BY: SYED ABUL QASIM

Introduction to Management:
History of Management

Early History of Management

The Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China are proof that projects of tremendous
scope, employing tens of thousands of people, were completed in ancient times. It took
more than 100,000 workers some 20 years to construct a single pyramid. Who told each
worker what to do? Who ensured that there would be enough stones at the site to keep
workers busy? The answer is managers. Someone had to plan what was to be done,
organize people and materials to do it, make sure those workers got the work done, and
impose some controls to ensure that everything was done as planned.

Another example of early management can be found in the city of Venice, which was a
major economic and trade center in the 1400s. The Venetians developed an early form of
business enterprise and engaged in many activities common to today’s organizations. For
instance, at the arsenal of Venice, warships were floated along the canals, and at each stop,
materials and riggings were added to the ship.2 Sounds a lot like a car “floating” along an
assembly line, doesn’t it? In addition, the Venetians used warehouse and inventory systems
to keep track of materials, human resource management functions to manage the labor
force (including wine breaks), and an accounting system to keep track of revenues and
costs.

In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, in which he argued the economic
advantages that organizations and society would gain from the division of labor (or job
specialization)—that is, breaking down jobs into narrow and repetitive tasks. Using the pin
industry as an example, Smith claimed that 10 individuals, each doing a specialized task,
could produce about 48,000 pins a day among them. However, if each person worked alone
performing each task separately, it would be quite an accomplishment to produce even 10
pins a day! Smith concluded that division of labor increased productivity by increasing
each worker’s skill and dexterity, saving time lost in changing tasks, and creating
laborsaving inventions and machinery. Job specialization continues to be popular. For
example, think of the specialized tasks performed by members of a hospital surgery team,
meal preparation tasks done by workers in restaurant kitchens, or positions played by
players on a football team.

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Industrial Revolution
Before eighteenth century most business activities are carried out in homes. Families spin cotton,
wool or flax to yarn or thread on a spinning wheel, wet the goods with mild alkali and spread
them on ground for months to bleach before selling them in market. In this era all work was done
at home and farm houses.

After sometime a series of eight inventions change the course of production and business. Out
these eight six were invented by British and two were from French. List of invention is given
below:
1. Spinning Jenny (Spin eight threads at once instead of one)

2. Water Frame (Spinning machine driven by water power, a first form of mill)

3. Mule (Combination of spinning jenny and water body)

4. Power Loom (A weaving machine replaced way of making clothes at home)

5. Chlorine Bleach (Discovered by French, which changed way of bleaching)

6. Steam Engine (Changed water driven machine to steam driven machine)

7. Screw-cutting table (Made possible more reliable machines of metal rather than wood)

8. Interchangeable Manufacturer

Starting in the late eighteenth century when machine power was substituted for human power, a
point in history known as the industrial revolution, it became more economical to manufacture
goods in factories rather than at home. These large efficient factories needed someone to forecast
demand, ensure that enough material was on hand to make products, assign tasks to people, direct
daily activities, and so forth. That “someone” was a manager: These managers would need formal
theories to guide them in running these large organizations. It wasn’t until the early 1900s,
however, that the first steps toward developing such theories were taken.

It also resulted in some problems which were never faced before like moment of labor, training
needs, hiring of employees, management and role and rules and regulations to run organization.

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Scientific Management
Scientific management is part of classical approach, emphasized rationality and making
organizations and workers as efficient as possible. Two major theories comprise the classical
approach: scientific management and general administrative theory. The two most important
contributors to scientific management theory were Frederick W. Taylor and the husband-wife
team of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. The two most important contributors to general administrative
theory were Henri Fayol and Max Weber.

If you had to pinpoint when modern management theory was born, 1911 might be a good choice.
That was when Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management was published.
Its contents were widely embraced by managers around the world. Taylor’s book described the
theory of scientific management: the use of scientific methods to define the “one best way” for
a job to be done.

Frederick Winslow Taylor

Taylor worked at the Midvale and Bethlehem Steel Companies in Pennsylvania. As a mechanical
engineer with a Quaker and Puritan background, he was continually appalled by workers’
inefficiencies. Employees used vastly different techniques to do the same job. They often “took
it easy” on the job, and Taylor believed that worker output was only about one-third of what was
possible. Virtually no work standards existed and workers were placed in jobs with little or no
concern for matching their abilities and aptitudes with the tasks they were required to do. Taylor
set out to remedy that by applying the scientific method to shop-floor jobs. He spent more than
two decades passionately pursuing the “one best way” for such jobs to be done.

