Banana Time Theory

Critically analyze how the rise of Modern Management and its three crucial processes relate to the work of Taylor and Ford. Provide a comparative analysis of their perspectives.

Management has been in existence since the time of immemorial as a process of planning and organizing to achieve the desired goal/product. It is said that Management started to exist as a profession during the rise of western Union Capitalism when organizations/corporations became too big for one sole entrepreneur to control adequately/efficiently its financial, material and human resources. Managers were then employed to make decisions in the interest of the organization’s shareholders and it is these managers that spearheaded the rise of Modern Management as they looked for best ways to manage their firms for efficient use of the resources at their disposal. This came in the form of three main process and they are; division of Labor, increasing scale of operations and separation of ownership and control. These processes are argued to be attributed to the works and study of Fedrick Taylor and Henry Ford and their scientific management concepts now known as Fordism and Taylorism.

Taylorism and Fordism are both models of mass production of goods which involved the de-skilling of workers and increase in economies of scale through monopolist brain works of the management and idealistic best practice. Decision making powers and control were placed entirely in the hands of the management. Taylor with his idea of a piece rate system argued that work movements and processes could be studied. The knowledge would then be used to come up with a rational ordering of work on the shop floor (Division of Labour) through systematic scientific principles. The workers were expected to respond and apply instructions to them as a mechanical part of a machine was expected to fulfill its role as per designed to. This was expected to deliver high efficiency and productivity if the shop floor structure was...