Topic: Making Sense of Organization

To what extent is management a ‘science’?

Scientific Management Theory is all about finding the best way to accomplish a certain task.

(Sarker & Khan, 2013, p. 01). That is, how the task can be structured and how many

resources (minimal) should be allotted to the certain task in order to achieve the optimum

output. Frederick Taylor, the father of modern management used theories in organizations,

which now are being called as Scientific Theory of Management (Koumparoulis &

Vlachopoulioti, 2012). Modernism and Postmodernism Theories of Management offer two

contrasting paradigms on management. While the former offers ways to find the Universal

Truth (Engholm, 2001), which will help the organization to optimally utilize its resources.

The latter almost rejects all of such ideas, and suggests that no two organizations can function

in the same way, even if they belong to the same industry and have similar resources

available to them (Engholm, 2001). Postmodern management gurus advocate the use of

different and diverse management principles and tools at different levels and different

functional areas of management in organization (Engholm, 2001). They completely reject the

idea of having a common way or one set of principles that can lead to effectiveness and

efficiency in an organization (Engholm, 2001). Along with theories on management in

organization, a relatively new approach towards organizational behaviour has been to view

organizations as cultures and activities within the organization as sub cultures. While some

people view the culture in an organization as the glue, holding everything together (Tharp,

2009), others might view it more as a compass, one that merely provides direction on how to

focus certain aspects of activities in the organization (Tharp, 2009).

Taylorism is often closely associated with another Scientific method of Management known

as Fordism (after Henry Ford of Ford Motors Inc.) (Thompson, n.d). Fordism refers to a

scientific system of mass consumption and mass production. It is one of the pillars of the

meteoric rise of various organizations in the US, and especially Ford Motors Inc during the

1940s to 1960s (Thompson, n.d).

Henry Ford used Taylor’s scientific method of management to start a mass production of cars

and transformed his company into a worldwide organization (Beder, 2009.). He innovated on

Taylor’s principles and took it further as he replaced a lot of manual labour by using

machines (Beder, 2009.). Probably the most innovation of Ford was the introduction of

moving conveyor belts that did not require workers to move from car to car to perform

(Beder, 2009.). Instead, the cars on the assembly line came to them, thus reducing human

effort and saving time (Beder, 2009.). Moreover, Ford also reduced his reliability on the

workforce and concentrated on utilizing more and more machines wherever possible (Beder,

2009.). All workers in the production system had small albeit well defined roles that required

them to concentrate on their areas and not be bothered too much about other things happening

around them (Beder, 2009.). Their participation was considerably reduced to being

mechanical in their work, and not has opinions on other things (Beder, 2009.). Ford had also

had a low and limited opinion of his workers. He thought them as being monotonous in their

work, an idea which he had basically instilled in them by providing well designed roles.

In order to understand how Taylor's scientific administration altered industry and helped

shape present day organization, one needs to understand what preceded him. The industrial

revolution had been in progress for almost 100 years prior to Taylor. Most histories of the

modern concentrate on innovative improvements, for example, tradable parts, steam power,

and the industrial production system. Next to no one has been composed about how

nineteenth century plants were composed and managerial force was assigned (Koumparoulis

& Vlachopoulioti, 2012). In practically all commercial ventures, paying little concern to the

sorts of assembling operations occurring, the foreman was, for all practical purposes, the

producer. The foreman had close supreme power over the labourers. He was in charge of

contracting and terminating work force, training them, mediating grievances, advancing and

downgrading labourers, and upset implementing the producer's staff policies with respect to

work hours, individual appearance, and tenets of behaviour. In numerous businesses the

"piece work" system was regular. The foreman set the wages utilizing a "rule of thumb"

strategy. The producer, for whom the foreman met expectations, typically viewed the payroll

with great detail. At the point when piece labourers were productive to the point that they

earned more than the predominating day wage, the producer would request the piece rate cut,

evacuating any motivating force to deliver more. Differentiating the workforce from

administration ended up being a formula for accomplishment at the time (Koumparoulis &

Vlachopoulioti, 2012). A vocation obliged a particular kind of worker and in the meantime, a

representative was matched to a particular employment that suited him. Administration was

left to enhance different parts of the business. Differentiating the workforce permitted

organizations to work all the more productively. The labourer would focus on the day to-day

errands asked of them, and not need to stress over the choice making. Choices were left to

administration who had the capacity make the best course of move after watchful study,

arranging, and execution of predefined standards. Taylor was serving to make the current

office workforce (Koumparoulis & Vlachopoulioti, 2012). He found himself able to make a

system, established on issues amid his lifetime (generation, request, proficiency, work), that

could rise above time and be advantageous to age, be it past, present, or future (Koumparoulis