Taylor’s experiences at Midvale led him to define clear guidelines for improving production
efficiency. He argued that these four principles of management would result in prosperity for
both workers and managers. These Principles are mentioned below:

1. Develop a science for each element of an individual’s work to replace the old rule-
of thumb method.
2. Scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the worker.
3. Heartily cooperate with the workers so as to ensure that all work is done in
accordance with the principles of the science that has been developed.
4. Divide work and responsibility almost equally between management and workers.
Management does all work for which it is better suited than the workers.

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Management-11th Edition by Stephen Robbins and Mary Coulter
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Probably the best known example of Taylor’s scientific management efforts was the pig iron
experiment. Workers loaded “pigs” of iron (each weighing 92 lbs.) onto rail cars. Their daily
average output was 12.5 tons. However, Taylor believed that by scientifically analyzing the job
to determine the “one best way” to load pig iron, output could be increased to 47 or 48 tons per
day. After scientifically applying different combinations of procedures, techniques, and tools,
Taylor succeeded in getting that level of productivity. How? By putting the right person on the
job with the correct tools and equipment, having the worker follow his instructions exactly, and
motivating the worker with an economic incentive of a significantly higher daily wage. Using
similar approaches for other jobs, Taylor was able to define the “one best way” for doing each
job. Overall, Taylor achieved consistent productivity improvements in the range of 200 percent
studies or more.

Main working of Taylor was piece rate system in which job was divided in different elementary
motions, discarding unnecessary motions, examining unnecessary motions by stop watches to
identify more efficient method and sequence of task. Then to teach that method and sequence to
workers. Along with it Taylor went a step ahead in differential piece work method by establishing
payment method according to quantity of works. More the work more will be the pay, in this
regard he developed one standard for standard piece rate and different piece rate payment as
worked pushed beyond standards.

Second and most known example of Taylor is of Bethlehem Iron. He conducted one study there
on crew of pig-iron handlers. He identified that worker who loaded 92 pounds pigs of iron on
inclined plank in flat rail car increased productivity when he added frequent break to combat
over all fatigue by 12.5 to 47.5 pounds.

Another experiment was conducted by him in Bethlehem Iron on shoveling. At Bethlehem

Taylor noted that in furnaces 50 to 60 shovelers work together under one foremen to give study
raw material- sand, limestone, coke, rice coal, iron ore and so forth in furnaces. He noted that
each workers has its own shovel which he use in all kind of material intake. He also figure out
that shovels weight from 3.5 to 38 pounds and are used for different raw materials. He concluded
that if workers are not allowed to use shovels of their own choice and use one that weighs 21. 5
pounds can yield maximum productivity and should be used for intake of all material.

Based on his groundbreaking study of manual work using scientific principles, Taylor became
known as the “father” of scientific management. His ideas spread in the United States and to other
countries and inspired others to study and develop methods of scientific management. His most
prominent followers were Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.

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Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

A construction contractor by trade, Frank Gilbreth gave up that career to study scientific
management after hearing Taylor speak at a professional meeting. Frank and his wife Lillian, a
psychologist, studied work to eliminate inefficient hand and body motions. The Gilbreths also
experimented with the design and use of the proper tools and equipment for optimizing work
performance.

Frank is probably best known for his bricklaying experiments. By carefully analyzing the
bricklayer’s job, he reduced the number of motions in laying exterior brick from 18 to about 5,
and in laying interior brick from 18 to 2. Using Gilbreth’s techniques, a bricklayer was more
productive and less fatigued at the end of the day. Now they can lay 2700 bricks in same time
where they were only laying 1000 bricks previously.

The Gilbreths invented a device called a microchronometer that recorded a worker’s hand-and-
body motions and the amount of time spent doing each motion. Wasted motions missed by the
naked eye could be identified and eliminated. The Gilbreths also devised a classification scheme
to label 17 basic hand motions (such as search, grasp, hold), which they called therbligs. This
scheme gave the Gilbreths a more precise way of analyzing a worker’s exact hand movements.

