Principles of Management
BMGT101L Winter Semester 2022-2023
Module 1 Management Roots
Dr Srinivasan Narayanan
[Link]@[Link], seenujgs@[Link], seenujgs@[Link]
Dr Srinivasan Narayanan, PDF
Assistant Professor (senior),
School of Mechanical Engineering,
Department of Manufacturing Engineering,
VIT Vellore, Tamil Nadu 632014.
Mobile + 91 9820720940 / + 91 8428797955
जय श्री राम
SJT811D
Management - nature and purpose, evolution of management concept, approaches to management process,
functions and roles of management, influence of external and internal environment on decision making, factors
affecting social responsibility and sustainability, and ethical business management.
Evolution of Management Thought
• Many different contributions of writers and
practitioners have resulted in different approaches
to management.
H Koontz and H Weihrich Essentials of Management: An International and Leadership Perspective
Contributors
• Few are ………
• Frederick Taylor and his assistant’s
• Henry Fayol
• Max Weber
H Koontz and H Weihrich Essentials of Management: An International and Leadership Perspective
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Taylor (1856–1915) is generally acknowledged as the
father of scientific management.
• Greater impact on the early development of
management.
• His experiences as an apprentice, a common labourer,
a foreman, a master mechanic and then the chief
engineer of a steel company gave Taylor ample
opportunity to know first-hand the problems and
attitudes of workers and to see the great possibilities
for improving the quality of management.
H Koontz and H Weihrich Essentials of Management: An International and Leadership Perspective
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• He gave up going to college and started out as an
apprentice pattern maker and machinist in 1875,
joined the Midvale Steel company in Philadelphia as
a machinist in 1878, and rose to the position of
chief engineer after earning a degree in engineering
though evening study.
• He invented high-speed-steel-cutting tools and
spent most of his life as a consulting engineer.
H Koontz and H Weihrich Essentials of Management: An International and Leadership Perspective
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Taylor ‘s famous work Principles of Management
was published in 1911.
• The fundamental principles that Taylor saw the
underlying the scientific approach to management
are as follows
H Koontz and H Weihrich Essentials of Management: An International and Leadership Perspective
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Replacing the rules of thumb with science
(organized knowledge).
• Obtaining harmony, rather than discord, in group
action.
• Achieving cooperation of human beings, rather
than chaotic individualism
H Koontz and H Weihrich Essentials of Management: An International and Leadership Perspective
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Working for maximum output, rather than
restricted output.
• Developing all workers to the fullest extent possible
for their own and their company’s high prosperity
H Koontz and H Weihrich Essentials of Management: An International and Leadership Perspective
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) is known as
the father of scientific management. He was born
to the Quaker aristocracy of Pennsylvania, and
initially he planned to go to Harvard and become a
lawyer or an executive until he suffered an eye
injury that prevented him from reading.
• With Harvard no longer an option.
• Taylor went to work at a family friend’s factory, the
Midvale Steel Company.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Taylor took to the work and was promoted quickly
from pattern maker to foreman and then to chief
engineer. During this time, he witnessed many acts
aimed at limiting or reducing production—including
having his tools destroyed—and it was he who
coined the term soldiering to describe this
deliberate act.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Rather than stand by and see such senseless acts
that affect the business he worked for, Taylor
decided to take action. First, he went to Stevens
Institute of Technology to gain a background in
engineering. Then he took this knowledge and
applied it to his work.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• It is important to note that Taylor was not an original
thinker. Many of his ideas came from other thinkers,
especially the Englishman Charles Babbage (1791–
1871).
• Taylor’s contribution was that he advanced a total
system of management by uniting the ideas and
philosophies of many others. While he may not have
invented the scientific study of management, Taylor
contributed to the use and synthesis of management
by pioneering the use of time studies, division of labor
based on function, cost-control systems, written
instruction for workers, planning, and standardized
equipment. Taylorism is still the basis of modern
management, including the use of incentives.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• For example, Taylor stressed piecework production,
meaning that workers were paid for how much they
produced.
• Taylor also stressed the idea of differential
piecework, meaning that if workers produced more
than a certain amount, they would be paid more.
