working life. In Braverman's view Taylorism has by no means lost its influence, but on the contrary is of the greatest importance to the forming of the modern work organization: It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the scientific management movement in the shaping of the modern corporation and indeed all institutions of capitalist society which carry on labor processes. The popular notion that Taylorism has been 'superseded' by later schools of industrial psychology or 'human relations', that it 'failed' - because of Taylor's amateurish and naive views of human motiva-tion or because it brought about a storm of labor opposition or because Taylor and various successors antagonized workers and sometimes management as well - or that it is outmoded because certain Taylorian specifics like functional foreman- Scientific Management 111 ship or his incentive-pay schemes have been discarded for more sophisticated methods: all these represent a woeful misreading of the actual dynamics of the development of management. (p. 86-7) A survey of the literature concerned with the importance of Taylorism to contemporary working life reveals that most writers are of an opinion similar to that of Braverman on this point (see Chapter 2).

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  Trapped in the Net

  The Unanticipated Consequences of Computerization

  • Gene I. Rochlin(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  6 But without a theory of management to implement them, it is likely that none of the new techniques would ever have been put to productive use. And the first of these theories, developed around the turn of the century, was the school of scientific management, the first, but not the last, to try to apply rational principles of science and engineering to social organization.

  Scientific Management

  As the creation of large factories or industries that employed large numbers of people to perform tasks by rote on a piecework basis shifted the emphasis from the skilled worker to the simple laborer, the more ambitious, motivated, and intelligent were quick to note that income and social mobility were increasingly associated with soft jobs such as management and sales rather than physical work, however skilled.7 Intelligence and experience were therefore leaving the plant and shop floor even before the first wave of task specialization and standardization narrowed the scope of individual tasks. Those who remained, or who replaced the ones who left, had few incentives to work any harder than was necessary. The new managers, lacking either work experience or a set of reliable measures against which to measure performance, were aware of the decline in morale, and, frequently, the decline in productivity that followed, but found it difficult to devise or enforce measures to increase efficiency in the face of worker recalcitrance.

  It was in this context that Frederick W. Taylor was moved to introduce the principles of what he called “scientific” management, derived at first largely from the application of production engineering. As an engineer, Taylor believed that if rational rules and tight control replaced previous disorderly and informal modes of plant organization, management would be better able to combat labor problems such as soldiering and low motivation among workers.8 Many of Taylor’s methods have become famous (or infamous); some, such as time-andmotion studies, were widely adopted. But others were too strict, or too mechanical, and Taylor had only moderate success in getting firms to adopt his means and methods.9

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  A Business and Labour History of Britain

  Case studies of Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

  • M. Richardson, P. Nicholls, M. Richardson, P. Nicholls(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  8 Taylorism in the Mines? Technology, Work Organization and Management in British Coalmining before Nationalization Stephanie Tailby 155 Taylorism, and the scientific management movement that emerged initially in the United States from the end of the nineteenth century, grew out of the trend towards ‘systematic management’ of the 1880s and 1890s. Investment in larger and more technically complex factor- ies generated new management problems of coordination and control that prompted, in turn, innovations in cost accounting, inventory con- trol and production scheduling. 1 Frederick Winslow Taylor applied and refined a number of these techniques and added new ones. His ‘system of scientific management’ can be interpreted as a system of labour con- trol based on work study that addressed the management of production as a whole. 2 In addition to time-and-motion studies and rate-fixing, it embraced ‘the routing of materials, tools, etc., and the planning of pro- duction, the running and maintenance of machinery, a series of func- tional foremen, and, in overall control, a central Planning Department’. 3 As such, it entailed changes in management’s own organization and procedures, the insertion of new management functions, and a new division of responsibilities that stripped powers from the traditional supervisor on the shop floor. General accounts of the development of ‘modern management’ rarely understate Taylorism’s influence. Nevertheless, historians and social scientists have offered a range of assessments of its impact on manage- ment organization and practice in Britain in the first half of the twen- tieth century. Many have concluded that British employers remained sceptical of the benefits to be gained, opted to pursue alternatives, or were constrained from embracing Taylorism because of product mar- ket considerations or by worker resistance to intensified management

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  Contested Learning in Welfare Work