How today’s managers use scientific management

Many of the guidelines and techniques that Taylor and the Gilbreths devised for improving
production efficiency are still used in organizations today. When managers analyze the basic work
tasks that must be performed, use time-and-motion study to eliminate wasted motions, hire the
best-qualified workers for a job, or design incentive systems based on output, they’re using the
principles of scientific management.

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Administrative Management
Administrative Management are more concerned with general management theories and
focused more on what managers do and what constituted good management practice.

Henry Fayol
Fayol wrote during the same time period as Taylor. But Taylor was concerned with first-line
managers and the scientific method, while Fayol’s attention was directed at the activities of all
managers. He wrote from his personal experience as the managing director of a large French coal-
mining firm. He believed industrial activity can be divided into six categories 2: Technical
(Production), Commercial (Marketing), Financial, Security, Accounting and Administration
activities. Henry Fayol divided administrative activities into below given functions.

Management Functions
According to the functions approach, managers perform certain activities or functions as they
efficiently and effectively coordinate the work of others. What are these functions? Henri Fayol,
a French businessman, first proposed in the early part of the twentieth century that all managers
perform five functions: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. Today,
these functions have been condensed to four: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

As per Henry in planning manager tends to set goals, establish strategies for achieving those
goals, and develop plans to integrate and coordinate activities. Managers are also responsible for
arranging and structuring work to accomplish the organization’s goals. This function is
organizing. When managers organize, they determine what tasks are to be done, who is to do
them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made.
After organizing in every organization manager has to deal with peoples and this dealing is termed
as leading and this is third function of management. When managers motivate subordinates, help
resolve work group conflicts, influence individuals or teams as they work, select the most
effective communication channel, or deal in any way with employee behavior issues, they’re
leading.

The final management function is controlling. After goals and plans are set (planning), tasks and
structural arrangements put in place (organizing), and people hired, trained, and motivated
(leading), there has to be some evaluation of whether things are going as planned. To ensure that
goals are being met and that work is being done as it should be, managers must monitor and
evaluate performance. Actual performance must be compared with the set goals. If those goals
aren’t being achieved, it’s the manager’s job to get work back on track. This process of
monitoring, comparing, and correcting is the controlling function.

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Chapter no: 2 Historical Development of Engineering Management from book Managing Engineering and Technology sixth Edition
by Morse and Babcock.
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Principles of Management
Fayol described the practice of management as something distinct from accounting, finance,
production, distribution, and other typical business functions. His belief that management was an
activity common to all business endeavors, government, and even the home led him to develop
14 principles of management—fundamental rules of management that could be applied to all
organizational situations and taught in schools. These principles are as under:

1. Division of Work. Specialization increases output by making employees more efficient.

2. Authority. Managers must be able to give orders, and authority gives them this right.

3. Discipline. Employees must obey and respect the rules that govern the organization.

4. Unity of command. Every employee should receive orders from only one superior.

5. Unity of direction. The organization should have a single plan of action to guide managers and
workers.

6. Subordination of individual interests to the general interest. The interests of any one
employee or group of employees should not take precedence over the interests of the organization as
a whole.

7. Remuneration. Workers must be paid a fair wage for their services.

8. Centralization. This term refers to the degree to which subordinates are involved in decision
making.

9. Scalar chain. The line of authority from top management to the lowest ranks is the scalar chain.

10. Order. People and materials should be in the right place at the right time.

11. Equity. Managers should be kind and fair to their subordinates.

12. Stability of tenure of personnel. Management should provide orderly personnel planning and
ensure that replacements are available to fill vacancies.

13. Initiative. Employees who are allowed to originate and carry out plans will exert high levels of
effort.

14. Esprit de corps. Promoting team spirit will build harmony and unity within the organization.

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Max Weber
Max Weber was a German sociologist who studied organizations, he developed a theory of
authority structures and relations based on an ideal type of organization he called a
bureaucracy—a form of organization characterized by division of labor, a clearly defined
hierarchy, detailed rules and regulations, and impersonal relationships.

Bureaucracy, as described by Weber, is a lot like scientific management in its ideology. Both
emphasized rationality, predictability, impersonality, technical competence, and
authoritarianism. Although Weber’s ideas were less practical than Taylor’s.

