Scientific Management - for a Different Time and Place Essay Example for Free

Scientific Management for a Different Time and Place Essay Scientific Management was first described by Frederick Taylor in the late 19th century. Its relevance to modern day management is widely debated in academic circles. In this essay, I will address the question of whether Scientific Management has a place today, in a 21st Century Knowledge Economy, or whether it belongs to a ‘different time and place. I will argue that much of modern management practice is derived from Taylor’s theories and that in this sense his work is very relevant. Next, I will examine the context in which Taylor developed his principles and contrast this with the contemporary context. Then I will evaluate the relevance of each of Taylor’s 4 Principles to today, with help from a case study of the NUMMI car manufacturing plant. Finally, I will examine the modern forms of Scientific Management, and what the future holds. Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: The Academic Contribution of Scientific Management â€Å"Every method during these past hundred years that has had the slightest success in raising the productivity of manual workers – and with it their real wages – has been based on Taylor’s principles. (Drucker, 1999) Taylor’s Scientific Management played a crucial part in the formation of management as an academic discipline. Many of our modern systems are built on the foundations laid by Scientific Management and elements of this are still clearly visible in modern business practice. Before Taylor’s ideas, business management was not taught or even considered a discipline. It was seen as a matter of personal style and that there was no ‘one best way’. Taylor challenged this idea and laid the foundations for management to be studied and evolve. He believed that management should e trained and qualified. Harvard, one of the first universities to offer a degree in business management in 1908, based its first-year curriculum on Taylors scientific management. Scientific Management influenced many thinkers, including James McKinsey, founder of the consultant firm bearing his name. McKinsey built on Taylor’s ideas and advocated budgets as a means of accountability and measuring performance of managers. Today the McKinsey consulting firm is one of the prime contributors to management thinking; hey believe that Scientific Management is the future, an idea which will be contested later in this essay. â€Å"Before scientific management, such departments as work study, personnel, maintenance and quality control did not exist. † (Accel-Team) Taylor’s philosophy was important in the development of principles of management by theorists. Scientific Management advocated the division of labour, the separation of planning from operations, clear delineation of authority and the use of incentive schemes for workers. Taylor greatly contributed to the analysis of work design and gave rise to method study, including his time studies, which are described later in this essay. Management literature has taken many new twists since Taylor’s day, with Drucker coining the term â€Å"Knowledge Workers† in 1959. Drucker’s book Landmarks of Tomorrow, describes the declining importance of manual labour. This marked a need to move away from Scientific Management, a system based on physical standardised tasks. In 1980, management evolved further away from SM when Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham argued that workers need meaning and responsibility in their work to perform well, in their book Work Redesign. This idea contrasted with the disregard to the worker’s emotions and humanity in SM. The Context of Scientific Management: Does the Purpose It Was Developed for Have Any Relevance Today? Scientific Management was designed with physical labour in mind. Taylor was inspired by what he observed in the steel industry, and developed a style of management which could be applied to the construction, processing and train industries among others. Today, tertiary activities form the majority of the economy in developed economies. Taylor’s system was designed in a time when secondary activities were just replacing primary activities as the largest sector, and tertiary activities were hardly developed at all. From this comes the argument that today we have moved into a knowledge economy and a new style of management must replace the now obsolete Scientific Management which was designed for standardized physical tasks. Gary Hamel terms this new style ‘Management 2. 0’. Taylor developed SM to counteract phenomenon of soldiering which he encountered in the steel industry. The reasons for soldiering were as follows: â€Å"1. The almost universally held belief among workers that if they became more productive, fewer of them would be needed and jobs would be eliminated. 2. Non-incentive wage systems encourage low productivity if the employee will receive the same pay regardless of how much is produced, assuming the employee can convince the employer that the slow pace really is a good pace for the job.  Employees take great care never to work at a good pace for fear that this faster pace would become the new standard. If employees are paid by the quantity they produce, they fear that management will decrease their per-unit pay if the quantity increases. 3. Workers waste much of their effort by relying on rule-of-thumb methods rather than on optimal work methods that can be determined by scientific study of the task. † (NetMBA, Business Knowledge Center) Soldiering is not a common practice in knowledge economies. The problem that Taylor developed his principles around are from a ‘different time and place’ as these three reasons are largely non-existent now. The first reason for soldiering is no longer a problem because today incentive wage systems encourage high productivity through bonuses. Workers believe high productivity will result in promotion rather than jobs being eliminated. In the successful NUMMI car manufacturing plant a no layoff policy was employed to ‘eliminate workers’ fear that they are jeopardizing jobs every time they come up with an idea to improve efficiency. ’(Adler)

