Strategic management is the conduct of drafting, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives. It is the process of specifying the organization's mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans, often in terms of projects and programs, which are designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the policies and plans, projects and programs. A balanced scorecard is often used to evaluate the overall performance of the business and its progress towards objectives. Strategic management is a level of managerial activity under setting goals and over Tactics. Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and is closely related to the field of Organization Studies. In the field of business administration it is useful to talk about "strategic alignment" between the organization and its environment or "strategic consistency". According to Arieu (2007), "there is strategic consistency when the actions of an organization are consistent with the expectations of management, and these in turn are with the market and the context." “Strategic management is an ongoing process that evaluates and controls the business and the industries in which the company is involved; assesses its competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors; and then reassesses each strategy annually or quarterly [i.e. regularly] to determine how it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded or needs replacement by a new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, new competitors, a new economic environment., or a new social, financial, or political environment.
The Snow
What a big snow I have never seen!What a beautiful snow I have never enjoy.
When I went out for school from home,I was doomed to get a wonder.Everything seemed unlucky to me.I left the umbrella at home; I couldn’t unlock my bike and a big truck held up the traffic,which took me above 5 minutes to pass the road.At last I met Charlie and we were both late for the maths class.If it happened the day before,we would go to our seats without saying anything.But today we were forced to stand outside in the cold wind because of the head teacher’s bad mood.I didn’t want to say anything.It was useless.So I began to stand with Charlie.
After a short while,we both felt so cold that we couldn’t speak a word.The world seemed very quiet.I suddenly found there was a lot of thin ice dropping from the sky.“Ice!” I shouted to Charlie who soon became excited the same as me.We expected for the snow but nothing happened.
The ice turned white and turned to snow quietly.We were immersed in it without any word.From little to big,the snow changed out of my imagination.With the wind blowing heavily,the snow beat on my face,hair and covered all over my body.We couldn’t help shaking in the snow.We opened our mouths to taste the icy snow,stood still in the snow,and enjoyed the wonderful scene ourselves.I did believe the snow was not only a scene but a great wonder as well.It bought me much more than it had.It was too great and too beautiful that I couldn’t imagine.How fantastic it was!With the snow dropping on my body,I didn’t want to move though it was so cold.
If you lived in the north,you might think it was nothing.But the following thing was more unreal.A bird,a beautiful parrot,like an angel,flew from the sky onto Charlie’s shoulder and then flew to my shoulder.I didn’t know how to express my feelings,only enjoying it.The parrot didn’t seem to leave.How fantastic,I thought.
The snow became smaller and smaller after class.Maybe we lost something,but we got something,too.I didn’t know what it meant.I only wished to believe it would bring me good luck.
I would never forget that day.
这是我见过的最大的雪!也是我享受过的最漂亮的雪!
当我走出校园的时候,我被这景象怔住了.每件事似乎都对我很不幸运,我把伞忘在了家里.我不能骑我的车,交通很拥堵,它花了我5分钟过马路.最后我遇到了查理,我们都误了数学课.如果这发生在前一天,我们就可以不说任何话回到座位上.但是今天因为老师的坏心情而被迫站在外面的寒风里.我什么都不想说.那是无用的.所以我开始和查理一起罚站.
过了一会儿,我们都发现我们冷得不能说一句话.世界似乎很安静.我突然发现有薄冰片从空中落下.“冰!”我朝着和我一样激动的查理大叫.我们期待着雪的落下但是什么都没发生.
冰安静的慢慢变白成了雪.我们沉浸其中不说话.慢慢变大,雪大得超出了我的想像.风越刮越大,雪吹到我的脸上、头发上、覆盖了我身体的每个角落.我们在雪里不能动弹,我们张开嘴尝尝冰雪,依然站在雪里,自我陶醉在美妙的雪景里.我相信这不止是雪景,它是极为美好的.它带给了我更多.它是如此的美好以至于让我不能想象.太美好了!雪下在我身上,尽管我很冷但我不想移动.
