Comparing Scientific and System Approaches in Management

1 Introduction

The purpose of this report is to research the specific scientific approach and understand the different approaches of management. In this regard, this report will provide an explanation about the main principles of the scientific approach and how the approach was researched, which will be followed by an explanation of the positive and negative impacts of the scientific approach on employees and the consequences of the impacts. A comparison of the scientific approach and the system approach will follow. Thereafter, an explanation of how the scientific management process relates to modern HRM will be provided. Finally, this report will include a brief description of which approach is suitable for me.

2 Researching the Approach

To research about the scientific management approach, MetSearch was used to find relevant sources such as journals, books and reports on the scientific approach. Some useful books were found on MetSearch that were not available online and therefore a trip to the library was made to borrow these books. Moreover, Google Scholar, reputable news websites and the CIPD website was used to find a wider range of sources and relevant information that could be used to achieve a more accurate and reliable research.

3 The Scientific Approach

Taylor developed the scientific management to improve labour productivity and therefore he published the principle of the scientific management which includes the steps all the organizations should follow to increase employee productivity. Henry Ford expanded on Taylor’s approach and used manufacturing in the production of cars in Ford Motor Company, therefore, Ford was the first company to use mass production which improved the company’s performance which is still used in a lot of industries today such as the food industry (Hounshell, 1988).

3.1 Taylor’s Four Principles of Management

The first principle is developing a science of work which is achieved by using a stopwatch to measure the output and to observe human movements, for improving workstation design and tools to improve efficiency so that pay could be improved (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011). The work is therefore measured and not assessed on the rule of thumb approach (Daft and Benson, 2016) (Taylor, 1998).

The second principle is to scientifically select and train employees. Taylor believed that everyone had different skills and therefore, workers were made compatible to the jobs based on their skills and motivation rather than assigning workers to any job (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011). It is the responsibility of managers to select, train and develop workers (Daft and Benson, 2016). Additionally, to earn the higher pay rates, people had to be scientifically selected and trained (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011).

The third principle is to combine the science of work and select and train employees. Taylor believed that combining the science of work, selection and training would enable workers to recognize the sense of systematic selection and training (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011). Moreover, managers had to learn the new work system, apply it in the workplace and monitor the worker’s performance and provide instructions and supervision to ensure that the work is being done in accordance with the scientific principles (Daft and Benson, 2016) (Taylor, 1998).

The fourth and last principle is that management and workers must specialize and collaborate closely. Taylor believed that in order to prevent conflicts in the workplace, work and responsibility must be divided between managers and workers (Daft and Benson, 2016) where managers specialize and focus on ‘mental labour’ to set up and design the system and supervise the workers and workers must specialize and concentrate on ‘manual labour’ so as to be able to work efficiently (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011) (Taylor, 1998).

4 The Impacts of the Scientific Management on Employees

4.1 Positive Impacts

Dividing responsibility and work between managers and workers allowed the employees to develop skills (Wagner‐Tsukamoto, 2008) whereas managers developed their managerial skills, for example before using the scientific management workers had more knowledge about the way of working than managers (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011), however, after applying the scientific management in the workplace, managers had to supervise the workers and ensure that the scientific principles are used giving them the ability to control in addition to the prevention of conflicts between the employees (Caldari, 2007).

The employees were able to enhance their dexterity and efficiency (Taylor, 1998) which allowed them to become more specialized in their work as training was provided, in addition to, assigning the employees the suitable work for their skills which therefore increased productivity and motivation (Grachev and Rakitsky, 2013).

The major positive impact is, that employee incentives were increased (Taylor, 1998) as the pay would increase depending on the employee’s performance which then results in an increase in the productivity (Wagner‐Tsukamoto, 2008).

4.2 Negative Impacts

The negative impacts of the scientific management were later discovered after the approach was widely used by a wide range of organizations. The main negative impact is the creation of anti-social feeling between workers due to increasing the pay rate depending on the productivity of the employees, therefore, employees were stressed and pressured to perform better to increase their pay (Caldari, 2007) (Wagner‐Tsukamoto, 2008). Another major impact is resistance of the employees as they were treated like robots to increase productivity (Degen, 2011) (Wagner‐Tsukamoto, 2008). Employees gained skills, however, individual initiatives were lost as work had to be done in a specific way according to the approach which also lead to resistance from managers as they had to learn and apply the approach in addition to supervising the workers (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011) (Jeacle and Parker, 2013).

4.3 Consequences

4.3.1 Positive Consequences

The positive consequences of the scientific management are the increment in productivity and learning opportunities, reduction in working hours, increment in employee efficiency, increment in average earnings when productivity increases which will increase the sales resulting in an increase in the revenue and therefore, wages get increased and reduction of costs takes place. Moreover, the use of the scientific management contributes to the economic growth (Daft and Benson, 2016) (Grachev and Rakitsky, 2013) (Caldari, 2007) (Wagner‐Tsukamoto, 2008) (Degen, 2011) (Giannantonio and Hurley-Hanson, 2011).

4.3.2 Negative Consequences

The negative consequences include the exploitation of employees which resulted in employee resistance which affected the efficiency and resulted in the formation of trade unions, limiting individual creativity and therefore limiting the productivity outcome and the use of machines and selecting employees based on their qualifications and performance resulted in unemployment which demotivated some employees leading to a decrease in efficiency and productivity (Caldari, 2007) (Degen, 2011) (Grachev and Rakitsky, 2013).