How today’s managers use General Administrative Theories

Several of our current management ideas and practices can be directly traced to the contributions
of general administrative theory. For instance, the functional view of the manager’s job can be
attributed to Fayol. In addition, his 14 principles serve as a frame of reference from which many
current management concepts—such as managerial authority, centralized decision making,
reporting to only one boss, and so forth—have evolved.

Weber’s bureaucracy was an attempt to formulate an ideal prototype for organizations. Although
many characteristics of Weber’s bureaucracy are still evident in large organizations, his model
isn’t as popular today as it was in the twentieth century. Many managers feel that a bureaucratic
structure hinders individual employees’ creativity and limits an organization’s ability to respond
quickly to an increasingly dynamic environment. However, even in flexible organizations of
creative professionals—such as Microsoft, Samsung, General Electric, or Cisco Systems—some
bureaucratic mechanisms are necessary to ensure that resources are used efficiently and
effectively.

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Behavioral Management
As we know, managers get things done by working with people. This explains why some writers
have chosen to look at management by focusing on the organization’s people. The field of study
that researches the actions (behavior) of people at work is called organizational behavior (OB).
Much of what managers do today when managing people—motivating, leading, building trust,
working with a team, managing conflict, and so forth—has come out of OB research.

Although a number of individuals in the early twentieth century recognized the importance of
people to an organization’s success, four stand out as early advocates of the OB approach: Robert
Owen, Hugo Munsterberg, Mary Parker Follett, and Chester Barnard. Their contributions were
varied and distinct, yet all believed that people were the most important asset of the organization
and should be managed accordingly. Their ideas provided the foundation for such management
practices as employee selection procedures, motivation programs, and work teams.

Without question, the most important contribution to the OB field came out of the Hawthorne
Studies, a series of studies conducted at the Western Electric Company Works in Cicero, Illinois.
These studies, which started in 1924, were initially designed by Western Electric industrial
engineers as a scientific management experiment. They wanted to examine the effect of various
lighting levels on worker productivity. Like any good scientific experiment, control and
experimental groups were set up with the experimental group being exposed to various lighting
intensities, and the control group working under a constant intensity. If you were the industrial
engineers in charge of this experiment, what would you have expected to happen? It’s logical to
think that individual output in the experimental group would be directly related to the intensity
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of the light. However, they found that as the level of light was increased in the experimental
group, output for both groups increased. Then, much to the surprise of the engineers, as the light
level was decreased in the experimental group, productivity continued to increase in both groups.
In fact, a productivity decrease was observed in the experimental group only when the level of
light was reduced to that of a moonlit night. What would explain these unexpected results?
The engineers weren’t sure, but concluded that lighting intensity was not directly related to group
productivity, and that something else must have contributed to the results. They weren’t able to
pinpoint what that “something else” was, though.

Elton Mayo
In 1927, the Western Electric engineers asked Harvard professor Elton Mayo and his associates
to join the study as consultants. He conducted second phase of Hawthorne study known as Relay
Assembly Test Room Experiments. In this experiment six women were chosen for experiment
whose production rate were known. These women were working to fix parts of mechanical relay
used in telephone switching. This study was designed to evaluate the effect of a group piecework
incentive pay system on group productivity. The results indicated that the incentive plan had less
effect on a worker’s output than did group pressure, acceptance, and security. The researchers
concluded that social norms or group standards were the key determinants of individual work
behavior.

Thus began a relationship that would last through 1932 and encompass numerous experiments in
the redesign of jobs, changes in workday and workweek length, introduction of rest periods, and
individual versus group wage plans. Mayo concluded that people’s behavior and attitudes are
closely related, that group factors significantly affect individual behavior, that group standards
establish individual worker output, and that money is less a factor in determining output than are
group standards, group attitudes, and security. These conclusions led to a new emphasis on the
human behavior factor in the management of organizations.

These effects are known as Hawthorne effects, which is the tendency of persons signaled out for
special attention to perform as expected.

How today’s managers use the Behavioral Approach

The behavioral approach has largely shaped how today’s organizations are managed. From the
way that managers design jobs to the way that they work with employee teams to the way that
they communicate, we see elements of the behavioral approach. Much of what the early OB
advocates proposed and the conclusions from the Hawthorne studies have provided the
foundation for our current theories of motivation, leadership, group behavior and development,
and numerous other behavioral approaches.

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