如果你住在北方,什么也没有.但自然更真实.一只鸟,一只漂亮的鹦鹉,就像天使一样飞过天空停在查理的肩膀上,又停在我的肩膀上,我不知道如何来表达我的感受,只是陶醉其中.鹦鹉没有走的意思.这是多么美好啊!我想着.
下课后雪越来越小了.可能我们失去了什么,但我们也得到了什么.我不知道它意味着什么.我只是祝愿它能给我带来好运.我永远也不会忘记那一天.
Amazing Intelligent Transportation
According to the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau of Statistics data show that the rapid growth of motor vehicles is much higher than the construction of road traffic, then how to solve traffic congestion problems?
Intensive family car trip
1-11 months of last year's vehicle sales exceeded 10 million, an increase of 42.39%. Motor vehicles in Beijing from 3 million to 4 million spent only two years and six months, this growth is the transportation construction in any case can not match.
Yang, Tsinghua University, Research Associate, Institute of Transportation analysis of traffic jams formed Emerging Artists reasons that: "motor vehicle ownership and use of excessive growth, and road construction, traffic management, energy and talent development of the reserves can not keep up the speed of motor vehicles. In particular, the use of a motor vehicle, family car travel, Beijing, intensity (frequency and distance of travel) is 8 times the family without a car, so that relatively great pressure on road transport. "
Frequency of use of motor vehicles is a very important factor, only "four million" figure does not tell the whole story. Sample survey data show that the frequency of use of each car 5 times higher than the U.S., which increases the likelihood of traffic congestion.
According to deputy chief engineer of the Ministry of Communications Research Institute, Transportation Research Center, Jiang Yulin, director of sustainable development description: "The ownership of motor vehicles and road construction is unbalanced, and we are the construction of urban road space is constrained resource conditions, and only 10 % -15% of the urban space can be used for transportation construction. Beijing rapid rate of population growth, many of the current road network is compressed the original transform walking and bike paths, there are historical problems. "growth and use of motor vehicles is no doubt become the most direct reason for traffic jams.
In fact, any international city has undergone a rapid growth as a result of motor vehicle traffic congestion stage. Data shows that the late 70s of last century, the Tokyo motor 300 million, far more than the current congestion in Beijing, known as the "commuter hell." 1995, Seoul, South Korea reached 2,000,000 vehicles, already crowded, almost to the extent could not leave. Currently, the total motor vehicles in Tokyo nearly 800 million, but the traffic is better in Beijing, this is why?
Some experts believe that international experience shows that urban transport can be optimized through the management structure, differentiated charging policy to take reasonable limit car, the implementation of measures such as tail number limit line can ease the congestion to some extent.
Intelligent Transportation to improve road traffic management is to improve the utilization efficiency of urban road system, an effective way. According to Jiang Yulin describes: "the major cities are using the latest information technology to build intelligent traffic management system, GIS system management bus lines, installation of the bus map, e-stops, visual query to achieve the bus." These technology to facilitate people's travel. Such as Chang'an new traffic probe, which can automatically measure traffic junctions, thereby controlling the traffic lights change, is the visual impression of intelligent transportation.
Young Emerging Artists stressed: "Intelligent Transportation should be a full range of social services for the whole system, traffic data and related transportation information should be open to the entire community." Jiang Yulin who agree with this attitude, "The government should support intelligent transportation, cooperation on strengthening the management to change the public security and traffic situation of asymmetric information and data, better integration of traffic information and transit information. "
However, the traffic problem is a matter of economic, social, cultural and administrative complex system problems, many structural problems can not simply rely on can not be resolved, such as information technology. Tongji Intelligent Transport System (ITS) Research Center, Yang Xiaoguang that "when the basic pattern of the city and traffic is determined, including the use of information technology to improve the traffic problems may well be one of the measures, but the technology is no different from drugs alone is not symptomatic . promote the Intelligent Transport System technology, to fully achieve the government, industry and academia combine attention to the service function of intelligent transportation systems and industrial properties. "
Health care
A new prescription for the poor
为贫穷者新开的处方
America is developing a two-tier health system, one for those with private insurance, the other for the less well-off
美国正在发展一个双重的健康系统，一重是为那些有个人保险的人群，而另一重则是为那些不那么富裕的人群
Oct 8th 2011 | NEW YORK | from the print edition
“IT’S
time for Dancing with the Stars!”, a woman announces enthusiastically.
