Tayloristic work practices are a thing of the past

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Economic and Social History, grade: 84, University of Hertfordshire, course: Organisational Behaviour. Theory and Practice, language: English, abstract: In today's competitive environment improving efficiency and elevating organisationalperformance is critically important to remain competitive in the global marketplace. Inthe late nineteenth century Frederick W. Taylor developed one of the earliestconceptions of management in order to maximise firm productivity. He argued thatperformance can only be improved by the application of scientific practices andestablished his 'principles of scientific management' (Taylor, 1998). However, due tothe Human Relations movement in the 1930s which emphasised the impact of the socialcontext of the workplace on firm productivity, Taylor's theory of 'scientificmanagement' became obsolete (Legge, 2005; Thompson & McHugh, 2009).Conversely, many researchers believe that Taylorism is revived and argue thatTayloristic ideologies are still dominant in workplaces today (Bain et al., 2002; Bell &Martin, 2012; Braverman, 1998). More importantly, the continuing relevance ofTayloristic methods in organising work is no longer restricted to the traditionalmanufacturing industry, but can also be found to a greater degree in the rapidly growingservice industry (Braverman, 1998; Crowley et al., 2010). In this context, most notablythe nature of work processes in telephone call centres (Taylor et al., 2002; Zapf et al.,2003) and the fast food industry (Ritzer, 1996 & 1998) has aroused a great deal ofattention. For instance, a BBC News article raises the question Are call centres thefactories of the 21st Century? (Hudson, 2011) and thus underpins the controversialdebate about the working conditions in call centres. Accordingly, it is worthwhile toscrutinise this argument in more detail. With that said, the objective of this essay is tocritically appraise the statement 'Tayloristic work practices are a thing of the past inthe context of the growth of the services organisations. First, in order to set the scene forthe examination of this proposition, the concept of 'Taylorism' will be outlined. Afterthat, by means of primarily call centre organisations, and fast food restaurants,occurrence of Tayloristic work practices in the service sector will be investigated.Finally, based on these expositions, the main findings will be summarised andevaluated. [...]