Tobacco: The Cost-effectiveness of Current Smoke-free Policies Essay

1. Introduction Tobacco use constitutes a global epidemic that results in 5 million deaths each year (World Health Organization, 2008). If current trends in tobacco use continue, the number of tobacco-related deaths is expected to rise to 8 million deaths annually by 2030 – with 80 percent of these deaths taking place in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) (Mathers & Loncar, 2006). Currently, about 10 percent of the world’s smokers live in India (World Health Organization, 2008). The 2009-2010 Global Adult Tobacco Survey, a nationally representative household survey, found that 34.6% of adults over the age of 15 in India currently use tobacco (International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), 2010). The prevalence of tobacco smoking in Gujarat, India, including those using smokeless as well as smoked tobacco is estimated to be 19.8% among males and 1.5% among females(International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), 2010). Most smokers in India consume bidis, small cigarettes containing, on average, 25 percent less tobacco than the average cigarette (Jha et al., 2008). Despite the smaller amount of tobacco in bidis, they can produce more nicotine, carbon monoxide, and tar than the average manufactured cigarette because of the way smokers puff on them (Mackay J et al., 2006). One recent nationally representative case-control study found t hat about 70% of smoking-related deaths in India take place during productive years of life between 30-69 years of age (Jha et al., 2008). In addition, the study projected that smoking will kill one million people each year starting in 2010 (Jha et al., 2008). Since 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO)'s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) offers a ... ... or sub-national setting. In the past several years, low and middle-income countries have seen an increased number of smoke-free policies (World Health Organization, 2009). However, some of these policies do not meet the FCTC’s recommendations or are poorly enforced at the sub-national level (World Health Organization, 2009). Therefore, it is important to examine the cost-effectiveness of current smoke-free policies to provide decision makers with the evidence needed to strengthen existing policies to meet FCTC requirements. Additionally, given the exceptions in India’s current smoke-free legislation and the high levels of exposure to secondhand smoke found in recent data, there is a particular need for transparent cost-effectiveness analysis of smoke-free legislation in India(International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), 2010; Trostle et al., 1999).