& Vlachopoulioti, 2012). Administrators were taught to take a gander at each part of an

assembling operation as a bit of a coordinated system. Changes made to one methodology

would prompt enhancements to an alternate process down the line with the thought that all

aspects of an industrial facility or an entire organization ought to be scientifically investigated

and overhauled to attain to the most effective yield. Managers could keep on using time study

to enhance and take out bottlenecks (Koumparoulis &Vlachopoulioti, 2012). As opposed to

allowing the labourers to sit idle to tackle issues they may be defied with, administration

would have the capacity to focus the best blueprint scientifically and then prepare the

labourer to perform the errand appropriately. Taylor's thoughts were not constrained to just

serving the company's main concern (Koumparoulis & Vlachopoulioti, 2012). The increment

in benefit profited the workforce also. Specialists were paid by "piece rate," an altered pay for

every unit delivered or activity performed. This for the most part fizzled on the grounds that

standards were ineffectively situated, bosses cut rates when labourers earned "excessively",

and specialists would cover their genuine limit for creation to keep standards low. To redress

this, Taylor pushed for standards to be set for wages. An unmistakably characterized

compensation ought to be made and be straightforwardly identified with the multifaceted

nature of the work. This technique for administration prompted an increment in a labourer’s

yield, permitting them to take home a more prominent pay than at any other time in recent

memory in the recent past. Under the system, motivations were offered for more noteworthy

yield. Indeed in cutting edge times, this standard holds valid for those that win rewards from

commission. The expanded yield did not take a swing at a physical expense to the labourer as

one may accept. For those not under scientific administration's rules, expanded yield implied

that the labourer needed to work harder (Koumparoulis & Vlachopoulioti, 2012).

As opposed to the above management principle introduced by Taylor, the Chinese, with their

state owned organizations were following Confucianism and Daoism (Taoism) (Davis, 2012).

Confucianism and Daoism offer a collection of social qualities and causal perspective that,

when consolidated, can empower various opportunities within an organization. From a

business point of view, the blend of these two schools as a philosophical system is more

valuable than the standards of each one school considered independently. This is on account

of a business concern works all the while in different situations social, innovative, monetary,

and so on (Davis, 2012). Confucianism is regularly translated barely in the West as a type of

strict, convention fixated subordination, particularly inside the Chinese family (Davis, 2012).

At the same time there is considerably more to Confucian values than a straightforward

guideline of chain of command. And regardless, business firms, not families, are presently

the prevailing locus of social hierarchies in present-day China. The static provincial family is

no more the key unit of creation in the Chinese economy; a large number of rustic Chinese

have moved to urban areas to work for substantial, fare arranged assembling organizations. It

is subsequently advantageous to inquire as to whether Chinese logic can give direction to

advancement in a current, urbanized, instructed, innovative and change-situated business

environment. Confucianism advocates an objective and humanistic methodology to all

connections in gatherings and organizations. It does not make a difference singularly to

families and decision lines. It accepts that individual inclination is essentially great.

Confucian thought puts a high esteem on correspondence, agreement and genuineness inside

hierarchies and advances a solid hard working attitude. Status inside organizations ought to

be characterized by legitimacy or capacity, not by kinship, heritage or riches. The rule of

appreciation by subordinates for their bosses is well known. However, the first Confucian

system is more perplexing than this. There is a Confucian saying that states, harmonious

while distinctive. As such, individuals in organizations ought to work concordantly together

while tolerating diverse statuses and perspectives. Respect should work both ways.

Institutional theory proposes that organizations that adjust to institutional governs in their

outer surroundings expand their authenticity and their survival prospects. Adjustment to

institutionalized principles brings a test, on the other hand, on the grounds that it frequently

clashes forcefully with proficiency criteria, and the other way around (Kim & Lyon, 2012).

To keep up institutional similarity, firms therefore have a tendency to decouple their formal

structures and genuine work exercises (Kim & Lyon, 2012). This decoupling wonder is all

the more unequivocally examined in the writing on typical administration. The crux of the

contention is that what organizations imply to do may not be a precise impression of what

they really do. However all the things that are considered can be seen positively by outside

stakeholders and subsequently achieve positive conclusions (Kim & Lyon, 2012). Albeit

captivating, research on the substantive outcomes of typical activities has left unanswered an

essential inquiry. On the off chance that organizations can acquire substantive results—

expanded authenticity with just typical motions, why do not all organizations participate in

typical administration? The way that a few firms do not do so recommends that there must be

expenses connected with such practices. Accordingly, typical administration is helpful for a

few firms in specific situations, however not for all organizations nor in all circumstances.

