Benefits Of Scientific Management

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Register to read the introduction… “Scientific management has left a huge and ongoing legacy, reaching down to the McDonald's hamburger flipper and thousands of other standardised business products and procedures” (Kennedy, 1998, pg.52).

However, the applications of the techniques do not appear to be in equivalent proportions. It appears high in terms of operational aspects. On the other hand, for instance, the money incentive aspect although applied, non-monetary rewards are higher focused upon. And some techniques do not even apply. Therefore, taking an overall view of this analysis, it can be concluded that scientific management is applied to these organisations to an extent.

Scientific theory is widely supported by a number of managers. “A manager at the automobile factory jointly operated by the General Motors Corporation and the Toyota Motor Corporation in Fremont, California, pinned its recent success squarely on "the intelligent interpretation and application of Taylor's time-and-motion studies." ” (Kanigel, 1997, p.18). This necessitates an analysis of its
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From comparison of the two arguments it can be deduced that the benefits significantly outweighs the limitations. Massive increases in productivity are possible. However it can be seen that all principles of scientific management are not equally beneficial. On the contrary, some aspects such as bureaucratic control are downright harmful! Moreover, the practicality of these theories also depends on the type of business; for instance it might not be practical to use time and motion studies in knowledge based work. This leads to a conclusion that scientific management is applicable and beneficial in today’s organization – to an

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