Compare and Contrast Weber vs Taylor

Both men had a unique view on public administration and policy. Frederick Taylor and Max
Weber believed that leadership was critical in escalating productivity. They also believed that
employees needed to be held accountable for their actions. Lastly, they all believed that they had
the best method of increasing efficiency and productivity. However, each theorist is not without
criticisms. First, some of the assumptions were based on opinion and not on scientific research.
For example, Taylor suggested offering monetary incentives as part of the way to increase
productivity. However, there is no definitive proof that money continuously motivates
employees. There is also no definitive proof that respect continuously motivates employees.
Early on at Midvale, while working as a laborer and machinist, Taylor recognized that workers
were not working or working their machines, nearly as hard as they could. Which resulted in
high labor costs for the company. Once he became foreman he expected more output from them.
He began to study and analyze the productivity which he labeled scientific management.
Taylor worked various managers positions to include general manager and he was a plant
manager in Maine. He sought to improve industrial efficiency.
Taylor's scientific management consisted of four principles:
Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.
Scientifically select, train, and develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train
themselves.
Provide "Detailed instruction and supervision of each worker in the performance of that worker's
discrete task"
Divide work nearly equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific
management principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the tasks.
Taylor thought that by analyzing work, the "one best way" to do it would be found.

Although he was not necessarily an admirer of bureaucracy, Weber saw bureaucratization as the
most efficient and rational way of organizing human activity and therefore as the key to rational-
legal authority, indispensable to the modern world. Max Weber was the first to describe the term
bureaucracy. He believed bureaucracy was the most efficient way to set up an organization. Max
Weber believed it was a better than traditional structures. In a bureaucracy, everyone is treated
equal and the division of labor is clearly described for each employee.
According to the bureaucratic theory of Max Weber, such a structure was indispensable in large
organizations in structurally performing all tasks by a great number of employees. In addition, in
a bureaucracy, selection and promotion only occur on the basis of technical qualifications.
According to the bureaucratic theory of Max Weber, three types of power can be found in
organizations; traditional power, charismatic power and legal power. He refers in his
bureaucratic theory to the latter as a bureaucracy. All aspects of a democracy are organized on
the basis of rules and laws, making the principle of established jurisdiction prevail.

The following three elements support bureaucratic management:

All regular activities within a bureaucracy can be regarded as official duties;
Management has the authority to impose rules;
Rules can easily be respected on the basis of established methods.