Interaction with teacher Essay

It was all what I wanted. It was what I dreamt of long before. But it was all taken for granted by the people around me. I was always the top student among all the six graders in our school, and due to that I am one of those whom they regards as their priceless gem because I always come up with something, like a new idea about a certain issue. I have been one of those sent for if there are contests. They say I act and think like an adult already. Not like any other regular students, I also happen to excel in sports and other curricular activities. I am also a runner. I have always been running on track since I was in grade three. I exerted much effort in it because it is my passion. Day after day I spend time in training and being exposed to tracks to win in future races but i never forget to maintain my good grades in my academics. In class, I have this very close teacher in Math. I also love Math at that time that is why I also like my teacher. It so happened that my Math teacher also happens to be our classroom adviser. Sometimes, after classes and I do not have any practice in the track, we always have chitchats and she would always advise me to pursue whatever dreams I have in mind and never to forget to remember the people around me that had help me in achieving things in life. She also told me not to be sidetracked and still give importance with my studies because that is the most important achievement in life. There were difficult times during my training but I still managed to persevere because I have a goal and that is to win. I never thought of quitting the training even how tired it gets. I continued to pursue my dreams and visions that one day I will reap my reward in due time if I will not fail and go frail. I can say that I am very determine and aggressive to reach my dreams that time. I think I just deserve every victory I get as i go along with my chosen path because of the diligence that I have manifested. Time came when I joined a race. Every people would know me would say that I have great chances of winning the first place because of my hard trainings and my trained skills. The event came and I was all set out to win the race but to my surprise, my coach talked to me in private and asked me not to win the first prize. I can be in second place or third place as long as I won’t be the champion. I was so devastated upon hearing this coming from my coach, my mentor, the one who served as my model. I wouldn’t know what to do. I was so troubled and kept thinking whether to agree and follow my coach or to go on the different way and achieve my dreams. It was the most difficult part of my life, to choose something that no one would be hurt. My conscience, my will to win and my loyalty to my coach we’re all fighting. What would I choose then? The event proper came, and the race started. I was on track and was leading. Many of my friends and families were all cheering for me. This made me more determined to go on faster and faster. The finish line is almost near when I remembered what my coach told me. My heart was beating as I saw the finish line. For the finish line would mean victory and success but for now, it meant devastation and tragedy for me. A few seconds before I reached the finish line I slowed down, giving the others opportunity to win. When I slowed down I noticed one girl who was always at my back during the track was now leading the race. Finally, the girl made it to the first place while I was the second placer. All my friends, families and relatives were all dismayed by what happened. They all expected that I would win the race. I was down and weary, to the point that it already affected my performance in school. I felt so ashamed and so coward for not fighting what is right. I have low self- esteem for quite some time and my grades got lower and lower. Then one Thursday afternoon, my Math teacher and classroom adviser called my attention. She and I talked in her office. I knew she was going to reprimand me for my poor performances at school. Well, at the back of my mind that time it was alright if she will reprimand me because I just deserve it. But to my surprise I was wrong, totally wrong. The moment I entered the room she smiled at me. Smile? Why would she smile to someone who is a loser? Then she offered me a seat. During those moments I am still very clueless on what would happen as we talk. Then she asked me if I am alright, so I said yes but I said it tears just fell on my eyes. She told me to be true to myself and whatever I feel I should share and let it out. So, I expressed my frustrations and everything that happened in the race. She told me that she understand why I was having low performances at school the past few weeks. But my life should not stop there. She told me that I am still very young and that many opportunities would still knock on my door and if that happens I should grab it immediately. She told me that everything happens for a reason and for a purpose that is to shape and mould us to become a much better person than what we are. She told me that my life should not end there because there is still so much in store for me in the future. Stubborn as I am, I told her that I do not want the future, what I want is now. She then answered me that I should live one day at a time and take one step at a time. With her words of wisdom, I was cheered. It really matters if you talk with someone who has a lot to say about life, like my teacher. I could not imagine that she would help me out because all along, I thought she was just a Math teacher, nothing more, but it was proven wrong. My teacher really touched my heart and transformed my life. After that talk, I started again and now with a positive outlook in life that no matter how I fall I should make a choice to rise up again. That was how I think even though I was just in sixth grade that time. Later it was found out that the father of the girl, who was the champion, paid my coach so that I won’t win at all. Imagine, all along my opponent knew that I was really something. They knew that I can really win the race that is why they were all threatened by my victory. I was a threat to everyone who was in the race that eventually made the father of the other girl bribe my coach to destroy my vision, my goals. But no matter how they put me down, the truth came out and it was on my side. Success, winning and victory are not about running a race after all. It is more of having a clear conscience that you made it that far because you never cheated, hurt anyone and stepped on other’s shoes for you own gain. I thank my teacher for the words of wisdom she has shared to me during the lowest point in my life. Teachers really do make a difference in this world. They are not just there to teach you academically but they are always there to support you and mould your being for you to become a better individual that every society dreams of having especially in this cruel world right now.

