School of Business

JF SUBMISSION COVER FORM

SEMESTER 2 ASSIGNMENT

Present to Seminar Leader on Monday, 13th March

2017 at your scheduled seminar

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The attached assignment is entirely my own work. Material and ideas used from
other sources are fully referenced in the bibliography.

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 The study of management was made relevant by the industrial revolution in 1776,

which increased the size and production capacity of firms, rendering traditional family

management ineffective. The technology developed during the time period simplified tasks

and transferred the importance of the skill of the workman to how well he was able to work

the machine needed. However such a large increase in the number of workers also

popularized unionization, and combined with the intent of management to pay as little as

possible created the basis for underlying tensions between the employee and the employer,

forcing the production capacity far below maximum. Such tensions would be easier to fix in

the modern world, but things that seem obvious to us about management now had not yet

been discovered. The first to truly lay out the principles that seem like common knowledge,

such as being selective of the workmen you hire, was Frederick Taylor with his publication of

The Principles of Scientific Management, in 1911. However as the economy grew due to

industrialization such a basic characterization would not be enough to describe the managers

growing duties. This is what makes Henry Mintzbergs redefinition in his paper The

Managers Job; Folklore and Fact?, published in 1975, completely necessary. Though, it is

essential to analyze the four scientific principles first and the factors that shaped them as they

help provide the foundation for Mintzberg's later depiction.

The first to take a step in examining what the job of the manager is was Henry A.

Towne, with his publication of the paper The Engineer as an Economist in 1886 that delved

into the subject of management and ways for other engineers and shop keepers could jobs

done more efficiently (Towne, 1886). Later, furthering this quest to increase the potential for

production came Frederick W. Taylor, who as a young man in 1881 became an unskilled

worker at Midvale Steel Company in Philadelphia. Not long after beginning work, Taylor

became first hand witness to a global phenomenon, where workers retaliated against
management for low wages by accomplishing as little work as possible, meaning that overall

the waste created from such practices added up to be monumental. As Taylor rose through the

hierarchical ranks of the company he sought to eliminate any energy that was expended

unnecessarily because of this strained relationship and resentment felt by laborers (Klaw,

1979). At first he tried many different things to incentivize workers, from hiring other

workers, to reductions in pay but all seemed to just magnify the bitterness felt by the

workmen (Taylor, 1911).

This struggle continued for three years as Taylor experimented with various ways of

motivating workers, and was successful in raising the standard for the amount of work

completed. But, this achievement came at the expense of his relationship with his workers,

which illuminated the importance of cooperation to Taylor, that more would get

accomplished if the workmen and bosses agreed on a goal. Taylor first attempted to align the

goals of the employers and the laborers through the piece rate system, a way of paying the

workers wages based on the work they completed that day, by assigning every unit produced

a fixed value (Klaw, 1979). However after time Taylor became aware that as long as

management was ignorant to what actually constituted a good day of work for each different

assignment, they would never be able to reach the maximum production capacity possible.

Thus began Taylors scientific study of pig-iron handlers at Midvale Steel Company, a

process that would illustrate the necessity of each one of the four scientific principles of

management that Taylor would later develop. He began his study by first observing all tasks

his workmen were responsible for and calculating how much work each man should be

getting done, as well how long each specific chore should take. However, wanting to avoid

the general resistance that he would be met with from the workers Taylor implemented his

new system of work first through one carefully selected workman, offering him a higher
wage if he was able to do his work exactly as he was told. This experiment proved to be

extremely profitable as the average load of steel load went from twelve and a half tons to

forty seven tons, more than doubling the previous output. Yet, it was also found that not all of

the pig-iron handlers were capable of reaching the standard, which shows that selective hiring

for any job so that people are able to work jobs better suited for them. With these findings

came the birth of Scientific management, which would serve as a basis for all theories of

management, which involves the following steps, firstly, hand selecting workmen properly

suited for the job, making sure that the division of work between management and laborers is

equal, recording how long each task should take and lastly, cooperation between management

and workers.

After Taylor would come many disciplines that followed his school of thought and

would further develop it. His theories were officially published in 1911 as The Principles of

Scientific Management, and have a global influence. Frederick Taylor himself would go on

to work as an advisor for Henry Ford at Ford Automobile Inc. in 1908. The combination of

Taylors principles and Ford ingenuity would lead to the assembly line and the creation of

Fordism, which basically just described large scale production operations with repetitious,

uncomplicated tasks (Saylor). Ford would use this system to replace his previous one, a

tedious and costly one that made it impossible to create cars at affordable prices. Following

Taylors principles Ford also gave his employees livable wages that would allow his workers

the ability to purchase the cars that they manufacture, which in turn would also expand his

customer base. Such success helped fordism take an international hold as businesses began

using assembly lines of their own, and began investing more in proper management to

navigate the steps that organization should take, and supervise the workmen.
 Nevertheless, the very fundamentals of Fordism, as well Taylors principles would be

one of the largest factors in its downfalls as it began to cause social unrest. Although this

structure led to a sizable raise in output, it truly treated humans like automatons, which

slowly became seen as undesirable, starting with the human relations movement. The school

of thought was jumpstarted by the Hawthorne studies carried out by Elton Mayo and F.J.

