Unfortunately, a major problem that the pioneers of scientific management did not anticipate was the way organizations utilized theories depending on what would benefit them while ignoring the interest of workers. Mejia, Balkin and Cardy (2005) relate, that being the utopian Taylor never realized the possibility of misuse of his teachings.
Despite the misuse, Stoner (1999) acknowledges the positive effects of scientific management can still be seen today via the modern-day assembly lines of factories as well as those in non-industrial organizations, ranging from fast-food service to the training of surgeons . Things turned for the worse with the advent of the Great Depression in the late 1920s. Wren (2005) articulated the American nation as an economic, political, social, and psychological watershed during this period. It was in this age of confusion, trauma, and diversity that the modern era in management was about to begin. One that will bring a new dimension the interpretation of the role of government in economics, from production managers began to focus on people.
That era arrived with the entry of behavioral scientists in the realm of management. They began to take center stage when Mary Parker Follet questioned the wisdom of scientific management. Her action opened an intellectual door leading to the realization that knowledge of the psychological and social processes of human behavior can result in improvements in productivity and work satisfaction. Management study broadened with the arrival of different perspectives research tools, and ideas to reshape human relations into organizational behavior.
It was during this time that focus was shifted from technology to people. The objective of the studies that followed was to help managers motivate employees and encourage them to perform at high levels and be committed to the achievement of organizational goals. Wren (2005) described the two new dimensions were introduced during the age of Human Relations. First, the advancement of an even more sophisticated view of the workers as human beings and their drives from Elton Mayo and his contemporaries.
They showed that people are were complex in the way they lived their lives and that organizational relationships were needed to support such. Second, behavioral scientists applied the methods of scientific investigation to study how people in organizations as whole entities.