At this New York health centre, wedged between housing projects to the
east and Chinatown to the west, “dancing with the stars” means dancing
with a physical therapist. An old man stands up with a nurse and begins a
determined samba.
“是时候和明星一起跳舞了！”一位女士满怀热情地宣告。在这个坐落于房屋工程的西面，唐人街东面的纽约健康中心，“和明星起舞”的意思是和一位物理治疗师跳舞。一位老者和一个护士站起来，开始跳事先确定好的桑巴舞。
Comprehensive
Care Management (CCM), which runs this centre, tries to keep old people
active. To do so, explains Joseph Healy, the chief operating officer,
is in the company’s best interest. The government pays CCM a capped rate
for the care of its members. If someone gets sick, his health costs
rise and the company’s margin shrinks. Mr Healy argues that the system
is the best way to provide good care at a low cost. Increasingly others
seem to agree.
经营这个中心的综合护理管理部门（CCM）努力保持老人们的活力。约瑟夫-海莉，首席运营官解释说，这样做符合公司
的最佳利益。政府给这个部门一个封顶的津贴来让他们照顾这些人。如果有人生病了，他的健康成本就会上升，公司的利润就会萎缩。海莉先生确定说这个系统能够
在一个低成本上提供最佳的护理。其他人也逐渐同意这个观点。
Medicaid, America’s health programme
for the poor, is in the process of being transformed. Over the next
three years, New York will move its entire Medicaid population into
“managed care”, paying companies a set rate to tend to the poor, rather
than paying a fee for each service. New York is not alone. States from
California to Mississippi are expanding managed care. It is the
culmination of a steady shift in the way most poor Americans receive
their health-care treatment.
公共医疗补助，即美国的穷人健康计划，正在被改造的过程中。在接下来的
三年内，纽约将把整个接受穷人健康计划的人群纳入“管理关怀”之中，付给公司们一个事先定好的费用来照顾那些穷人，而不是按照项目来付费。纽约不是唯一这
样做的州。加州，密西西比州正在拓展管理关怀计划。这代表一种正在进行中的稳步转变，即大部分贫穷美国人接受健康关怀方式的转变。
Medicaid
is America’s single biggest health programme. This year roughly one in
five Americans will be covered by Medicaid for a month or more. It
gobbles more federal and local money than any state programme, other
than education. Costs will rise even more when Barack Obama’s
health-care reform expands the programme by easing eligibility rules in
2014. Congress’s “supercommittee” is already considering cuts. However,
there are more immediate pressures behind the present drive for change.
公
共医疗补助是美国最大的单一健康计划。今年，五个美国人中的一个就会被纳入该计划一个月或更长时间。除了教育之外，它比其他任何州的财政计划耗去更多联邦
和地方的经费。当2014年奥巴马的健康保险改革放宽适用人群而使整个计划更加庞大的时候，成本将会进一步上升。众议院的“超级委员会”已经在考虑削减经
费。然而，选择这种变化，将会有更多即刻的压力存在。
Enrolment in Medicaid jumped during the
downturn, from 42.7m in December 2007 to 50.3m in June 2010. Mr Obama’s
stimulus bill helped to pay for some of this, but that money has dried
up. Faced with gaping deficits, some desperate governors slashed
payments to hospitals and doctors, or refused to pay for trips to the
dentist or oculist. But much the most important result has been
structural: the expansion of managed care.
公共医疗补助计划的参与人数在经济滑坡期间从2007年
12月的
4270万人跳到了2010年6月的5030万人。奥巴马先生的经济刺激经费能够帮助付掉其中的一部分，但是钱已经被用光。面对资金短缺，一些绝望的州长
砍掉了给医院和医生的补助，或是拒绝支付牙医和眼科医生的旅行费用。但是，更多地，最重要的结果是结构上的：管理关怀的拓展。
States
have dabbled in managed care for decades. The trend accelerated in the
1990s, with the share of Medicaid patients under this form of care
reaching 72% by 2009. Now, however, there is a strong push for the
remainder. States that did not have managed care, such as Louisiana, are
introducing it. Other states are extending it to people previously
deemed off limits: California and New York, for example, are moving the
elderly and disabled into that system of care. Texas is targeting more
than 400,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in the Rio Grande Valley. Local
politicians had resisted the move, nervous that care might deteriorate.