  A Study of Mind, Political Economy, and the Labour Process

  • Peter H. Sawchuk(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Taylorism is conventionally earmarked by the separation of design from execution (e.g., Braverman 1974/1998). It is a work design approach rooted in the re-organization, first, of a key task or discrete set of tasks identified as both central to a par- ticular series of work practices and which presented the opportunity for the application of new technique or technology. It was described as scien- tific because its purpose was eventually to provide the basis for detailed measurement and mathematical calculations regarding ongoing changes to production output in response to capitalist markets. It was a key germ cell idea which, in turn, could be systematized and complemented in a variety of ways implicating diverse forms of labour process rationaliza- tion more broadly. In terms of the germ cell idea of changes to key tasks, the principles of evaluation were the centralization of decision-making and an ensuing search for and elimination of time, motion, and discre- tion that were not directly productive of organizational output (in generic terms, surplus value). 2 These basic elements are infamously and, as I show, somewhat ambiguously summarized by Taylor’s six principles in Principles of Scientific Management (1911/1947; hereafter cited simply as Principles): shift decision-making from worker to management; use scientific meth- ods to analyze work and re-design; provide detailed description of best practice and establish production outputs/wage system; select the best worker for the job; train workers; monitor their activities. These were principles which Taylor elaborated upon as he pitched his services to potential clients of his consulting business. I argue in the following that Contested Learning in Welfare Work 64 (perhaps by design) they hide much that is central to the enduring power of Taylorism. I suggest that in itself, this list of six principles is underwhelming, partic- ularly so, if we were to agree on some additional facts.

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  Work Psychology and Organizational Behaviour

  Managing the Individual at Work

  • Wendy Hollway(Author)
  • 1991(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  18 Work psychology and organizational behaviour Changes in practice had already begun. What Taylor contributed was a scientific* rationale for the changes through his claim that work could be controlled according to 'the rule of fact and law'. It was an idea which was ripe for application, available and powerful because of the success and legitimacy of nineteenth-century natural science. The corollary is that, on the one hand, all the ills of industrialization cannot be blamed on scientific management; on the other, those who formulate, disseminate and apply the ideas are part of the historical process and cannot fairly argue that they are exempt from responsi-bility. Put another way, it means that Taylorism was not a set of ideas emanating simply from the mind of a great or innovative thinker. It was part of the wider historical processes which moved industrialization along the road of new management systems whose primary purpose was the control of the labour process. In turn, the same forces ushered into being the new industrial psychology and the existence of a large and powerful interest group of managers with forms of organization for sharing concerns and disseminating ideas during a period of continuing, or increasing, conflicts with labour and severe economic competition. The effects of industrialization established the ground for manage-ment to emerge: increasingly the machinery developed for production necessitated the containment of labour in factories, rather than the old system of'putting out*. These factories grew in size to the point where informal relations with the owner were no longer possible and bureaucratic procedures and modes of organization were devised. Partly governed by the new machinery and partly by the desire to limit workers' control over their work, jobs became narrow, specialized and stripped of the craft skill previously associated with them.

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  Manufacturing Ideology

  Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan

  • William M. Tsutsui(Author)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  Despite its quiet reception on the shop floor, however, the introduction of Scientific Management did not go unchallenged in Japan. Academics and labor experts were not nearly as muted in their reaction to Taylorism as the factory workers who experienced managerial restructuring firsthand. Four aspects of the new system—its effects on individual workers, its implications for the labor movement, its social consequences, and its claims to be scientific—attracted the most attention from Japanese intellectuals in the 1910s and 1920s.

  On the first count, Scientific Management’s detractors argued that the new American methods ignored the physiological limitations and psychological needs of the laborer, leading unavoidably to the degradation of work and the redoubling of capitalist exploitation. According to Morito Tatsuo, the noted Marxist economist, Taylorism was a “method for squeezing the utmost efficiency from workers under the guise of ‘harmony’ and ‘science.’”100 Standardization, specialization, and the concentration of technical skills in management were purported to deskill and dehumanize, Taylorism’s “theft from the laborers of their knowledge and their experience” leading to a loss of worker autonomy and an enhancement of managerial control over the production process.101 “Artisans,” social commentator Hosoi Wakizō mourned, “have lost forever the joy of creation.”102 With the employers’ ability to “drive” workers thus intensified and with work made increasingly tedious by simplification and detailed motion study, critics charged, overwork became the norm and workers were ever more hindered by physical and mental fatigue.103 The Taylorite future was painted as one of physical degradation and grinding monotony. Horie Kiichi saw “the human being [becoming] just another machine, with no sense of purpose, no powers of imagination or invention, untiringly performing its alloted work, knowing nothing else.”104 As one observer aptly noted, Taylorism “overlooks completely those aspects of ‘human nature’ that cannot be quantified or predicted.”105

