Many practices that seem self-evident when you enter an organization are in fact answers given to a particular question in a particular period. This episode traces the chronological evolution of management thought through three verified sources. Taylor (1911) gathers the new duties of management under four headings: developing a science for each element of work to replace the old rule-of-thumb method; scientifically selecting the worker and then training, teaching and developing them; heartily cooperating with workers so that the work is done in accordance with the principles of the science developed; and dividing work and responsibility almost equally between management and workers. The same book defines the principal object of management as securing the maximum prosperity for the employer coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee, and states that in every element of every job there is one method and one implement that is quicker and better than the others. An academic integrity note is needed here: the phrase “one best way”, so often attributed to Taylor, does not appear in this book. Gilbreth and Gilbreth (1916) define motion study as dividing the elements of work into their most fundamental subdivisions, measuring the variables of these units individually and in relation to one another, and building the least wasteful methods from the selected units; the same text states that no waste in the world equals the waste from needless, ill-directed and ineffective motions, and turns its focus not only to speed but also to fatigue. Then we arrive at the stop where the question changes: the question is now how to build the organization rather than the work. Sibindi and Samuel (2019) present Burns and Stalker’s proposal of a mechanistic structure for stable environments and an organic structure for unstable ones; they define the mechanistic structure by low complexity, high centralization, high formalization and high stratification, and the organic structure by high complexity and low formalization, centralization and stratification. The study’s own finding is that firms facing an unstable environment adopted a hybrid structure, which is not consistent with Burns and Stalker’s conclusion. The Hawthorne studies and the human relations school are not detailed in this episode and are left to a separate episode of the series. At the end of the episode, you will clearly see that management thought is not a ladder of progress but a chain in which the question is renewed in every period.

📌 Playlist for the full series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6s4Uhec9cFBZNpSWXeuaybOuyCsHS71K

Sources Used

Taylor, F. W. (1911). The Principles of Scientific Management. New York and London: Harper & Brothers.

Gilbreth, F. B., & Gilbreth, L. M. (1916). Fatigue Study: The Elimination of Humanity’s Greatest Unnecessary Waste. A First Step in Motion Study. New York: Sturgis & Walton Company.

Sibindi, N., & Samuel, O. M. (2019). Structure and an unstable business operating environment: Revisiting Burns and Stalker’s organisation-environment theory in Zimbabwe’s manufacturing sector. South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, 22(1), a2113.

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