But the yawning deficit meant that they were overruled.
各个州涉足管理关怀已经有几
十年的历史了。这个趋势在90年代得到加速发展，在2009年前使用这种护理方式的公共医疗补助病人占到了72%。现在，对于剩下的人，这也是很强的推动
力。像路易斯安那州这样没有管理关怀的州正在引进管理关怀。其他州也把这个拓展到原先被认为不适用的人群：举例说像加州和纽约州，正在把老人和残障人士纳
入这个系统中，德州的目标是在格兰德河谷超过400000公共医疗补助收益人群。地方政治家反对这个举动，他们担心这个护理系统将会变质。但是巨大的赤字
意味着他们的观点注定要被批驳。
The result is a country with two distinct tiers
of health care. Most Americans with private insurance are still
horrified by thoughts of health-management organisations and prefer to
pay fees for each medical service. For the poor, managed care is
becoming the norm.
结果就是一个国家有两套截然不同的健康保险系统。大多数有个人保险的美国人仍旧害怕那些健康管理组织的想法而宁愿为单独的医疗服务付费。对于穷人来说，管理关怀已经成为一种常规。
Advocates
of managed care have high expectations. First, they hope that it will
make costs more predictable. Second, they believe that the change will
improve patients’ health. In managed care, a patient has a network of
doctors and specialists. If the programme works properly, doctors can
monitor all aspects of care, in contrast to the fragmented
fee-for-service system. The contracts that states have with firms can
set standards for quality. Texas, for instance, will cut 5% from a
company’s payment if it does not meet what is required.
管理关怀的鼓吹者有着很高的
期待。首先，他们希望这能让成本变得可以预测，其次，他们相信，这个改变可以改善病人的健康。在管理关怀中，一个病人有一个由医生和专家组成的网络。如果
这个计划运行良好，医生可以监测关怀的各个方面，相对于分离的的按服务付钱的系统来说。州政府和公司的合同可以为质量定下标准。德州，举例说，将会在付款
中扣除5%如果公司没有达到要求的标准。
The next step is to integrate care for those
eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare, the federal programme for the
old. These “duals” account for almost 40% of Medicaid’s costs and just
15% of its population. “If managed care can really deliver better care
than fee-for-service”, says Diane Rowland, chair of the commission that
advises Congress on Medicaid, “this is the population that could prove
it.”
下一步是整合那些同时符合公共医疗补助和长者医疗补助计划（联邦老人医疗补助）的人群。这些“双符合”人群占据了将近40%的公共医疗补
助成本和仅仅15%的人口数量。“如果管理关怀能真正比按项目付费带来更好的服务”，戴安-罗兰德，委员会（指导国会在公共医疗补助政策上进行决策）主任
说：“这是一群能证明管理关怀可行的人。”
But some, such as Norma Vescovo, are
sceptical. As the head of the non-profit Independent Living Centre of
Southern California (ILCSC), Ms Vescovo serves Medicaid patients with
severe health problems. Over the years she has often sued California on
policies that she thinks will hurt her vulnerable clients. On October
3rd her case moved to the Supreme Court.
但是一些人，例如像诺玛-凡斯科夫就对此表示怀疑。作为非盈利的南加州独立生活中心主任，凡斯科夫女士服务于那些有严重健康问题的接受公共医疗补助的病人。在这些年间，她经常控告加州政府在一些政策上会伤害她的一些脆弱的客户。在10月3日，她的案子被移到了上诉法院。
The
outcome of Douglas v Independent Living Centre will have profound
implications for the future of Medicaid. Ms Vescovo’s suit concerns cuts
to hospitals and doctors. But the case will also guide the course of
managed care. If ILCSC and its co-plaintiffs win, private groups will
continue to be able to challenge states on policies they think violate
federal Medicaid law. Ms Vescovo, who argues that California’s payment
cuts would eviscerate her clients’ access to services, worries that
under managed care the disabled might not be able to see the specialists
they need.