Roethlisberger on the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company. There they first

experimented with physical effects on workers, first through small changes such as different

light settings and the length of work breaks, but it was soon clear that the sociological effects

on the worker had much more of an impact than the physical (Gillespie, 1991). Mayo

identified one of the key problems to be communication and wrote that industrialization

with its lack of communication was a source of frustration and physiological deterioration,

meaning that the way people were treated in the industry would had a very negative effect

overall. After the findings of Roethlisberger and Mayo there became a growing stress on

human relation and the inhumane current treatment of workers in the 1930s(PERRY, 2017).

Yet scientific management and fordism remained strong until the 1960s which is when it

peaked and then subsequently declined from. Previous to that, in the 1950s there was a

movement towards information and return to skill, referred to as the third industrial

revolution, where people turned away from machines and simple labor and instead began to

pursue careers that involved intelligence or individual interest(Rupert, 2001).

While Taylors findings established the foundation of the way we examine

management in the modern world, this new wave of thought was essential to build up to

Mintzbergs redefinition of the job of the manager (PERRY, 2017). After Mayo and

Roethlisberger many more brilliant minds joined the humans relations movement, which, at

least in Mayos case, argued of the value of natural groups over organized groups, the
importance of communication, and strategic decision making. It moves away from the

previous notions of an extremely clear cut job and instead realized that some of the

managers responsibilities would not be able to follow guideline. This step was crucial in the

development of Henry Mintzbergs theories which highlighted the importance of human

intellect, as well how many non-related various tasks the manager is actually responsible for.

In his paper The Managers Job; Folklore or Fact,he debunks many previously thought to

be responsibilites of the manager, and also writes that its not as nearly as clearly defined job

as once thought (Mintzberg, 1979). However, this mean that Frederick Taylor was wrong,

rather that industry as a whole had grown in size and magnitude, forcing management to

advance and their duties to expand. The 1960s was an especially good decade for the

growth of management capitalism, and owners globally were relinquishing a good portion of

control of their businesses to managers by giving them executive decisions (Dore R.,

Lazonick W., O'Sullivan, M).

This growth, accelerated by Fordism and marked by globalization, would render

Taylors principles too simple to accurately describe a prosperous career in management.

The spread of the assembly line between different companies globally would facilitate a

substantial increase in their output capacity. This then led to the rapid industrialization of

small towns as they were transformed into cities filled with factories, and workers who now

earned a wage now generous enough to allow them to manifest into a new class of

consumers. This freshly created group helped intensify the already existing overall demand in

global markets for foreign goods as well as luxury items, which expanded the potential for

exports and imports everywhere. Despite being the cause for improvements in markets

everywhere, people were not satisfied for long with Taylors systematic approach, and

workers began to seek job that required particular skills or knowledges, rather than mundane
tasks. In the 1960s Fordism would hit a peaking point that it could only decline from, yet it

would also leave a rather large available market, with more complex businesses than

previously (Rupert, 2001).

This vacancy is exactly what makes Mintzbergs theories crucial in the development

of the study of management. In his paper, Mintzberg sets out to differentiate between the

facts and folklore of the manager's job, starting with the notion that managers are very

organized and systematic. Studies done of managers and surveys given indicate that

managers actually do many different small activities, many of which are not pre planned as

previously thought. One study done on fifty six different U.S. foremen found that they

averaged a whopping 583 different activities during their eight hour work day, each task

averaging forty eight seconds, and that most planning was done in the head. A lot of actions

and decisions that were made by the managers were also reflective of the different pressures

surrounding the job. But this doesnt mean that the manager has no regular responsibilities,

which the next known fact that Mintzberg shows us to actually be fictitious. The manager

actually has various daily duties that he must perform, depending the size of the company,

such as negotiations, setting up shop, and so forth. The next trait about managers set straight

by Mintzberg is their reliance on spoken word communication, or informal information

instead of formal documents. He found that in the average percent of time that the five

american managers he studied spent verbally communicating with other was seventy eight,

meaning that they spent most of their day both absorbing and relinquishing information from

headquarters to staff and vise versa. Due to this expansive communications network,

managers did not have to rely on organized systems to get information, and instead made

many decisions based on what was sometimes gossip. This was because this so called

gossip could indicate something like a business partners future moves, intelligence that
could be used to determine opportunities and possibly help with loss prevention. Not only

does Mintzberg turn away from these previous expectations of managers, he creates a new

expectation of a who a manger is. He establishes anyone with formal authority, like a

basketball coach or prison warden to be a manager, instead of just foremen in shop.

