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Public administration can be broadly described as the development, implementation and study of branches of government policy. The pursuit of the public good by enhancing civil society, ensuring a well-run, fair, and effective public service are some of the goals of the field. Today public administration is often regarded as including also some responsibility for determining the policies and programs of governments. Specifically, it is the planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling of government operations. Public administration is carried out by public servants who work in public departments and agencies, at all levels of government, and perform a wide range of tasks. Public administration, developed in the early 1900s, is a special field of study within the academic discipline of political science. It emphasizes the structure and operation of bureaucracies and organizations, including budgeting, personnel, and formal and informal internal controls. Some public administration programs include study of the special management skills required in governmental (as distinct from private) organizations. Frederick Taylor and Scientific Management Understanding Taylorism and Early Management Theory Taylor investigated the ” science” of shoveling. © iStockphoto/Toprawman How did current management theories develop? People have been managing work for hundreds of years, and we can trace formal management ideas to the 1700s. But the most significant developments in management theory emerged in the 20th century. We owe much of our understanding of managerial practices to the many theorists of this period, who tried to understand how best to conduct business. Historical Perspective One of the earliest of these theorists was Frederick Winslow Taylor. He started the Scientific Management movement, and he and his associates were the first people to study the work process scientifically. They studied how work was performed, and they looked at how this affected worker productivity. Taylor’s philosophy focused on the belief that making people work as hard as they could was not as efficient as optimizing the way the work was done. In 1909, Taylor published ” The Principles of Scientific Management.” In this, he proposed that by optimizing and simplifying jobs, productivity would increase. He also advanced the idea that workers and managers needed to cooperate with one another. This was very different from the way work was typically done in businesses beforehand. A factory manager at that time had very little contact with the workers, and he left them on their own to produce the necessary product. There was no standardization, and a worker’s main motivation was often continued employment, so there was no incentive to work as quickly or as efficiently as possible. Taylor believed that all workers were motivated by money, so he promoted the idea of ” a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.” In other words, if a worker didn’t achieve enough in a day, he didn’t deserve to be paid as much as another worker who was highly productive. With a background in mechanical engineering, Taylor was very interested in efficiency. While advancing his career at a U. S. steel manufacturer, he designed workplace experiments to determine optimal performance levels. In one, he experimented with shovel design until he had a design that would allow workers to shovel for several hours straight. With bricklayers, he experimented with the various motions required and developed an efficient way to lay bricks. And he applied the scientific method to study the optimal way to do any type of workplace task. As such, he found that by calculating the time needed for the various elements of a task, he could develop the ” best” way to complete that task. These ” time and motion” studies also led Taylor to conclude that certain people could work more efficiently than others. These were the people whom managers should seek to hire where possible. Therefore, selecting the right people for the job was another important part of workplace efficiency. Taking what he learned from these workplace experiments, Taylor developed four principles of scientific management. These principles are also known simply as ” Taylorism”. Four Principles of Scientific Management Taylor’s four principles are as follows: 1. Replace working by ” rule of thumb,” or simple habit and common sense, and instead use the scientific method to study work and determine the most efficient way to perform specific tasks. 2. Rather than simply assign workers to just any job, match workers to their jobs based on capability and motivation, and train them to work at maximum efficiency. 3. Monitor worker performance, and provide instructions and supervision to ensure that they’re using the most efficient ways of working. 4. Allocate the work between managers and workers so that the managers spend their time planning and training, allowing the workers to perform their tasks efficiently. Critiques of Taylorism Taylorism promotes the idea that there is ” one right way” to do something. As such, it is at odds with current approaches such as MBO (Management By Objectives), Continuous Improvement initiatives,  BPR (Business Process Engineering), and other tools like them. These promote individual responsibility, and seek to push decision making through all levels of the organization. The idea here is that workers are given as much autonomy as practically possible, so that they can use the most appropriate approaches for the situation at hand. (Reflect here on your own experience — are you happier and more motivated when you’re following tightly controlled procedures, or when you’re working using your own judgment?) What’s more, front line workers need to show this sort of flexibility in a rapidly-changing environment. Rigid, rules-driven organizations really struggle to adapt in these situations. Teamwork is another area where pure Taylorism is in opposition to current practice. Essentially, Taylorism breaks tasks down into tiny steps, and focuses on how each person can do his or her specific series of steps best. Modern methodologies prefer to examine work systems more holistically in order to evaluate efficiency and maximize productivity. The extreme specialization that Taylorism promotes is contrary to modern ideals of how to provide a motivating and satisfying workplace. Where Taylorism separates manual from mental work, modern productivity enhancement practices seek to incorporate worker’s ideas, experience and knowledge into best practice. Scientific management in its pure form focuses too much on the mechanics, and fails to value the people side of work, whereby motivation and workplace satisfaction are key elements in an efficient and productive organization. Maximilian Karl Emil ” Max” Weber (German pronunciation:  [ˈmaks ˈveË�bÉ�]; 21 April 1864 — 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist,  philosopher, and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory,  social research, and the discipline of sociology itself.[1] Weber is often cited, with Ã‰mile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as one of the three founding architects of sociology.[2][3][4] Weber was a key proponent of methodological antipositivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive (rather than purely empiricist) means, based on understanding the purpose and meaning that individuals attach to their own actions. Weber’s main intellectual concern was understanding the processes ofrationalisation,  secularization, and ” disenchantment” that he associated with the rise of capitalism and modernity[5] and which he saw as the result of a new way of thinking about the world.[6] Weber is perhaps best known for his thesis combining economic sociology and the sociology of religion, elaborated in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he proposed that ascetic Protestantism was one of the major ” elective affinities” associated with the rise in the Western world of market-driven capitalism and the rational-legal nation-state. Against Marx’s ” historical materialism,” Weber emphasised the importance of cultural influences embedded in religion as a means for understanding the genesis of capitalism.[7] The Protestant Ethic formed the earliest part in Weber’s broader investigations into world religion: he would go on to examine the religions of China, the religions of India and ancient Judaism, with particular regard to the apparent non-development of capitalism in the corresponding societies, as well as to their differing forms of social stratification.[a] In another major work,  Politics as a Vocation, Weber defined the state as an entity which successfully claims a ” monopoly on the legitimate use of violence”. He was also the first to categorize social authority into distinct forms, which he labelled as charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal. His analysis of bureaucracyemphasised that modern state institutions are increasingly based on rational-legal authority. Weber also made a variety of other contributions in economic history, as well as economic theory and methodology. Weber’s analysis of modernity and rationalisation significantly influenced the critical theory associated with theFrankfurt School. After the First World War, Max Weber was among the founders of the liberal German Democratic Party. He also ran unsuccessfully for a seat in parliament and served as advisor to the committee that drafted the ill-fated democratic Weimar Constitution of 1919. After contracting the Spanish flu, he died of pneumonia in 1920, aged 56.[2]