道格拉斯 v
独立生活中心的结果将会对公共医疗补助有深远的意义。凡斯科夫女士的诉讼影响到医院和医生的津贴削减。但是这个案子将会引领管理关怀的进程。如果中心和其
他原告胜诉，私人团体将会继续在那些他们认为违反联邦法律的政策上挑战州政府。凡斯科夫女士认为说加州的支付削减计划会让她的客户失去得到服务的机会，她
还担心，在管理关怀之下，那些残障人士可能不能见到那些他们需要的专家。
The question is how to
supervise the experiments with managed care that are being carried out
in various states. To date, Medicaid beneficiaries have been able to
challenge the states in court. However, if the Supreme Court rules
against ILCSC, that avenue will be closed. The Centres for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS) technically can intervene if states do not
provide proper access to care. In reality, CMS has few tools to do so.
问
题是怎么监管在不同州试运行的管理关怀。到目前为止，公共医疗补助受益者已经能够在法庭中挑战政府。然而，如果上诉法庭结果不利于中心，那么这条路将会被
关闭。如果州政府没有提供合适的关怀的话，公共医疗补助和长者医疗关怀中心理论上是能对此进行干涉，但事实上，他们没有太多办法。
“I’m
a big fan of managed care”, says Sara Rosenbaum, a professor at George
Washington University, “but this transformation may happen with almost
no federal oversight.” Medicaid beneficiaries are vulnerable, in worse
health than Americans as a whole. Companies may struggle to cut costs
and provide good care as well. If states do not draft their contracts
properly, or fail to be vigilant in monitoring patients’ health, their
experiment in managed care could be a disaster. On the other hand, if
states are careful they could provide an answer to the question that has
vexed America for years: how to provide good, cheap health care.
“我是
管理关怀的拥护者”，萨拉-罗森博姆，一位乔治华盛顿大学教授说，“但是这种转变可能在没有联邦监管的情况下发生。”公共医疗补助的受益者和你脆弱，健康
程度整体上比一般美国人要差。公司可能在削减成本的同时挣扎着同样提供良好的服务。如果州政府们不好好起草他们的合同，或没有警觉地监控病人的健康的话，
他们在管理关怀上的实验可能会是一场灾难。另一方面，如果州政府们认真的话，他们能为那个困扰美国人多年的问题提供答案，即怎么提供优质的便宜的健康关
怀。
你可以找一本相关专业的外文书,选择其中的一小部,然后再找它的译本,这样不就可以了吗
你也可以翻译下面有关于管理的文章,但没有译文哦
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANAGEMENT THOUGHT
Prior to the beginning of the twentieth century there was little systematic development of a body of knowledge concerning management and organizations. It is true that people have long thought about these topics, and pieces of knowledge about management and organizations really didn’t take place because there were few organization large enough or permanent enough to study. There were some exceptions, mainly armies or religious organizations, which could have been studied, but in those the authority relationships were so clearly defined and power so absolute that little thought was given to improving the management of those organizations.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century and into the beginning of the twentieth , things began to change. The Industrial Revolution had swept through Europe and United States, and as a result large manufacturing organization replaced the farm as the major influence in most western nations. This shift caused people to begin to study organizations seriously in an attempt to improve their efficiency, to improve their ability to survive, and to make them a better environment in which human needs could be satisfied.
In general, there have been four major movements, or schools of management thought in the past 100 years: Scientific Management, Human Relations, Administrative Theory, and the Behavioral Schools of Management thought.
Scientific Management
This major school of management thought spanned the period roughly from 1880 to 1930 and focused its attention on improving productivity through careful study of the worker, the task, and the workplace. The most famous proponent of this school was Frederick W. Taylor, often called the father of “Scientific Management”. Taylor and his contemporaries, the best known of whom were Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Henry Gantt, and Harrington Emerson, were continually striving to apply scientific principles to industry in an effort to improve efficiency and reduce waste. They assumed that individual workers could be taught the best ways to do their jobs and then motivated to do as they were told by paying them for their increased production. Taylor and his followers felt that the workers would see that it was in their best interest to be as productive as possible to maximize their earnings. In short, the goals of management and the workers would be the same, maximum production. Taylor believed that only when there was a mental revolution in which both management and the workers realized that they had to work together for their common good, could industry realize its true potential.
