MGT1FOM: Comparing Scientific Management and Human Relations Movement

This essay compares and contrasts the scientific management theory, founded by Frederick Taylor, with the human relations movement. Scientific management focuses on economic efficiency and productivity through optimized work processes and division of labor, while the human relations movement emphasizes the importance of social and psychological factors in employee motivation and satisfaction. The essay discusses the contributions of each theory to modern management practices, highlighting the scientific management's impact on productivity, offshore markets, and quality control, and the human relations movement's focus on employee participation, communication, and the role of informal groups. Despite their differences, both theories aim to increase organizational productivity, albeit through different approaches, making them complementary aspects of effective management.

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The recent centuries have brought a large number of management theories which have
helped to shape the view of management in the recent environment of the business. The
various theories used have helped the managers in creating new ways of organizing and
managing people. The two theories that has been used in the essay are the scientific school of
thought theory and the theory related to the human relations movement (Hatch 2018). Both
the theories make sure that productivity is properly carried out in the work place.
The theory of management that examines the synthesizes the flows of work and
whose objective includes improvement in economic efficiency like for example the
productivity of labour is termed as the scientific management (Anheier 2014). Scientific
management was founded by Frederick Taylor and it was found in the 19th century. The
revolution in the industry has brought the requirement of the effective rate of productivity
which in turn led to the formation of the scientific management theory. Fredrick. W Taylor
was the founder of the scientific management theory who also believed that the well-
organized method for the completion of task along with selection and development of
workers can be scientifically determined. Some of the objectives of the scientific
management theory includes:
Productivity
One of the accomplishments which is related to the scientific management theory is
the rise in productivity (Bratton and Gold 2017). The scientific management came across the
methods of making the workers more efficient in terms of their work by studying the
activities of the workers. By finding the methods of maximization the efforts of every person
in a company, the profits can be increased which will ultimately make the organizations
compete in the global marketplace.

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The markets in the offshore is one of the most important developments that the
scientific management theory has introduced in the 21st century is the development of the
offshore markets. Due to the careful analysis of the labour techniques majority of the
functions which were performed in the US, they are now been taking place in the overseas.
The scientific management theory includes measures that are most effective along with cost
efficient in order to produce goods and services (Collings, Wood and Szamosi 2018). As the
cost of labour was very in the United States, the companies started moving the various
productions of goods and services to the different parts of the world where both the labour
cost and the taxes are much lower.
Work divisions is another significant contribution of the scientific management is
dividing the work between the supervisors and the workers. In order to produce standardized
products, it is important to break the jobs in parts and make the work a systematic as possible.
The project management process of the recent times is used by most of the companies so that
they can manage large projects is related to the principles of the scientific management. The
process of project management today is been used by most of the companies in order to
manage large projects.; it is also related to the principles of the scientific management. The
organizational chart is also a product of the principles of the scientific management.
Total quality results from scientific management. The continuous improvement and
seeking of better ways which constantly improves the quality of the products is also related to
the scientific management. The industry of the automobiles and the military have highly
improved the quality of the services along with the products by improving the quality of the
techniques.

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The human relations movement: The Human Relations Movement attempted to approach the
subject of the organizational management psychologically. The movement of the Human
Relations viewed people as driven by both social and the economic needs. The theory of the
human relations was based upon the rise in productivity and the satisfaction of the employee
as a result of increased concern. The theory of human relations refers to the researchers of
organizational development who used to study the behaviour of people in groups. The groups
can be of workplace groups or any related concepts such as organizational and industrial
psychology (Anheier 2014). The theory of human relations originated in the 1930s. The
theory of human relations movement is particularly based on the increased productivity and
employee satisfaction which is a result of rise in management concern for the welfare of the
employees. The work of Elton Mayo on human behaviour at The Hawthorne Works in
Chicago produced many conclusions with respect to human relations and motivational theory.
Some of the key elements of human relations theory are. It is important for the management
to learn how to develop cooperative attitudes and not depending solely on command. The
employer can also get motivation by psychological wants since the behaviour of the employer
is also affected by feelings and attitudes. Therefore, it can be said that incentives are not only
the sole factor of motivating people. The business organization is a social system which is
not only a techno- economic system (Collings, Wood and Szamosi 2018)
Employee participation also becomes a significant factor in human relations
movement. However, in order to achieve participation, the effective two-way communication
network is very important. It has also been found out that the group psychology plays an
important role in the business organization and therefore, relying on informal group is
important. Productivity is also associated with the satisfaction of the employees in any kind
of business organization and so the management should be taking greater interest in the
satisfaction of the employees. Elton Mayo stressed on the power of the natural groups in

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which social aspects which outweighs the functional organizational structures. He also
stresses on the development of the leadership which is of high quality. The leadership to
communicate goals and make sure that the decision making is coherent and effective.
However, it was quite difficult to transfer the theory into practice since the management
needs to change their view.
The theory of the human relations movement can be seen as a criticism to the
scientific school. This theory states that there is presence of other factors which motivates
workers in an organization along with providing them economic and environmental condition
of the workplace. It has also been found out by the school of Human relations that the
workers operate as a team and there is a presence of informal social interaction among them.
Both the school of management thought had their own different ideas, views and
principles (Bratton and Gold 2017). The above report shows how different is each of the
schools of management from each other. The scientific management movement considers the
individual employee to be one of the basic units of the organization. On the other hand,
human relations movement mostly emphasizes for relationships that means the informal
group is now been considered as the basis of organization. The leader under scientific
management usually sets the criteria for work and also enforce them on the employees.
However, under the movement of human relations, the function of the employer is to
facilitate corporation and also coordinate among the workers and also provides them
assistance in order to help them for personal growth and development. The scientific
management usually focuses at the growth of the firms. However, it did not pay attention to
the growth of the individual worker by exercising external control over the performance of
the worker. Although, the theory of the theory of the Human relations focuses only on the
organizational growth. The dedication for the individual growth of all the employees are
usually maintained by the human relations movement (Hatch 2018). However, it was found

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that the monetary incentive was the only motivational factor for the worker. Therefore, the
worker under the human relations movement and the workers working under the scientific
management is termed as ‘economic man’. Although it can be seen that there is a presence of
lot of difference between the two schools of management. However, both the school of
management share a common notion that is their ultimate goal is to increase their
productivity.
Therefore, it can be concluded that although both the schools of management share
the similar goal of increasing the productivity, the ways of approach of the two schools of
management is quite different. Both the schools of management theory, the scientific
management theory and the human relations movement theory aims for the betterment of the
organization with the increased efficiency. It can be achieved when any one of the theories
can be applied and it can be also achieved when both the theories are applied. For becoming a
perfect manager both the theories of management must be perfectly bend and put into
practice. Therefore, it can be concluded by saying that both the scientific management and
the human relations can be seen as the two wheels of the similar cart.

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