Some compensation systems, such as sales
commissions (i.e., being paid for how much you
sell), have their bases in Taylor’s work.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Taylor’s major contribution was that he prized knowledge and
science over tradition and rules of thumb. He broke down each act
of production into its smallest parts and watched the best workers
perform their jobs.
• Using a stopwatch to time the workers’ actions, Taylor determined
the most effective and efficient way to accomplish a given task.
• After breaking down each job into its component parts, Taylor then
reconstructed them as they should be done. Taylor also developed
time management studies to break down a person’s workday into a
series of activities.
• He then timed the execution of each activity to see which way was
the quickest. He would rebuild the job using only the most efficient
ways possible and then train workers to perform the task. And by
allowing workers to have rest periods throughout the day, he was
able to get workers to work faster and better without making them
tired
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Another one of Taylor’s significant contributions to the
practice and profession of management was the
concept of first-class work. When Taylor developed the
notion of first-class work, he did so with the idea that
workers should do as much work as they are physically
and mentally capable of doing. Those who were not
physically or mentally capable of keeping up with
production and job demands were sent to different
areas in the plant where they could work most
effectively. First-class work was based not on physical
strain or bursts of activity, but on what a worker could
realistically be expected to do.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Taylor also developed a task management system that
allowed work to occur more efficiently and allowed for
breaking up a supervisor’s work so that he could
function within a discrete area of activities. This focus
allowed supervisors to better plan and control the
activities for which their workers were responsible.
Taylor believed that managers would become better at
and more suited to analyzing their specific area of
expertise, with authority that came from knowledge
and skill and not simply from position or power. He also
developed a cost-accounting method that became an
integral part of daily planning and control, not
something that was applied only to long-term analysis.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Taylorism was based on four principles of
management illustrated in Table
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Principle 1: A manager should develop a rule of
science for each aspect of a job. Following this
principal ensures that work is based on objective
data gathered through research rather than rules of
thumb.
• For example, many people believed that allowing
workers to take breaks would limit how much work
could be done. After all, how could a worker
produce if he was not working? Taylor changed this
attitude through research that demonstrated the
benefits of breaks during the workday. Due to
Taylor’s research, we now enjoy coffee breaks.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Principle 2. Scientifically select and train each
worker. When you get to the chapter on human
resource management, you will see that Taylor’s
ideas still hold. Prior to Taylor’s work, the selection
of workers was made based on favoritism,
nepotism, or random choice. Taylor got his job at
Midvale because the owner was his father’s friend.
Likewise, workers were usually selected for a
particular job with little consideration of whether
they were physically or mentally fit to perform it.
Taylor changed this viewpoint by using research to
find the best worker for the job.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Principle 3. Management and the workforce should
work together to ensure that work is performed
according to the principles of management. Taylor’s
observation went against the long-established
principles of both management and the worker
who believed that each was the other’s enemy.
Rather than enmity, Taylor stressed cooperation
and the need for the work relationship to be
mutually beneficial.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor and Scientific
Management
• Principle 4. Work and responsibility should be
equally divided between management and workers.
Previously, management set the directives, and
workers obeyed or blocked them. Taylor believed
that management and workers had joint
responsibilities to each other. Management’s
responsibility was to scientifically select the
quantity of output for the day and provide a fair
wage. In return, workers were to provide a fair day’s
work.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor’s Shortcomings
• Taylor was a monomaniac on a mission to convert
as many people to scientific management as
possible. Yet despite his conviction and zealousness,
Taylor’s ideas were poorly understood, and he
attracted more enemies than followers
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor’s Shortcomings
• Taylor attracted enmity from unions because he
was against them; he believed that unions
separated workers from management. Taylor
attracted enmity from the workers because he
compared them to apes and other beasts of
burden. And Taylor gained the distrust and enmity
of management because he criticized them for their
previous management failures. Taylor had a difficult
personality and angered just about everyone.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor’s Shortcomings
• Additionally, Taylor made several mistakes. Taylorism, despite its claims,
was not an overall theory of management, but a management system
designed for frontline managers, those immediately supervising. He
generally ignored strategy and implementation and thought of workers as
machine tools to be manipulated rather than as human beings. Although
he was aware of group pressures, he believed that monetary incentives
could overcome group pressures. This oversight made him ignore the
human aspects of handling workers, those that involved emotions,
personality, and attitudes.