Human Relations
Growing out of the Scientific Management school was the “Human Relations” school of management thought. This school is generally considered to span the period from about 1930 to 1950. The major thrust of the Human Relations school came from Elton Mayo and the now famous “Hawthorne Experiments.” In the best tradition of the Scientific Management school, Western Electric Company carried out a series of experiments in their Hawthorne plant to determine if changing the working conditions in the plant would increase productivity. When they discovered that any change in working conditions, good or bad, applied to the experimental group produced increased productivity, the company officials turned to Professor Mayo of Harvard University to explain what was happening. Mayo’s explanation was that people were not economically motivated robots, they also responded to their co-workers. Beside the need for money, people also have a need to feel that they are accepted, that they belong. Mayo and his followers believed that if management could reduce conflict in the organization, the increased harmony would increase worker’s satisfaction and ultimately lead to increased productivity.
Behavioral School
Growing out of the interest of the Human Relations school in the behavior of individuals within the work group, the behavioral school developed in the early 1950s. While the Scientific Management school concentrated on the task, assuming that people were motivated by economic considerations, and the Human Relations school assumed that people were motivated by their needs to feel accepted, the Behavioral school assumes that the individual is motivated by a complex variety of needs. There are many individuals associated with the Behavioral school, but probably the best known are Douglas McGregor, Abraham Maslow, Rensis Likert, Chris Argyris, Frederick Herzberg, and David McClelland. Basically, most of these authors feel that modern organizations in their attempt to be efficient tend to break jobs down to the point where the individual has to act only in the simplest of ways. In these situations people are unable to exercise either their abilities or their intellect. They urge management to enlarge and enrich jobs to make them more suitable for worker’s abilities and so that they will provide an environment in which individuals can satisfy their complex needs. Clearly this is only a capsule sketch of these three schools of thought, and by no means did one school die when the next began to develop. There has been a continual development of the earlier schools as the later ones developed, even though the emphasis of study shifted from tasks to groups to individuals.
Administrative Theory
The one school of management thought that has spanned the entire period from 1900 to date is the Administrative Theory school. This group concentrated its study on organizations and top middle management. Probably the best known member of this school was Henri Fayol, a French industrialist. Fayol focused on the task of management in his 1916 book, General and Industrial Management . He proposed 14 principles of administration as well as five elements of administration: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling, which you can see are the same as our five functions of the manager. In general, the members of Administrative Theory school have concentrated their efforts on the areas of the division of labor, how authority is distributed within organizations, line-staff relationships, and the span of control of manager, or how many subordinates a manager can effectively control. As opposed to the other schools of management thought, some of the major contributors of this school were top executives in business or the military.
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 to March 21, 1915) was an American engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. A management consultant in his later years, he is sometimes called "The Father of Scientific Management." He was one of the intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement and his ideas, broadly conceived, were highly influential in the Progressive Era.
Life
Taylor was born in 1856 to a wealthy Quaker family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He wanted to attend Harvard University, but poor eyesight forced him to consider an alternative career. In 1874, he became an apprentice patternmaker, gaining shop-floor experience that would inform the rest of his career. He obtained a degree in Mechanical Engineering through a highly unusual (for the time) series of correspondence courses at the Stevens Institute of Technology where he was a Brother of the Gamma Chapter of Theta Xi, graduating in 1883 (Kanigel 1997:182-183,199). He and Maunsel White (with a team of assistants) developed high speed steel. He eventually became a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Taylor believed that the industrial management of his day was amateurish, that management could be formulated as an academic discipline, and that the best results would come from the partnership between a trained and qualified management and a cooperative and innovative workforce. Each side needed the other, and there was no need for trade unions.
