Taylorism and Work Place Efficiency

Frederick W. Taylor worked across the United States in the first 15 years of the 20th century looking to solve production problems (Owens & Valesky, 2011, p. 67). He was an engineer in steel manufacturing and studied developed what what is now known as the four principles of scientific management. These principles spell out what both managers and workers are to do. Two important principles include having the management set goals, plan, and supervise workers, and the workers perform the work, and that organizations should establish the standard where management “sets the objectives and the workers cooperate in achieving them” (p. 67). Taylor’s principles are still used today by some organizational leaders who fight the movement that management should work as a team with the workers (pp. 67-68). Taylor’s principles have led to things such as strict discipline, the idea that workers must focus on their task with little or no interaction with colleagues, and the idea of incentive

Weber talks about modern bureaucracy in both the private and public sector as having specific principles that they need to have. Weber said “ First, it is based on the general principle of precisely defined and organized across the board competencies of the various offices. These competencies are underpinned by rules, laws, or administrative regulations.”. Essentially Weber was saying that in order for a modern bureaucracy to exist in either the private or the public sector there has to be a rigidly defined division of labor of a particular bureaucratic system that clearly states or identifies the tasks and duties to be performed, it has to have an established chain of command that has the capacity to coerce others to comply by rules and regulations, people with certain qualifications and certifications are hired which helps to execute the assigned duties assigned to them in a timely and efficient manner. An ideal Weberian model has several characteristics that can be noted in the past and can be see in today’s beaurocratic systems, particularly in larger scale systems. The roles in these ideal systems are very specialized and career oriented with a systemic salary structure. The recruitment for these roles are very competitive and is based solely on merit, there are uniform principles of placement, promotion, and transfer in an administrative system within a hierarchy that holds the people within it accountable. The authority within these systems are impersonal, the rules

Max Weber was a German sociologist who first described the concept of bureaucracy, an ideal form of organizational structure. He defines bureaucratic administration as the exercise of control on the

Bureaucracy is a system that is used by human service organizations as a way to create the structure of an organization to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of management and delivery of services. Bureaucracy is a classical theory that was developed by Max Weber, and focuses on what the managers and employees do to achieve positive results by the use of five principles. However the system of bureaucracy affects the application of social service delivery to clients or recipients of intended services because social services require timely responsiveness to various

Some have seriously misinterpreted Weber and have claimed that he liked bureaucracy, that he believed that bureaucracy was an "ideal" organization. Others have pronounced Weber "wrong" because bureaucracies do not live up to his list of "ideals". Others have even claimed that Weber "invented" bureaucratic organization. But Weber described bureaucracy as an “ideal type” in order to more accurately describes their growth in power and scope in the modern world. His studies of bureaucracy still form the core of organizational sociology.

Weber states that organizations regulations are formed by few people and this people are the boss, administration employee who tends to have representation powers (Roth and Wittich, 1968). Weber states that the state tends to use bureaucracy on its people in order to establish authority. Bureaucracy is present in various areas in the environment and once bureaucracy is produced then it becomes difficult to

Weber’s bureaucratic approach focuses on the importance of hierarchy by putting great emphasis on the use of rules, procedures and making impartial personnel decisions when managing. He put great emphasis on the jurisdiction, explaining that work should be “divided according to type and purpose” staying within the correct working unit just as the organization’s rules and laws would state (Milakovich, et. al., 2013, p. 146). A hierarchy would be established with a chain of command clearly identifying a system of super- and

While he highlights a lot of positives, he also saw a lot of issues within bureaucracy. Webers’ bureaucracy is a bottom line model that values calculable decision making over all else. Within this model are the people, or parts, that can be replaced if they cause a decrease in productivity. The issue becomes that the rationalized view of bureaucratic systems is unable to see individuals and respond to individual needs. There is a format and if someone does not fit in, or if they begin to fall behind, there is no understanding or support. His argument is that the bureaucratization of our world has made it depersonalized.