• While Taylor was certainly a flawed individual, these criticisms do not
diminish his great contributions. Taylor dramatically changed management
practices and created the modern management world.
• Future researchers did not replace Taylor, but complemented him. What is
remarkable about Taylor was not that he was right in his time and place,
but that his vision continues to have meaning and consequence even
today. Management was truly Taylor-made.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor Acolytes
• In addition to his groundbreaking work on scientific
management, Taylor attracted a wide variety of talented
individuals who aided him in his research. The first
important individual was the mathematician Carl G. Barth
(1860–1939). Barth made two notable contributions. The
first was his work on employee fatigue. He attempted to find
what aspects made a worker tired. The second was his use
of the slide rule for calculating how much steel to cut.
• A slide rule is a ruler with a sliding central strip. It makes it
possible to perform calculations rapidly and accurately.
Barth developed one for cutting steel. Before Barth’s work,
workers were required to make difficult calculations to
determine how much steel to cut. Usually, they guessed,
which led to a lot of errors and waste. With the slide rule,
however, the number of errors decreased, as did the costs
associated with them.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor Acolytes
• Another notable contributor to Taylor’s methods
was Henry Gantt (1861–1919), who developed the
Gantt chart, which allowed for greater and more
precise control over the production process.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor Acolytes
• The Gantt chart, tracked what was supposed to be
done versus what was actually done. Gantt gives two
principles for his charts: First, measure the amount of
time needed to complete an activity. Second, use the
space on the chart to visually represent how much of
an activity should have been completed in that given
time. Today, the closest thing to a Gantt chart is a
scheduling system. These charts allowed management
to see how projects were progressing, take steps to see
if they were on schedule, and monitor budget
concerns.
• Gantt also pioneered the employee bonus system, in
which employees were given a bonus if they completed
the task they were assigned.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor Acolytes
• The next key contributors to Taylor’s system of scientific
management were Frank (1868–1924) and Lillian Gilbreth
(1878–1972), a couple that sometimes competed with and
sometimes worked with Taylor. Frank Gilbreth was a
bricklayer who, before who he heard of Taylor, began to find
ways to limit his fatigue and more efficiently lay down more
bricks. Unlike Taylor, Gilbreth was concerned with motion
studies, in which he would film various motions while
someone worked on the job. To determine the most
efficient way to perform a task, for example, Gilbreth
reduced all motions of the hand into some combination of
17 basic motions. Gilbreth would then calculate the most
efficient way of carrying out a job. Gilbreth filmed workers
performing a wide variety of jobs, including bricklaying,
secretarial duties, and even a baseball game.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor Acolytes
• When working in construction, Gilbreth developed a
management system that included rules about no smoking
on the job, a ten-dollar prize for the best suggestion in how
to improve labor, and a new system of training so that
workers were taught only the best way to perform a task. He
developed a rule that all accident sites be photographed for
use in future lawsuits. Gilbreth also prepared employees for
their present and future positions by introducing a plan for
promotion, training, and development.
• This system required charting promotion paths and record
keeping for performance appraisals. He wanted to impress
upon both workers and managers an understanding of
fatigue and of how to improve pay. In his research, Gilbreth
realized that monotony came not from the job itself, but
from a worker’s lack of interest in the job.
Principles of Management, Openstax
Frederick Taylor Acolytes
• Lillian Gilbreth may not have been the originator of the
industrial psychology movement, but she brought a
human element into the study and practice of
management with her training and insight. She stated
that to understand how to work better, we must
understand the worker. Under scientific management,
for example, understanding the worker became a
fundamental principle in selecting workers for
particular tasks and providing workers with incentives.
The object was to develop each person to his fullest
potential by strengthening his personal traits, special
abilities, and skills. After Frank Gilbreth died, Lillian
Gilbreth shifted her focus to increasing domestic
efficiency and, in the process, designed the modern
kitchen.
Principles of Management, Openstax
I learn along with you!
Let us do it together!!
Thank you !!!!