The Twelve Caesars As A Biography About Twelve Roman Empire

Suetonius wrote The Twelve Caesars as a biography about twelve Roman Caesars. This essay will compare and contrast two of them, Divus Julius and Nero. Even though the two men both became Emperors who ruled Rome, they could not have been more different. Both had certain authority and public powers during each of their reigns. Their lives were also scattered with times of virtue and scandal. This was a different time from today. Human behavior and morals played a significant role in those ruling over others. Some had them and some not so much. In the end, their stories will ultimately give the reader an illustration of these two men and what their stories tell us about the lives of Roman emperors in the first century. Gaius Julius Caesar rose through the ranks from Roman general to Emperor. A critical role he played in Roman politics, was his role in the events that were to lead to the downfall of the Roman Republic and the growth of the Roman Empire. He joined with Crassus and Pompey to form a political alliance. This alliance of three would go on to dominate politics in Rome for several years. â€Å"Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus now formed a triple pact, jointly swearing to oppose all public policies in which any of them might disapprove† (Graves and Suetonius 19). The conservative ruling class of the Roman Senate opposed their attempts to accumulate power through the use of populist tactics. To show the power he had militarily, Caesar was able to win popularity with hisShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Gaius Suetonius TranquitusDe Vita Caesartus1510 Words   |  7 PagesGaius Suetonius Tranquillus, a Roman historian is better known as Suetonius and also for his book ‘The Twelve Caesars’ which essentially changed the way in which history was written. For many, they believe that Suetonius’ ‘De Vita Caesarum established a new framework, an original genre of historical biography unseen before which consequently made a significant contribution to historical scholarship. This review will look in particular at the aspects of Suetonius’ style of writing seen in the firstRead MoreCleopatra, The Last Queen Of Egypt1251 Words   |  6 Pageshave been mischaracterized or mythologized, but none have been as misconstrued as Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Egypt. In Roller’s 2010 publication, Cleopatra: A Biography, he discusses many aspects of Cleo patra’s life, but most importantly her power. This novel is the first to be based solely on primary materials from the Greco-Roman period while Cleopatra was alive. These sources include literature, Egyptian documents, and representations in art and coinage. The author’s stated purpose for writingRead MoreClaudius : The Second Roman Emperor Of The Julio Claudian Dynasty1288 Words   |  6 PagesTiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus, more commonly referred to as Claudius, was appointed as the fourth Roman Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, following the assassination of his nephew and preceding Emperor, Caligula, in 41 A.D. (Wasson, 2011) Despite the initial pessimistic perspective held by prominent Roman figures regarding his performance as Emperor, Claudius proved to be an efficient leader whom increased the autocratic nature of Rome through his Empire expansion campaigns and policiesRead MoreEssay on Nero995 Words   |  4 PagesNero Let Nero be ever before your eyes, swollen with the pride of a long line of Caesars#8230; an Emperor condemned by his own people#8230; Nero will always be regretted (Tacitus: The Principle of Adoption) Throughout the ages, Nero has been viewed as a rogue and a disgrace to the Roman Empire, thanks to unreliable primary sources. Because of this, Nero is now renowned world wide as the man who hated Christians, the man who killed Jesus and the man who wanted nothing but to satisfyRead MoreThe Bad Emperors of Rome Essay1677 Words   |  7 Pagesfollowers, which is highly valued by the romans. This can be seen through the actions and behaviours throughout their time as they were destructive towards their families and disrespectful towards the people of the city. Alienation of various sectors also caused unpopularity of these men. Undoubtedly, a barrier was created between each emperor and the SPQR which led to their ultimate fate essentially determined by the people of Rome. Tiberius Nero Caesar was the first emperor to rule Rome afterRead MoreAgrippina Influence1557 Words   |  7 Pagesinfluenced her power before her marriage to Claudius. She was born into the Julio-Claudian bloodline making her an Imperial woman of a noble dynasty, she was as a result of her family background reasonably wealthy and educated, she had the backing of the Roman Army as her father Germanicus was the commander of the 5th legion of the army in Germany and finally her two marriages which provided her with wealth and a son to be heir of the throne. The Julio-Claudian dynasty ran strong before and after the birthRead MoreFemale1542 Words   |  7 Pagescom/people/cleopatra-vii-9250984#synopsis According to Egyptian law, Cleopatra was forced to have a consort, who was either a brother or a son, no matter what age, throughout her reign. She was married to her younger brother Ptolemy XIII when he was twelve, however she soon dropped his name from any official documents regardless of the Ptolemaic insistence that the male presence be first among co-rulers. Read more: http://www.touregypt.net/cleopatr.htm#ixzz3szJw1a2F HOW THEY GOT THE POWER TO RULERead MoreThe Emperor Of The Flavian Dynasty2990 Words   |  12 PagesDomitian was a Roman emperor from 81 to 96, and was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty. Domitian s early career was spent in the shadow of his brother Titus. This continued under the rule of his father Vespasian, who became emperor in 69 following the civil war, which is known as the Year of the Four Emperors. While Titus held many offices under the rule of his father, Domitian received honors but no responsibilities. When Vespasian died in 79 he was succeeded by Titus, whose ownRead MoreSalahudin Ayubi / Muhammad Al-Fateh8251 Words   |  34 Pages(March 30, 1432 – May 3, 1481) the Conqueror in Ottoman Turkish, or, in modern Turkish, Fatih Sultan Mehmet in early modern Europe was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from February 1451 to 1481. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to th e Byzantine Empire, absorbing its administrative apparatus into the Ottoman state. Al-Fateh continued his conquests in Asia, with the Anatolian reunification, and in Europe, as farRead More My Friend Hamilton -Who I shot Essay6642 Words   |  27 Pages as much himself as Burr. In the end he arranged to have Burr kill him.†13 To prove this â€Å"arrangement,† Kennedy boldly stated that the infamous â€Å"Cooper Letter† that enraged Aaron Burr, was in fact false, for Dr. Charles D. Cooper was â€Å"lying† about the â€Å"despicable† opinions that Hamilton had regarding Burr, for â€Å"all such inquiries begin by assuming that Cooper was speaking the truth—that Hamilton had, in fact, said of Burr something new, and worse, than what he had said of him often before