Besides, those organizations that do participate in typical activity may not embrace just

typical activities -totally decoupled from substantive activities -as is expected in the majority

of the late writing. For instance, firms can participate in the particular exposure of truthful

data that is ideal to them. This makes a characteristic coupling in the middle of typical and

substantive activity, since one can just reveal positive conclusions that really exist. By and

by, the relationship between the two can in any case be detached, since a firm’s strength

withhold data about numerous negative conclusions for every positive result it decides to

reveal. Notwithstanding the offer of specific divulgence as a gadget for understanding

detached coupling, it has gotten almost no consideration in the earlier writing (Kim & Lyon,

2012).

Regularly, it is troublesome or difficult to inspect to what degree corporate cases are truthful

or to what degree these cases are illustrative of their general action. This is tested by utilizing

nursery gas discharges information from the US electric utility industry. Electric service

organizations working in the US should truthfully report their itemized fuel use information

to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by rounding out FERC Form 1. Since

no end-of-channel innovation to decrease nursery gas outflows is yet being used, what goes

in turns out. Hence, by utilization of information on the carbon substance of each one fuel

source, genuine nursery gas discharges and decreases can be figured from fuel use

information. Hotspots for self-asserted information proliferate, including organizations' sites,

yearly reports, or supportability reports. A more uniform channel can be utilized through

which organizations deliberately report their nursery gas diminishments : the U.S. Bureau of

Energy (DOE's) intentional system for reporting diminishments of nursery gasses (otherwise

called 1605(b) project). This project, albeit formalized through the DOE, gives adequate

space to adaptability (Kim & Lyon, 2012). Divulgence of nursery gas outflows by

organizations gives a regular setting in which to study the expenses of typical administration

and the degree of decoupling in the middle of typical and substantive activity. Despite

becoming weight from outside stakeholders, an expanding number of organizations pitch

their nursery gas decrease endeavours, yet it is frequently hazy how generous these

endeavours are inside the setting of the association's general technique. What's more, some

stakeholder gatherings are exceedingly delicate to green washing by extensive partnerships,

making potential expenses for firms that make deceiving cases. The information is quite

compelling in light of the fact that they permit us to go past treating typical and substantive

activity as a win or bust decision. There is the capacity to evaluate the greatness of the hole

between what organizations say in regards to discharges decreases and what they really do, to

distinguish the components impacting its extent and to consider the likelihood that this

crevice may even be negative (Kim & Lyon, 2012).

While different management principles and methods have found success across various

countries or organizations, there does not seem to be any one method that is a sure shot

success. Each organization has its own unique set of demands and characteristics and hence

must have unique approaches. McDonalds, Starbucks and some other fast food joints around

the globe often use the notion of similarity and familiarity. All the menus are consistent, the

store design is the same with the idea that a consumer can walk in and know exactly what he

wants and where he can get it.

In the past, various organizations, particularly in the hospitality industry would avoid hiring

people of colour in decent positions. All the receptionists were of Caucasian origin while the

coloured people were assigned roles such as that of waiters, bell boys or valets. Although this

is changing today, we can still find some stereotypes in the hotel industry. For example,

women continue to hold jobs as receptionists, and it is rare to find male staff as hotel

receptionists.

References

Beder, S., 2009, Spread of Scientific Management. [Online] Available at:

http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/culture/work/adoption.html[Accessed

02 January 2015].

Davis, G., 2012, The Eastern Way: How Chinese Philosophy Can Power Innovation in

Business Today. [Online] Available at:

http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2012/06/18/the-eastern-way-how-chinese-philosophy

can-power-innovation- in-business-today/[Accessed 02 January 2015].

Engholm, P., 2001, The Controversy Between Modernist and Postmodernist Views of

Management Science: Is a Synergy Possible?. [Online] Available at: http://www.x-

konsult.se/academia/Essaymgc1.htm[Accessed 02 January 2015].

Kim & Lyon, 2012, Beyond the Dichotomy of Symbolic versus Substantive Actions:

Evidence from Corporate Environmental Management, s.l.: s.n.

Koumparoulis&Vlachopoulioti, 2012, ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF TAYLORISM:.

Academic Research International, 3(2), pp. 420-426.

Sarker& Khan, 2013, Classical and neoclassical approaches of management: An overview.

IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM), 14(6), pp. 01-05.

Tharp, B. M., 2009, Defining “Culture” and “Organizational Culture”: From Anthropology to

the Office, s.l.: Haworth.

Thompson, F., 2014, FORDISM, POST-FORDISM AND THE FLEXIBLE SYSTEM OF

PRODUCTION. [Online] Available at:

http://www.willamette.edu/~fthompso/MgmtCon/Fordism_&_Postfordism.htm[Accessed 02

January 2015].