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  Facilitating the Socio-Economic Approach to Management

  • Henri Savall, John Conbere, Alla Heorhiadi(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Information Age Publishing

    (Publisher)

  It must be understood that Taylorism, on some level, appeared to work. Entire industries, such as steel and metallurgy, shipbuilding, railroads, au- tomobiles, and even the game of golf, were revolutionized and changed for- ever as the philosophy of Taylorism and the principles of scientific manage- ment were adopted and applied (Copley, 1923/2010). Taylorism worked in the sense that, based upon the use of experimental methods, time studies, and the standardization of work, substantial improvements in productivity and efficiency were experienced (Taylor, 1911/2006). At the end of World War II, a mere 35 years after the initial publication of The Principles of Scientific Management, Taylor’s system had lived up to its economic promise. In 1945, at the end of World War II, it was calculated that in America, the country where Taylorism was the most advanced, the productivity of one worker equaled that of six German workers or nine Japanese workers (Ohno, 1988). By the end of World War II, there was little doubt that the Taylor system and the principles of scientific management were seen as indispensable. For nations around the globe, the appearance of Taylorism in conjunc- tion with the appearance of Fordism and the assembly line became known as the mass-production system, and the system yielded enormous productiv- ity gains (Lacey, 1986). As the mass-production system was adopted and its methodology diffused around the globe, improvements were experienced in the overall living conditions of the average individual and wealth was cre- ated for entire nations (Kanigel, 1997; Lacey, 1987). On one level, Taylorism did help to change the world. It did so, however, at the expense and exclusion of the worker. Surprisingly, the Taylor’s Illusion  27 mass-production system left industry in America and Europe vulnerable to competition from an unlikely and unexpected source.

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  The Evolution of Management Thought

  • Daniel A. Wren, Arthur G. Bedeian(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  44 In what was called the rationalization movement, other firms such as Siemens, Borsig, Orsam, Daimler-Benz, and Bosch attempted to apply Taylor’s principles. The response of Ger- man trade unions was largely negative, as evidenced by strikes at Bosch in 1912 and 1913. After World War I, Germany took a nationalistic approach to scientific management by creating the Reichskuratorium für Wirtschaftlichkeit (RKW; roughly, National Productivity Board). The state-funded RKW was a clearinghouse for German academic and industry specialists to study and promote industrial efficiency during the interwar years of the Weimar Republic. 45 When Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists came to power, labor unions were disbanded and the RKW was used to control industrial practices. Thereafter, war, depression, and fascism shaped the course of scientific management in Germany. In Austria, Taylorism was first publically discussed in 1914 at the Österreichischer Ing- enieurund Architektenverein (Organization of Austrian Engineers and Architects). Discussions of Taylorism in both Germany and Austria were soon interrupted with the beginning of World War I in August 1914. 46 Following the war, however, these discussions resumed as Taylor–Zeitschrift, a journal devoted to Taylorism, was published in Austria from 1920 to 1929. 47 In 1896, the Russian-educated Polish engineer, Karol Adamiecki, developed a form of graphical analysis known as a “harmonogram” to solve production bottlenecks. Harmonograms charted the flow of work across a production process to minimize delays. Adamiecki’s harmono- grams had elements of Gantt’s charts but were also similar to a Program Evaluation and Review 39 Trevor Boyns, “Hans and Charles Renold: Entrepreneurs in the Introduction of Scientific Management Techniques in Brit- ain,” Management Decision 39(9) (2001), pp. 719–728. 40 Edward F. L. Brech, The Evolution of Modern Management, vol.