Louis Brandeis, who was an active propagandist of Taylorism (Montgomery 1989: 250), coined the term scientific management in the course of his argument for the Eastern Rate Case, which Taylor used in the title of his monograph The Principles of Scientific Management, published in 1911. His approach is also often referred to, as Taylor's Principles, or frequently disparagingly, as Taylorism. Taylor's scientific management consisted of four principles: (1)Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks. (2)Scientifically select, train, and develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train themselves.
(3)"Detailed instruction and supervision of each worker in the performance of that worker's discrete task" (Montgomery 1997: 250).
(4)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
Managers and Workers
Taylor had very precise ideas about how to introduce his system:
"It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adaption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adaption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone." (Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management, cited by Montgomery 1989:229, italics with Taylor)
Workers were supposed to be incapable of understanding what they were doing. According to Taylor this was true even for rather simple tasks. "'I can say, without the slightest hesitation,' Taylor told a congressional committee, 'that the science of handling pig-iron is so great that the man who is ... physically able to handle pig-iron and is sufficiently phlegmatic and stupid to choose this for his occupation is rarely able to comprehend the science of handling pig-iron."
(Montgomery 1989:251)
The introduction of his system was often resented by workers and provoked numerous strikes. The strike at Watertown Arsenal led to the congressional investigation in 1912.
Propaganda techniques
Taylor promised to reconcile labour and capital. "With the triumph of scientific management, unions would have nothing left to do, and they would have been cleansed of their most evil feature: the restriction of output. To underscore this idea, Taylor fashioned the myth that 'there has never been a strike of men working under scientific management', trying to give it credibility by constant repetition. In similar fashion he incessantly linked his proposals to shorter hours of work, without bothering to produce evidence of "Taylorized" firms that reduced working hours, and he revised his famous tale of Schmidt carrying pig iron at Bethlehem Steel at least three times, obscuring some aspects of his study and stressing others, so that each successive version made Schmidt's exertions more impressive, more voluntary and more rewarding to him that [sic!] the last. Unlike [Harrington] Emerson, Taylor was not a charlatan, but his ideological message required the suppression of all evidence of worker's dissent, of coercion, or of any human motives or aspirations other than those his vision of progress could encompass." (Montgomery 1989:254)
Management theory
Taylor thought that by analysing work, the "One Best Way" to do it would be found. He is most remembered for developing the time and motion study. He would break a job into its component parts and measure each to the hundredth of a minute. One of his most famous studies involved shovels. He noticed that workers used the same shovel for all materials. He determined that the most effective load was 21½ lb, and found or designed shovels that for each material would scoop up that amount. He was generally unsuccessful in getting his concepts applied and was dismissed from Bethlehem Steel. It was largely through the efforts of his disciples (most notably H.L. Gantt) that industry came to implement his ideas. Nevertheless, the book he wrote after parting company with Bethlehem Steel, Shop Management, sold well
Relations with ASME
Taylor was president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) from 1906 to 1907. While president, he tried to implement his system into the management of the ASME but was met with much resistance. He was only able to reorganize the publications department and then only partially. He also forced out the ASME's long-time secretary, Morris L. Cooke, and replaced him with Calvin W. Rice. His tenure as president was trouble-ridden and marked the beginning of a period of internal dissension within the ASME during the Progressive Era (Jaffe 1957:34).
In 1912, Taylor collected a number of his articles into a book-length manuscript which he submitted to the ASME for publication. The ASME formed an ad hoc committee to review the text. The committee included Taylor allies such as James Mapes Dodge and Henry R. Towne. The committee delegated the report to the editor of the American Machinist, Leon P. Alford. Alford was a critic of the Taylor system and the report was negative. The committee modified the report slightly, but accepted Alford's recommendation not to publish Taylor's book. Taylor angrily withdrew the book and published Principles without ASME approval (Jaffe 1957:36-40; Nelson 1980:181-184)...
Taylor's influence
United States
Carl Barth helped Taylor to develop speed-and-feed-calculating slide rules to a previously unknown level of usefulness. Similar aids are still used in machine shops today. Barth became an early consultant on scientific management and later taught at Harvard.
● H. L. Gantt developed the Gantt chart, a visual aid for scheduling tasks and displaying the flow of work.
