Management and Managing in an International Context: An Introduction

This article introduces the importance of management in an international context and discusses the principles of Frederick Taylor. It also explores how Tesco follows these principles to achieve maximum efficiency. The article concludes that proper management is necessary for the smooth functioning of any organization and helps in attaining the maximum potential of employees.

Management
and Managing
in an International
Context : An introduction

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
References:.......................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Management is an key part of the business nationally or internationally. It refers to the process of
planning and organising the activities happening in an organisation. The main aim of the
management is to increase efficiency and achieving goals in in effective manner and efficient
manner. In an organisation there are different levels of organisation which sees the smooth flow
of business operations and coordinate the business functions. Management is an complex and
dynamic function which means an organisation should adapt the trends and changes happening
in the market or society. For example, nowadays use of paper has been decreased as new gadgets
and screens came in the market, so the paper manufacturing company should act upon that and
how quickly a company adapt that change depends upon how effective management of the
company. Management take care of the every aspect of the organisation such as employees,
customers, government, owners etc. (Akgün and Karataş, 2020).
MAIN BODY
Frederick Winslow Taylor was a well known personality in the field of scientific management.
He was an mechanical engineer from America and he was known for developing his methods
which helps in improving the industrial efficiency. He was born in a Quaker family of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States on March 20 , 1856. Franklin Taylor who was father
of Fredrick Taylor was an lawyer who was graduated from Princeton University. Initially he was
educated by his mother. Later on, Franklin studied in France and Germany for two years and
then he travelled Europe for 18 months. At first Taylor wants to become an lawyer just like his
father and had a dream of going to Harvard University. In order to pursue his dreams he entered
in Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1872. In 1874 , Frederick passed the entrance
test of Harvard University with honours but instead of going to Harvard University, Taylor chose
a very different path and became a apprentice of pattern maker and machinist. He gained a lot of
knowledge and practical experience at Enterprise Hydraulic Works in Philadelphia. In 1878 he
became a machine shop labourer at Midvale Steel Works. At Midvale he shows a tremendous

growth and finally promoted to Chief Engineer because of his talent and family's relation with
Edward Stark who is a owner (partly) of Midvale Steel Works (Clark and et. al. 2021).
While working in the Taylor noticed that workmen are not doing their work as they should do
because of which company faces a lot of increased cost for the company. When he became
foreman he decided to perform research on the productivity of the workmen as well as machines.
In 1881, Taylor and Clarence Clark won their first tennis doubles tournament in the US National
Championships. Later on Taylor took admission in Stevens Institute of Technology and took the
option of correspondence and obtained a degree in mechanical engineering in 1883. On May 3,
1884, he married Louise M. Spooner of Philadelphia (Easterby-Smith and et. al., 2021). From
1890 to 1893, he was hired as a general manager and a consulting engineer to management for
the Manufacturing Investment Company of Philadelphia. Taylor opened his independent
consulting company in Philadelphia in 1893. He published his first paper named, A Piece Rate
System which was presented to American Society of Engineers (ASME) in June 1895.
afterwards he joined Bethlehem Steel in 1898 to solve an expensive machine shop capacity
problem. In 1901, Taylor was forced to leave Bethlehem Steels due to dispute with other
managers of the company. Till that time he became a wealthy man who is now focused on his
management methods. In 1910, Frederick and his scientific Management methods became world
wide famous. On 19 October, 1906 Taylor was awarded with the honorary degree of Doctor of
science by the University of Pennsylvania. Taylor died on March 21, 1915, one day after his 59th
birthday due to pneumonia and buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd,
Pennsylvania.
Frederic Taylor has a great name in the field of management study as he is the first person who
started the work or process of systematic observation and study. They keenly studied the work of
a workmen and also how it is affects worker's productivity. His philosophy focuses on that
extracting people work as much as they are not efficient as optimising the way of doing work
will be efficient. At that time there is little contact between manager and worker which also
effects the efficiency of the worker and sometimes leads to dispute. There is no standardisation