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  The Evolution of Management Thought

  • Daniel A. Wren, Arthur G. Bedeian(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  57 In what was called the rationalization movement, other firms such as Siemens, Borsig, Orsam, Daimler-Benz, and Bosch attempted to apply Taylor’s principles. The response of German trade unions was largely negative, as evidenced by strikes at Bosch in 1912 and 1913. After World War I, Germany took a nationalistic approach to scientific management by creating the Reichsku- ratorium für Wirtschaftlichkeit (RKW; National Board for Economy and Efficiency). The RKW, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Economics and the Federation of Technical and Scientific Associations, was a clearinghouse for German academic and industry specialists to study and promote industrial efficiency during the interwar years of the Weimar Republic. 58 When Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Workers Party came to power, labor unions were disbanded and the RKW was used to control industrial practices. Thereafter, the combination of deteriorating eco- nomic conditions, World War II, and the rise of fascism shaped the course of scientific manage- ment in Germany. In Austria, Taylorism was first publicly discussed in 1914 at the Österreichischer Ingenieu- rund Architektenverein (Organization of Austrian Engineers and Architects). Discussions of Tay- lorism in both Germany and Austria were soon interrupted with the beginning of World War I in August 1914. 59 Following the war, however, these discussions resumed as Taylor–Zeitschrift, a journal devoted to Taylorism, was published in Austria from 1920 to 1929. 60 Taylorism found a home in Poland as early as 1913 with the translation of The Princi- ples of Scientific Management by economist and engineer Henryk Mierzejewski. 61 An interest among Polish engineers in work methods may be traced to the late-nineteenth century. In 1896, the Russian-educated Polish engineer, Karol Adamiecki, developed a form of graphical analysis known as a “harmonogram” to solve production bottlenecks.

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  The Analysis of Linear Economic Systems

  Father Maurice Potron?s Pioneering Works

  • Christian Bidard, Guido Erreygers(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The economic regime thus determined will fit reality at least as long as the results of the scientific studies on which it is founded. Like these, it will only need to be updated from time to time. It seems to me that the scientific organization of labour in each establishment needs to be complemented by a scientific organization of the whole economic regime. Both are inspired by the same principles. Gathering and centralizing the data with regard to the numbers aik, tih, bkh, carrying out the computations, [and] communicating the results obtained, boils down to doing for the whole set of industrial and commercial labour, what in the Taylor system the scientific management office does for a single factory. The scientific organization of a factory is most certainly an operation which is complicated, costly, [and] apparently unproductive, but in general of a very high real return. The same will undoubtedly hold for a general organization of the economic regime. To sum up, for a sound appreciation of the Taylor system one must always keep in mind its four essential principles: the fundamental principle: sharing of work and responsibility between management (maximum part) and labourers (minimum part); the first three consequences, which specify the role and the duties of management: scientific study of the job; individual training of the labourer; assistance, control, [and] appropriate remuneration. The scientific study of the job, considered on its own, is an indifferent thing in itself. Its use can be excellent or appalling. It seems inaccurate to see in it the essence of the Taylor system and to present its other parts only as more or less ingenious palliatives. To the contrary: the essence of the system is to allow scientific study to serve the common interest of the boss, the worker, [and] the consumer.

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  The Early Years of Industrial and Organizational Psychology

  • Andrew J. Vinchur(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Criticism was particularly acute in Europe, where there was a tradition of greater emphasis on worker well-being than in the United States. Examples of critics include the English psychologists Charles S. Myers (1925) and Tom H. Pear (1948) and the German psychologist Otto Lipmann (1928–29). In Japan, Shigemi H. Kirihara (1959) was one of a number of psychologists at the Institute of Science of Labour in the early 1920s who criticized the Taylor system based on their analysis of the physiological costs of scientific management and because of the system’s lack of emphasis on individual worker differences. Bernard Muscio (1920) examined labor’s criticisms of scientific manage- ment in detail. He was careful to distinguish scientific management as put forth by Taylor from imitators who did not follow Taylor’s tenets. Muscio noted, for example, that “speeding-up” work, a popular criticism of scientific management, was not part of Taylor’s system. Muscio found the majority of the charges against scientific management to be unproven. Scientific Management 41 While it is true that the bulk of profits from the new methods go to the organization instead of labor, he saw this as defensible, given manage- ment’s investment in the process. Muscio also noted that labor is generally not aware of the actual distribution of profits. To the fear of widespread unemployment that would result from the implementation of Taylorism, he saw the gradual introduction of scientific management as a way to minimize this concern. As for criticism that the result of scientific manage- ment was to “make men into mechanisms, fasten them in a relentless routine, and destroy individuality” (p. 244), Muscio noted that this criti- cism assumes that workers are somehow freer in the current industrial system; he saw this as a questionable assumption. The charge that scientific management is “undemocratic” assumes the workplace is a democracy to begin with.

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