● Harrington Emerson introduced scientific management to the railroad industry, and proposed the dichotomy of staff versus line employees, with the former advising the latter.
● Morris Cooke adapted scientific management to educational and municipal organizations.
● Hugo Münsterberg created industrial psychology.
● Lillian Gilbreth introduced psychology to management studies.
● Frank Gilbreth (husband of Lillian) discovered scientific management while working in the construction industry, eventually developing motion studies independently of Taylor. These logically complemented Taylor's time studies, as time and motion are two sides of the efficiency improvement coin. The two fields eventually became time and motion study.
● Harvard University, one of the first American universities to offer a graduate degree in business management in 1908, based its first-year curriculum on Taylor's scientific management.
Harlow S. Person, as dean of Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance, promoted the teaching of scientific management.
● James O. McKinsey, professor of accounting at the University of Chicago and founder of the consulting firm bearing his name, advocated budgets as a means of assuring accountability and of measuring performance.
France
In France, Le Chatelier translated Taylor's work and introduced scientific management throughout government owned plants during World War I. This influenced the French theorist Henri Fayol, whose 1916 Administration Industrielle et Générale emphasized organizational structure in management. In the classic General and Industrial Management Fayol wrote that "Taylor's approach differs from the one we have outlined in that he examines the firm from the "bottom up." he starts with the most elemental units of activity -- the workers' actions -- then studies the effects of their actions on productivity, devises new methods for making them more efficient, and applies what he learns at lower levels to the heiararcy...(Fayol, 1987, p. 43)." He suggests that Taylor has staff analysts and advisors working with individuals at lower levels of the organization to identify the ways to improve efficiency. According to Fayol, the approach results in a "negation of the principle of unity of command (p. 44)." Fayol criticized Taylor's functional management in this way. “… the most marked outward characteristics of functional management lies in the fact that each workman, instead of coming in direct contact with the management at one point only, … receives his daily orders and help from eight different bosses…(Fayol, 1949, p. 68.)” Those eight, Fayol said, were (1) route clerks, (2) instruction card men, (3) cost and time clerks, (4) gang bosses, (5) speed bosses, (6) inspectors, (7) repair bosses, and the (8) shop disciplinarian (p. 68). This, he said, was an unworkable situation, and that Tayolor must have somehow reconciled the dichotomy in some way not described in Taylor's works.
Switzerland
In Switzerland, the American Edward Albert Filene established the International Management Institute to spread information about management techniques.
USSR
In the USSR, Lenin was very impressed by Taylorism, which he and Stalin sought to incorporate into Soviet manufacturing. Taylorism and the mass production methods of Henry Ford thus became highly influential during the early years of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless "[...] Frederick Taylor's methods have never really taken root in the Soviet Union." (Atta 1986: 335). The voluntaristic approach of the Stakhanovite movement in the 1930s of setting individual records was diametrically opposed to Taylor's systematic approach and proved to be counter-productive. (Atta 1986: 331). The stop-and-go of the production process - workers having nothing to do at the beginning of a month and 'storming' during illegal extra shifts at the end of the month - which prevailed even in the 1980s had nothing to do with the successfully taylorized plants e.g. of Toyota which are characterized by continuous production processes which are continuously improved (Head 2005: 38-59).
"The easy availability of replacement labor, which allowed Taylor to choose only 'first-class men,' was an important condition for his system's success." (Atta 1986: 329) The situation in the Soviet Union was very different. "Because work is so unrythmic, the rational manager will hire more workers than he would need if supplies were even in order to have enough for storming. Because of the continuing labor shortage, managers are happy to pay needed workers more than the norm, either by issuing false job orders, assigning them to higher skill grades than they deserve on merit criteria, giving them 'loose' piece rates, or making what is supposed to be 'incentive' pay, premia for good work, effectively part of the normal wage. As Mary Mc Auley has suggested under these circumstances piece rates are not an incentive wage, but a way of justifying giving workers whatever they 'should' be getting, no matter what their pay is supposed to be according to the official norms." (Atta 1986: 333)
Taylor and his theories are also referenced (and put to practice) in the 1921 dystopian novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