Mintzberg identifies ten different roles of the manager that all fit into three different

categories, that are interpersonal , informational, and decisional. Interpersonal roles describes

the responsibilities that arises from the formal authority of a manager such as figurehead,

basically meaning that they appear to be the person in charge for external businessmen or

workers to operate with. The next role is leader, as they are the people who guide the

workmen and teach them the different procedures. The last is liaison, meaning that the

manager acts almost as a connection to outsiders since they are the ones who communicate

with them. The next category of duties is informational, the first of which being monitor.

Monitoring meaning being tapped into all possible social networks and being aware of any

information that might be useful to the company. The next role is that of the disseminator,

which describes how a manager passes information down the chain to subordinates, or

facilitates the exchange of data between different groups. Lastly is the role of spokesperson,

which is how companies disperse information to outsiders, or general public. The final

category is decisional, duties that utilize the information gained from the previous three

functions. The manager would need to use any useful information gained to build upon,

improve, and expand the firm, such decisions fall under the first role of entrepreneur. An

important part of the manager's job is to keep the business stable, which they do as they

disturbance handler. This basically means that they evaluate pressures in different situations

and respond accordingly. As the foreman of the shop, the third role is resource allocator,

deciding how different resources, like time for instance, are used and who's responsible for
what. The concluding role of the manager is that of a negotiator, both with peers within the

firm as well as with outside associates. These negotiations are an extremely important factor

of the job, as they affect the organization as a whole, but can only efficiently be carried out

by the managers as they are they bridge between all communications networks.

The previously mentioned shift on what is thought to comprise a manager as well as

the real life application of Mintzbergs principles can be portrayed in the success of Ornua, an

Irish dairy brand. Strategically managed by Kevin Lane, Ornua has maintained and expanded

its international hold, accounting for sixty percent of Irish exports and has many offices

globally, despite current adversities in the Irish dairy market (Lane, 2011). The business

operations that Kevin Lane implemented to accomplish this depict the ten roles laid out by

Mintzberg. Facing economic strife, Lane stabilized Ornua through a series of mergers and

acquisitions, such as Ambrosia Dairy in Shanghai, which is demonstrative of the manager's

role as a negotiator, as well as entrepreneur. In order to attain such capital and make such

deals, Lane must work as a liaison in order to obtain relevant information. Serving as an

information monitor Kevin Lane was aware of the tax place on foreign dairy distributors in

China, which he used Ambrosia Dairy to bypass. As the disturbance handler Lane met

turbulence in the market by ridding of unbeneficial sectors such as Loyez-Wosson, an

unprosperous French butter packaging firm, as well as a majority share of DPI speciality

food. Then acting as the resource allocator he took the capital from these sales and invested it

into selected global markets that would offer high return(Rumyantseva M, Gurgul G, and

Enkel E, 2002).. To properly penetrate these new and foreign markets Lane opened many

world wide facilities in order to research the existing environment in the market as well

cultural cues. In order to ensure that these facilities are well maintained Lane acts as a
disseminator and a leader and keeps all of his employees well informed, and makes sure they

know the standard procedures(Burke-Kennedy, 2015).

The birth of the industrial revolution is what made management significant, yet the

growth that stems from it is what makes the manager's job more complex and renders the

scientific principles of Frederick Taylor obsolete. Henry Mintzbergs later developed ten

roles of the manager come to better describe what a manger does in the new age. This shift

was also greatly facilitated by the crisis of fordism and a rejection of inhumane treatment of

workers through repetitious and mind numbing tasks. Mintzberg covers all dimensions of the

job well, and shows that management is a job based more on human intellect than such

scientific practices.

Bedeian A. (1976) Finding The One Best Way An Appreciation of Frank B. Gilbert, The
Father of Motion Study, Conference Board Record, 8(6), 37-39

Burke-Kennedy, E. (2015) Irish Dairy Board rebrands as Ornua for new quota-lss era. The
Irish Times. [online] Available at:
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Dore R., Lazonick W., O'Sullivan, M. (1999) Varieties of Capitalism in the Twentieth
Century Oxford Review of Economic Policy 15 (4), 102-120

Gillespie, G. (1991) Manufacturing Knowledge, A History of the Hawthorne Experiments,

Cambridge University Press,

Klaw S. (1979) The Messiah of Time and Motion. American Heritage 30(5) 26-39

Mintzberg H. (1975) The Managers Job: Folklore and Fact? Harvard Business Review ,
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https://www.business.com/articles/human-relations-management-theory-basics/ on March 12,
2017

Rupert, M. Crisis of Fordism. (2001). Crisis of Fordsm. In: R.J.B. Jones, ed.,The Crisis of
Fordism The Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy

Scientific Management Theory and The Ford Motor Company, The Saylor Foundation,
[online] Accessed:
https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Saylor.orgs-Scientific-Management-
Theory-and-the-Ford-Motor-Company.pdf

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1356-1364

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(7) 428-42

Rumyantseva M, Gurgul G, and Enkel E. (2002) Knowledge integration after mergers and
acquisitions. [Discussion Paper]