Advantages And Disadvantages Of Scientific Management

Frederic Winslow Taylor (1865-1915) was an engineer and most importantly an innovator who affects the way many organizations function even today. In his time he introduced the term of scientific management which refers to a system where leaders are capable of managing and workers are able to execute the tasks given by the managers in the most efficient and productive way in a mass production environment with the basic element of job specialization (McKenna, 2012, p.7). According to Taylor, scientific management should include the selection of the best qualified people to work in a company, the motivation to work harder and as a result more efficient by awarding them with higher salaries as well as the authority given to the managers to control and evaluate the working process. Also, dealing with fatigue of workers by implementing rest pauses. Taylor believed that in this way, managers and employees would be more interested in work and would try to maintain their high wages and as a consequence would be more productive (Bagad, 2008, p.20). In order to make this theory feasible he developed four main

One drawback is that distinction of planning and doing has a negative impact especially on companies with numerous and specialized human resources. In this case, neither people have the ability to be creative and constructive nor have the opportunity to take an initiative (Ghuman and Aswathappa, 2010, p.135). Another drawback is that Taylor’ system can be described as an environment in which workforce is treated as a machine and not as individuals who can influence the production of the firm (Dutt, 2008, p.21).Finally, scientific management was largely criticized by the workers themselves due to the fact that the efficiency which has a central role in company’s productivity lead to a decrease in demand for employees and made them insecure because there was a strong possibility to lose their jobs (Singla, 2009-2010,