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Scientific Management
Scientific management, which is defined as "the systematic study of relationships between people and tasks for the purpose of redesigning the work process to increase efficiency” which was developed by Frederick W. Taylor. He created four main principles to increase performance and efficiency in the workplace.
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Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was vital to the steel production in the United States. In 1892 he created the Carnegie Steel Company which began to produce more steel than the United Kingdom who was the main producer of steel. Carnegie was able to reduce the price of steel produced in the United States. To do so he made his employees work up to 12 hours a day while minimizing pay. He “created the need for new administrative management theory” in order to increase performance.
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Management
In the early 1900’s people began to use the term management more often to describe the planning and organizing that was used to develop theories. These theories were used to create consistency of production, maintain an efficiency and to maximize output. Many people contributed to the idea of management such as Frederick W. Taylor, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and the Gilbreths just to name a few. Each had their own ideas which impacted the way we see management today.
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Henry Ford
In 1903 Henry Ford created the Ford Motor Company and 5 years later the first Model T. Ford was considered incredibly controlling over his employees going so far as to fire employees who participated in activities outside of work which Ford saw as unacceptable. Due to the pressure to perform many employees became stressed and quit due to unattainable standards.
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The Principles of Scientific Management Published
There were four main principles that Taylor developed in order to increase productivity.Study the workers and how they perform their tasks to find the most efficient way to go about those tasks. Put those tasks into written rules to create a level of standardization.Select the appropriate worker for the task and ensure they are trained in that task. Create an adequate level of performance for the task and develop a pay system to reward those individuals performing above that level.
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The Gilbreths
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth’s main focus was to find “one best way” to do any task. By using video breakdowns of events they were able to discern how to make a task more efficient, these became known as motion studies. The main points of the theory that the Gilbreths developed was to reduce the number of motions in takes to complete a task to become more efficient, reorganize to order of the task if need be to ensure efficiency. The goal of which was to increase profit.
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Fordism
Fordism is the use of a standardized form of mass production. Ford reduced the work day from 9 to 8 hours and doubled wages. In 1914 Henry Ford decided to use the assembly line in his production of automobiles to reduce the cost of production, and not necessarily maximize profit. By using the assembly line he was able to make the Model T Ford an affordable car, but by doing so he created unpleasant monotonous work for the employees causing many of them to quit.
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Henri Fayol's Principles of Management
In 1916 Henri Fayol published his book "Administration Industrielle et Generale" " in which he describes 14 principles of management. These 14 principles are division of labor, authority and responsibility, unity of command, line of authority, centralization, unity of direction, equity, order, initiative, discipline, remuneration of personnel, stability of tenure of personnel, subordination of individual interests to the common interest and esprit de corps.
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Max Weber's Theory of Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy is defined as a formal system of organization and administration designed to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. Max Weber designed the main principles of bureaucracy. Some of these principles include a clearly laid out system of tasks, written rules and standard operating procedures, a definite hierarchy of authority, and a system that rewards employees equally.
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Mary Parker Follett
Contrary to F.W Taylor and the Gilbreths ideas about scientific management, Mary Parker Follett focused on the human relations between management and workers. Follett was interested in how managers or people in charge should interact with their employees.She thought that the people in charge should look at the whole picture rather than the pieces of the company. “Follett was one of the first to integrate the idea of organizational conflict into management theory”.
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Organizational Behavior
After the Hawthorne studies were concluded, there was an amplified interest in the organizational behavior. Which is defined as “the study of the factors that have an impact on how individuals and groups respond to and act in organizations”. This new field led to many different studies and ideas on why that might be and how to go about changing the behavior of individuals to maximize performance and profits.
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Human Relations Movement
The human relations movement stressed the importance of supervisors receiving behavioral training in order to manage the employees placed under them. A study was conducted which showed that both the employees as a whole and the supervisors could greatly impact how work was done. If there were a group of workers who worked faster than the others, it would cause everyone to work faster and vice versa.It concluded that a work group’s influence could be as vital as a managers.
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Child Labor Laws
To ensure the safety of employees and especially children there were laws passed in 1938 to ensure that children would have limitations and restrictions to make sure that children are safe from hard labor. These laws were also put in place to help children get better educations instead of being forced to work. This impacted many factories in the early 1900’s as children would work for little money and perform jobs that were dangerous to their wellbeing.
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Behavioral Management Theory
The behavioral management theory is the study of how managers should motivate employees. In order to accomplished the highest level of performance and to achieve the goals set forth by the organization that the employee is working for, managers should figure out which behavior best motivates their employees and act accordingly.
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Hawthorne Effect
The Hawthorne studies were conducted from 1924-1932. The study was trying to see if the employees conduct would change based on the amount of lighting in the room. With the help of a psychologist named Elton Mayo it was discovered that the presence of the researchers was effecting the employees work, not the lighting. These studies showed the importance on how managers effect the employee’s thoughts and performance. This became known as the Hawthorne effect in 1950.
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Theory X
Proposed by Douglas McGregor in his book The Human Side of Enterprise there are two basic employees. Theory X assumes that the average employee is lazy, doesn’t like to work and thus will try to do the minimum when it comes to actually working.In order to maximize work, McGregor encouraged a high presence of managers to supervise the employees and make sure they are working to their potential. There should be strict rules as well as consequences given for not following them.
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Theory Y
Proposed by Douglas McGregor in his book The Human Side of Enterprise there are two basic employees. Theory Y assumes that employees are not lazy. McGregor thought these employees should be given opportunities to direct themselves and be given enough control and freedom to achieve the company goals with minimal supervision from managers.
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Management Science Theory
The management science theory is an approach to management that focuses on the techniques that aid managers to capitalize on resources and produce goods and services. It is “a contemporary extension of scientific management, which, as developed by Taylor, also took a quantitative approach to measuring the worker-task mix to raise efficiency”.
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Contingency Theory
The contingency theory was established by Tom Burns, G.M Stalker, Paul Lawrence, and Jay Lorsch. They found that “there is no one best way to organize”. The basic principle is that managers change how an employee is motivated based on the choices they make regarding the structure of their company, and the characteristics of the organizational environment.
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The Open- Systems View
The open-systems view is vital to showing how the external environment impacts an organization. The system was developed by Daniel Katz, Robert Kahn and James Thompson. The input stage refers to the raw materials the company uses to produces their products. Next comes the conversion stages in which the employees turn those raw materials into the products. Finally there is the output stage where the customers purchase those products or services. The cycle then repeats.
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