OME Exam Topic Three: Fordism and Scientific Management

Economic Context

US railroads were of importance from the 1870s and this influenced the creation of big enterprises and big coordination problems

Growth of mechanisation and rise of engineering

As a result, began a search for engineering solutions to administrative and organisation issues in which manual labour become one.

Scientific Management (Morgan, Images of Organisation)

Scientific Management expresses a mechanical metaphor or image of organisation.

Scientific Management (Frederick Taylor)

Taylor was an engineer and also a management thinker

Taylor’s philosopher

1. Focus on the individual in the the workplace setting.

2. Mostly towards the practical problem that being achieving efficiency with behaviour in mind.

3. Empirical, experimental approach used hence ‘scientific’

4. Believed that organisations have a way of obeying laws that are scientific and once discovered can be applied.

5. Manager should solve operational problems and not on the workers’ responsibility.

6. Worker should be trained to find the correct solution.

7. Once the scientific law is perfected the workers and managers will cooperate to implement this and will remove conflict and help to instil harmony.

Taylor’s method in