According to Weber all bureaucracies must have a clear chain of command. This means that there must be an understanding amongst the workers that there is a chain of appeal that they must go through within a bureaucracy to file a grievance or make a suggestion. Within a bureaucracy the areas of jurisdiction are delaminated, meaning that an agency only has authority over the agency they are managing. The institution also has power over not only the citizens and officials, but they also own the workers documents and means of production. There is also no volunteer work within Weber’s bureaucracy. All workers are expected to give their full working capacity to the organization, and are not allowed to be seeking alternate employment options. The officials of Weber’s bureaucracy are thoroughly trained and are expected to follow the set general rules. These rules have been learned through work related experience, and are set from multiple previous cases.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online) defines ‘Bureaucracy’ as a “government characterized by specialization of functions, adherence to fixed rules, and a hierarchy of authority” and “a system of administration marked by officialism, red tape, and proliferation”. It also implies administration by bureau, which is an administrative unit in an organizational setup and mechanism to realize rationally ordered social action. It comprises non-elected officials, be it a public or private sector organization, is often viewed as an apparatus or entity that rationalizes power, authority and decision-making in a society. Max Weber, a German sociologist and economist, conceived the ‘Bureaucratic Management Theory’ and believed it to be more rational and efficient. According to Weber (1946), there exists a trichotomy of power: traditional, charismatic and rational-legal or bureaucratic. Weber believes the bureaucratic type of power to be the ideal one. Max Weber’s illustrious and influential work on bureaucracy was a substantial contribution to the discipline of public administration. He presumes bureaucracy to be an efficient and rational organizational structure. Brian R. Fry (1989) considers Weber’s bureaucracy to be rational one the basis of it being well-conversant with rules and procedures, and possessing the specialized knowledge of the bureaucratic domain. According to M. Crozier, (1964), key characteristics of the ideal type of bureaucracy that Weber ideates include fixed official

Taylor 's Theory was developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, it was mainly associated with Scientific Management. Taylor endeavoured to increase labour and productivity in the workplace through a thorough study of a worker 's role and design a more efficient and productive approach to their jobs, this procedure derived from the observation Taylor made of workers 'soldiering ', the term applied if a worker deliberately worked at less than maximum potential. Taylor 's studies would involve analysing and breaking down tasks, reorganising and then simplifying them (Van Delinder, 2005).

Taylorism is a management system which was popular in the late 19th century. It was designed to increase efficiency by breaking down and specialising repetitive tasks. This is exhibited as mentioned in ‘Selection and Development: A new perspective on some old problems’ that several jobs presently no longer consist of clusters of similar tasks, but are now process based collections of activities (Harrington, Hill & Linley 2005). According to Weber’s foundation of organisation theory; bureaucracy was portrayed as an “instrument or tool of unrivalled technical superiority which entailed charismatic, traditional and rational authority” (1978, cited in Clegg 1994). Thereafter, other theories derived based on the instrument being used as a form of manipulation. This is evident in Knights & Roberts’ (1982) concept of human resource management and staff misunderstanding the nature of power, treating it as if it were an individual possession, as opposed to a relationship between people (Knights & Roberts 1982). Subsequently, this led to the establishment of unions and increasing cooperative resistance in the workplace as employees seek change in the occupational structure (Courpasson & Clegg 2012). The change in this occupational structure was based around the ‘superior-inferior’ concept where managers prioritise their own success

As I mentioned, Weber did his work with regard to the characteristics of the bureaucracy, so the ideal type of bureaucracy. He said that in a perfect world in its perfect state a bureaucracy would have five very important characteristics and it would perform each one of these characteristics optimally. In first characteristics of bureaucracy, according to Weber, you would have clear divisions of labor. Workers would assigned to do specific, specialized tasks and while those all would work together for the bureaucracy to function properly each person would have their own job to do. The second characteristic is rules and regulations. The rules and regulation that a bureaucracy puts in place help to guide the actions of workers and help to ensure that tasks are performed uniformly. So, these rules and regulations, for example, in an institution from today may come down from the corporate office. They might come down from a board of trustees or human resources

To Weber bureaucratic organization is a perfect method to apply on modern polity, the modern economy, the modern technology. Bureaucratic is type of organization that is very helpful to all other form of administration. How machine production is superior to handicraft methods, you may picture it this way. Max Weber a German sociologist proposed the theory known as principle of bureaucracy. Principle of bureaucracy is a theory which is widely applied in the 19th century. On Weber’s point of view, bureaucracy is the formal system of organization designed to improve the work done that is why he suggested an ideal model for management as bureaucratic approach. Other than that, Weber also talks about the basic principles of bureaucracy and emphasis on division of labour, hierarchy, detailed rules and impersonal relations in the book the theory of social and economic organizations.

Weber 's theory of bureaucracy (1958) is one of the most popular themes of the studying of organizations. He identified the legitimate of power with authority. 'Power ' means the ability to ask people to accept the orders; 'Legitimation ' means people regard this power as legitimate so as to obey the orders. Weber identified this authority as three types: