The World Economic Conference at Geneva
Added on 2021-05-19
8 Pages2896 Words48 Views
Design and Creativity
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Full Name:An Truong NguyenStudent Number:T0095381Seminar Group:BABM ENT2Total number of words:2134The World Economic Conference held at Geneva (1927) defined rationalisation as the “techniques and methods to improve efficiency while securing minimum waste of either effort or resources based
on scientific management of labour, simplification of process and systematic reasoning”. Max Weber (1864 – 1921), who was a German sociologist and a political economist, developed the rational organisational design as the concept of relying on bureaucratic structure, authority, hierarchal control together with significant attention to the division of labour (Guillén, 1994). It is known as the product of scientific study and the key to understanding modern society, preferably Western in this case, by replacing traditional management with reasonable practices. This means human behaviours are guidedunder strict surveillance with rules, policies and procedures to increase efficiency. Also, notably is therational work design concept that was originally developed by theorists Taylor and Ford using scientific management as an attempt to maximise efficiency with simple repetitive tasks while reducing wastes (Barley and Kunda, 1992). Accordingly, rationalisation indeed is essential for an organisation to increase revenue, reduce costs and conserve scarce resources while improving the bottom line in reference to the process by which modern society has become highly concerned with; efficiency, predictability, calculability and standardization. With its techniques, organisation could remain high quality of management even when it is grown in size by applying impersonal and indirectcontrol through bureaucratic structure and hierarchical management. The aim of this essay is to put in consideration whether there is one best way to management in contemporary organisations with explanation of various perspective existing alongside rationalisation. For this reason, this essay is written with an application of rational work design being demonstrated through the reception area at Junction Hotel in order to not only justify its potential impacts on the hotel but also its effects on employees.Scientific management, which was developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor during the 1880s and 1890s, is a theory of management that helps analyse and synthesise workflows, known as division of labour. In other words, it is an effective methodology that breaks production process into small and simple segments of which requiring merely small amount of time to learn (Taylor, 2003). Upon observing that most workers, who are forced to perform repetitive tasks, tend to work at the slowest rate, Taylor defined this term as “soldering”. Thus, Taylor (1914) believes that optimising task allocation with high supervision would increase productivity rather than forcing employees to work ashard as they could. Considering this, Taylor carried out an experiment called time studies using a stopwatch to measure particular worker’s sequence of motions to determine the “one best way” for production. While Taylorism is an attempt to identify solutions in which costs reduced to the minimal but improving productivity, Fordism is the eponymous manufacturing system of Henry Ford belief in achieving mass production using autocratic management (Batchelor, 1994). Instead of having workersmoving around to assemble different parts of the product, Ford created the assembly line flowing past workers to reduce unnecessary movements. Assembly line was then operational into Fords factory, the line became the key to mass production that soon many factories started adopting it. Being influenced by Frederick Taylor, Fordism also implies high division of labour and minimum workplace
democracy, yet with a relief of decent wages. Similarly, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth developed a business efficiency technique called time and motion study, or motion and time study, of which was primarily based on the time studies theory of Taylor (Barnes & Barnes, 1958). In contrast to Taylor, the Gilbreths developed a more complex and systematic approach of time and motion study for the industry, concerning the importance of good environment and the limits of human physical as well as mental capacity. With the help of scientific insights, they filmed the details of workers’ activities and their body posture while recording the time. The films were then analysed in consideration of how tasks had been done, advice on certain areas for improvement, also, to train workers about the prominent way to shorten production time.Over the years, these studies have shown numerous positive impacts on organisations and still being widely utilized within contemporary organisations in today’s modernized era. However, due to technological advance and society development, several theories have been adjusted to emphasize more toward innovation and humane such as; post-bureaucracy, post-Fordism and neo-Fordism. In accordance with the theory of Grey and Garsten (2001), post-bureaucracy is an approach to which strict regulations and structures are minimized to encourage creativity. As an illustration, Google’s employees are extremely well treated, working in modern facility with minimal supervision while focusing in supports and guidance, this is to help employee increase enthusiasm in their jobs and so asproductivity. Comparatively, post-Fordism refers to management techniques in which workers skill and trusted labour is appraised simultaneously, maintaining communication between employees ratherthan control. Nonetheless, the concept of post-Fordism has evolved beyond the manufacturing field toa greater extent of a more comprehensive field that includes many types of services production, such as hospital, retailing and hotel. Under those circumstances, Ritzer (1998) invented the term McDonaldization in his book called The McDonaldization of Society, stating that it is a reconceptualization of both rationalisation and scientific management, albeit taken to the extreme levels. Ritzer (2009) further asserts that various changes within technology and culture have shifted societies, institutions and organizations away from Weber’s theory to adapt the same characteristics offast food chains. In McDonald stores, this is a process of repeated tasks have been simplified to the smallest possible level with the results are then rationalized in order to find the single most effective technique for completing specific task. Ritzer classified these steps as the four main principles of McDonaldization: efficiency (division of labour), predictability, calculability and control. Surprisingly, these concepts are somewhat beneficial to the emotional labour because it is all about the management of emotion to create an appropriate observable facial toward the consumers for a wage (Hochschild, 1979). Similar to McDonaldization theory, emotional labour, which is prevalent in tertiary sector of which requires constant interactions with customers or clients. also exists within its restaurants where employees’ behaviours are being strictly controlled in order to accomplish organisation norms and goals. This is due to the fact that the service industry plays a crucial role in
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