CLASSICAL THEORIES

Classical viewpoint is a perspective on management emphasizing finding ways to manage work and organizations more effectively. It comprises three different approaches to management: scientific, administrative and bureaucratic. It is called classical because it encompasses early works and related contributions forming the main foundations of management study.

Scientific Management
Frederic Winslow Taylor is known as the father of scientific management developed specific principles of scientific management such as time and motion studies and wage incentives. These principles, put into practice, did result in greater productivity and worker efficiency.

He believed that Management is the art of knowing exactly what you want men to do and seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way.

 He believed that workers engaged in soldiering deliberately working below their fullest potential due to the following reasons: they feared that increasing their productivity would cause them or other workers to lose their jobs; faulty wage systems set up by management encouraged workers to operate at a slow pace. For example, pay by the hour or day encouraged attendance rather than output. On the other hand, companies who cut incentive pay when workers began to exceed standards also made them reluctant to excel; general methods of working and rules of thumb handed down from generation to generation were often inefficient.

According to Taylor, scientific management implies the application of two fold techniques such as: the discovery of the best method of performing a particular work under the existing conditions of knowledge and organizing ability; the fruitful method or the best method for meeting a given situation.

 Scientific management revolutionized the entire production shop or plant management. It led to the development of time and motion study and it refined wage incentive plans. The objective of the time study is to establish a standard time for a qualified worker to carry out specific task under a specified condition at a defined rate of working. Motion study aims to study the operators and machines to identify and eliminate unnecessary motions that are unproductive.

Taylor s Principles of Scientific Management

Replacing rules of thumb with science (organized knowledge) Obtaining harmony in group action, rather than discord Achieving the cooperation of human beings, rather than disorganized individuals Working for maximum output, rather than restricted output. Developing all workers to the fullest extent possible for their own and their company s highest prosperity

The two major managerial practices that emerged from Taylor s approach to management are

Piece rate incentive system The aim of this system was to reward the worker who produced the maximum output. The worker who met the established standards of performance would earn the basic wage rate set by the management. If the workers output exceeded the set target, his wages would increase proportionately. The piece rate system, according to Taylor, would motivate workers to produce more and thus help the organization perform better.

Time and motion study

In a time and motion study jobs are broken down into various small tasks or motions and unnecessary motions are removed to find out the best way of doing the job. The objective of a time and motion study analysis is to ascertain a simpler, easier and better way of performing a work or job.

Limitations of Scientific Management

The principles of scientific management revolve round problems at the operational levels and do not focus on the management of the organization from a manager s point of view. These principles focus on the solutions of problems from an engineering point of view.

 The supporters of scientific management were of the opinion that people were rational and were motivated primarily by the desire for material gain. Taylor and his followers overlooked the social needs of workers and overemphasized their economic and physical needs. Scientific management theorists also ignored the human desire for job satisfaction. Since workers are more likely to go on strike over factors like working conditions and job content (job itself) rather than salary, principles of scientific management, which are based on the rational worker model, became increasingly ineffective.