Discuss the respective contributions of the scientific management Essay

Discuss the respective contributions of the scientific management approach and the human relations approach to managing people i - Essay Example However, human relations approach to managing people has not been able to totally replace the scientific management approach in all industries. In fact Richardson (1996) considers modern strategic management as the major problem causer in modern society rather than problem-solver. Richardson finds that scientific management is alive and used for strategic development in the highly competitive and productivity-conscious, organized world. Through time and motion studies it is possible to break down the work into simple tasks which could then enable the management to find the one best way to handle the task. Through this method it is possible to break down every step to the extent that it is possible to determine the amount of time that the worker could be allowed a break for drinking water. The workers then have to work like automated machines. Thus, to make the most effective use of human resources people have to be managed in this way. This principle of scientific management can ampl y be found in the way the fast food industry manages mass production based on the management principles of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control (Allan, Bamber, Timo, 2006). This sector is based on the classic Taylorist principles. Jobs are simplified, routinised and there is clear division of labor. ... There is practically no human relations approach in this sector even though they have developed the production system based on Taylorist principles. Taylor maintained that workers often performed tasks that were unnecessarily wasteful, hazardous and exhausting (Peck & Casey, 2004). Hence the work should be broken up into small parts and each step should be optimized. Taylor also suggested that the breaking up of the tasks should be done by talking with the workers of the ‘one best way’ (Peck & Casey, 2004) but in the fast food industry employee decision making and discretion have been totally eliminated; workers’ interactions are controlled by employers (Allan, Bamber, Timo, 2006). The fast food sector is thriving globally despite only partially adopting scientific management and not having human relations approach to managing people. A good team needs and informed, intelligent leader, according to Taylor (Darmody, 2007). Managers have the responsibility of motiva ting their employees and instructing them of the best way of performing the task. The aim is to attain efficiency and maximize productivity. Taylorism or the scientific management separates the labor process from the skills of workers. The jobs are simplified and routinised so that less skilled workers would be able to comfortably work on it and the management would be less dependent on skilled workforce. It also states that the conception and planning should be in the hands of the management while the shop floor is concerned only with the execution of predetermined plans. Decision making is centralized and every step of the labor process is controlled through formal rules and procedures. This is precisely what is happening even today not only in the fast food industry but even at the

Examin the relationship between sexuality and suffering in any of the Essay

Examin the relationship between sexuality and suffering in any of the texts - Essay Example What is most important to Genet, however, is not a simple recounting of his life story, but rather the elaboration of his aesthetic preoccupations. It is in this narrative that Genet identifies most clearly his means of literary production, and discusses the relationship of body to text. It is within the context of the stated reality, and as influenced by Genet's own sexual proclivities, that the theme of sexuality and suffering asserts itself. Traditionally, autobiography is a narrative form that has as its primary theme the recounting of the life of the author. The key element in identifying a narrative as autobiographical is, to use the terminology of Philippe Lejeune, the pacte autobiographie By identifying the pacte the ideal reader realizes without a doubt that the character denoted by "I" is indeed a projection of the author on the page. Genet accomplishes this in Journal principally by providing verifiable statistics regarding his "statut civil," - his date of birth and the circumstances which surrounded it. Though a Genet character exists in Genet's other novels, this information appears only in Journal du voleur. What is most remarkable about this fact is that, rather than stabilizing the identity of the author, by its very nature it destabilizes. The fact that Genet was orphaned at a young age, and that he knows only the name of his mother, and not that of his father, puts the author character in an awkward posi tion in a society more patrilineal than most. The Journal is in many ways, an aesthetic treatise, an examination of the ideas and practices that have made Genet a creator. The two fundamental concepts that drive his creation are "beauty," and a vertiginous space that we could call the "vide," or, "nothingness." His writing exists in a tense space between the aesthetic attractions of the physical world, and the intellectual imperative of the contemplation of the emptiness of existence. Genet attributes his attraction to the physical world to its beauty. Pinning down a precise meaning of beauty is difficult. In the short entry on "beauty" in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Aquinas is quoted as defining beauty as "that which pleases in the very apprehension of it" (80). This definition, though vague, does point to two components of the assessment of beauty, the observer and the observed. There is no beauty without a subjectivity to apprehend it. The article goes on to note that the physical beauty of a human being is hard to define in the absence of the desire that is aroused by that person in the beholder. Though philosophers have long searched to provide an understanding of the universality of beauty, we must ask if any assessment of beauty can be truly objective. It would seem that, in order for aesthetic judgements such as beauty to be meaningful, they would have to be understood in the context of subjectivity. Aesthetic philosophy, beginning with Longinus, has chosen to focus on the "sublime," that which transcends mere physical beauty and creates a deeper, more mystical meaning. In his treatise On the Sublime, Longinus says, "sublimity in all its truth and beauty exists in such works as please all men at all times" (107). In this case one might ask if any work could possibly live up to such a general definition. Longinus further elaborates on the nature of the sublime in the following quotation: By some innate power the true sublime uplifts our souls; we are filled with a proud exaltation and a