in the work of the work men and the main motivation of the workers was continued employment
to satisfy their and their families needs (Klun and Trkman, 2018). There was no incentives forb
better working. Taylor studied all these aspects in depth and came out with his principles. He
also talked about the relation between managers and workers and it each of them should have to
cooperate to gain the maximum efficiency. His management study has lifted the working masses
and have their influence for seventy five years, even in the developed countries as well. He
thought workers get excited to work because of money so he came up with the idea of “ a fair
day's pay for a fair day's work” which means if a worker has not done his full work in a
particular day then he is not worthy to get wages as another worker who has done work
efficiently and effectively. With the background of mechanical engineering, Taylor was so much
passionate about the efficiency of a work men. He performed many workplace experiments to
find out the optimal performance level (Olga, Olga and Julia, 2019). He also came up with his
shovel theory which got negative results while showing to the bigger authorities. After all the
experiments and collected experience, Frederick Taylor concluders the four principles for the
scientific management. He also refer about choosing the suitable person for the particular work is
also important as a right person will be more efficient in the work than the wrong person.
Taylor's scientific management includes majorly four principles which are -
 The best way for study work of the workers is to use scientific methods instead of using
“rule of thumb” and find the best and efficient way to perform the work or tasks.
 It is essential to assign the job to a worker according to his capabilities and motivation
instead of assigning any job and train the workers to get better efficiency.
 Analyse and monitor the performance of a worker and give them instructions and
supervision to use most efficient ways of doing work.
 It is important to allocate work between workers and managers so that managers can
incur their time in planning and training to gain maximum efficiency.
Tesco is a British multinational retailer which offers groceries and general merchandise.
Company is following the principles of Frederick Taylor in the real life to gain the maximum
efficiency of the workers. Company has made a research on the ways of doing a specific task by

the workers and employees and made a strategic and most efficient way of doing the same work
or task. It helps the company to gain maximum efficiency and reducing input costs which
directly leads to financial gains (Santoro and et. al., 2018). The human resource management of
the company sees the recruiting process which is not easy as it require knowledge and different
strategies and also experience in order to choose a suitable candidate for the relevant job. A
wrong candidate ill not be as efficient as a right candidate will be for the job. A candidate should
have required capabilities and skills and motivation for the job profile. Another function of
Tesco is that the company gives the suitable candidate an excellent training to work at maximum
efficiency that a candidate can achieve. Company hires managers and supervisors to take care of
the employees and help them in their problems at work. They guide the employees to work in
efficient manner and teaches them the most efficient way of doing a specific work. It is their job
to ensure this and maintain a smooth flow of business operations inside the organisation.
Managers interact with the workers or employees and guides them a plan or trains them to
perform their tasks in a effective manner (Stauss and Seidel, 2019).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that Management is the most necessary function of any
organisation. Without proper management an organisation can not achieve its objectives
effectively and efficiently. Management is required for smooth functioning of any organisation.
Frederick Taylor's principles is useful for the organisation to achieve the maximum potential of
the employees working in an organisation. It also helps in attaining the maximum efficiency
among the employees in an organisation. Proper management of employees also creates healthy
working environment within the organisation that results in effective achievement of
organisational goals.
References:
Books and Journals
Akgün, A.I. and Karataş, A.M., 2020. Investigating the relationship between working capital
management and business performance: Evidence from the 2008 financial crisis of EU-
28. International Journal of Managerial Finance.
Clark, W.R and et. al. 2021. Extending Fisch and Block’s (2018) tips for a systematic review in
management and business literature. Management Review Quarterly, 71(1), pp.215-231.
Easterby-Smith and et. al., 2021. Management and business research. Sage.

Klun, M. and Trkman, P., 2018. Business process management–at the crossroads. Business
Process Management Journal.
Olga, A., Olga, Z. and Julia, O., 2019. The optimization of business processes at the enterprises
of agro-industrial complex. International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference:
SGEM, 19(5.3), pp.863-868.
Santoro, G. and et. al., 2018. Big data for business management in the retail
industry. Management Decision.
Stauss, B. and Seidel, W., 2019. Effective complaint management: The business case for
customer satisfaction. Springer.