5 Comparison of the Scientific Approach and the System Approach

The objective of the system approach is to examine how the organization works and pursues multiple ways to achieve different goals (Jackson, 2000), whereas the scientific approach main aim is to increase productivity (Jeacle and Parker, 2013) (Taylor, 1998). The organization in the system approach is seen as a whole system consisting of interrelated parts which work together and depend on each other as changes in one part of the organization can directly or indirectly affect other parts and therefore, the system approach is said to be ‘holistic’ as the organization operates as a whole to achieve a common purpose (Jackson, 2000) (Daft and Benson, 2016) (Schermerhorn, 1996). However, the scientific approach looked at parts of the organization in isolation as managers and workers had to specialize and concentrate on their own work and not interfere with works of others (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011) (Daft and Benson, 2016).

In the system approach managers need to understand the ‘synergy’ of the whole organization instead of concentrating on separate element since they need to understand the impact of the change on the whole organization (Daft and Benson, 2016). Moreover, the system approach allows feedback exchange as negative feedback is given to correct or reduce deviations within the processes of the system to restore a steady return to the goals of the system and positive feedback is provided to change or make the system grow in the desired ways that amplify and enhance the current processes of the system (Mingers and White, 2010) (Jackson, 2000). However, in the scientific approach the managers only need to supervise workers and ensure that the scientific principles are followed (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011).

The system approach is an ‘open system’ as it is in constant contact with the environment where information and resources flow both in and out of the organization as exchange with the environment is essential for the organization’s health, whereas the scientific approach is a ‘closed system’ as it tends to ignore the environment (Jackson, 2000) (Skyttner, 2001).

The system approach states that there is no best way to organize as not all ways of organizing are equally effective (Kapsali, 2011) (Skyttner, 2001). On the other hand, Taylor believed that each job must be done in a specific way according to science (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011). In the system approach resources, information and energy helps the organization to reach equilibrium to prevent deterioration of the system (Mingers and White, 2010) (Checkland, 1994), the scientific approach equilibrium depends on the worker’s productivity (Daft and Benson, 2016).

The system and scientific approaches used hierarchy to rely information from level to another and to provide supervision (Skyttner, 2001) (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011).

6 How the Scientific Approach Relates to Modern HRM

The purpose of human resource management (HRM) is to create an organizational environment to encourage employees by preparing them to compete, innovate, grow and develop and enhance skills, motivate and perform to achieve the objectives of the company and help the company gain competitive advantage ini the concurrent market as well as sustain the same (Zamcu, 2014) (Sanders and Yang, 2015).

HRM functions include strategic management such as planning performance targets to meet the short and long term objectives of the organization, work force planning and employment which include the recruitment and selection of suitable and qualified employees, human resource development such as identifying any training needed for skills development, policy making, for example developing flexible contracts policy, compensation and benefits such as promotional opportunities, bonus depending on performance, administrative and technical activities such as legal and efficient administration of employees’ contracts and information and labour protection such as providing employees with a safe and healthy working environment (Azeem and Yasmin, 2016) (Zamcu, 2014) (Valverde, Ryan and Soler, 2006) (Ballesteros-Rodríguez, De Saá-Pérez and Domínguez-Falcón, 2012) (Sanders and Yang, 2015). HRM practices include improved communication, employee empowerment, teamwork, business process re-engineering, business and personal development, organisational cultural changes, recruitment process development and performance management (Bowers and Akhlaghi, 1999).

HRM uses the CIPD profession map to make better decisions, act confidently, increase perform and to drive organizational change (CIPD,2019). CIPD qualification can be gained to better understand HRM to help improve organizational performance (Harrison, 2015).

HRM relate to the scientific management as Taylor selected employees based on their qualification and gave them the most suitable job according to their skills (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011) similarly, HRM developed the approach as employees are selected based on their qualification for the vacant positions in the organization (Zamcu, 2014). Moreover, the scientific management discipline trains employees to increase their productivity (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011) while HRM decides upon and plans to develop and institute the training which is needed to enhance employee skills to increase organizational performance (Valverde, Ryan and Soler, 2006). The scientific management and HRM give bonuses to employees based on their performance (Daft and Benson, 2016) (Sanders and Yang, 2015).

HRM encourages talent management by identifying employees’ talents and developing them while the scientific management does not encourage talent management as Taylor believes that there is one way to do a job which reduces individual initiatives (Meyer and Xin, 2017) (Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg, 2011).

6.1 Example of organizations

VibeCatch is a company that uses the scientific approach to increase productivity (Coleman, 2018). Toyota and McDonald’s are other examples of organizations which utilise the scientific approach to achieve efficiency (Towill, 2010) (Valax, 2012). Furthermore, Google and Amazon use digital Taylorism to increase organizational efficiency (The Economist, 2015).

7 Suitable approach for myself

I would like to work as a sales strategy and operations analyst in a company, therefore, the systems approach is more suitable as the organization is viewed as one instead of looked at separately. System approach allow the exchange of information and resources with the environment which can help develop the organization, it promotes and increases individual creativity as there is no specific way specified to do a job or solve a problem. Furthermore, negative and positive feedback are given which can help in self-improvement and motivation which can assist in self-reflection on what has been done which can lead to increased efficiency in reaching the objectives of the organization which then contribute to the organizational outcome. In addition to, the interrelatedness of the organization that the system approach encourage can lead to better understanding of the organizational processes and help in my job by facilitating communication and working with different teams which can contribute to improved organizational performance.

8 Conclusion

Taylor developed 4 main principles of scientific approach which were widely used by organizations to increase employee’s productivity and organizational performance. Henry ford developed on Taylors approach to develop mass production. At the beginning, the scientific approach had positive impacts on employees and on the organization, however, later, negative impacts of the approach started to appear affecting the organizational performance. The system approach differs from the scientific approach while HRM relates to the scientific approach in various ways. Some organizations use Digital Taylorism; however, the scientific approach is still used by some companies.

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