Introducing Taylor to the knowledge economy
| Published date | 09 November 2012 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425451311279393 |
| Pages | 20-38 |
| Date | 09 November 2012 |
| Author | Steve Paton |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Introducing Taylor to the
knowledge economy
Steve Paton
Department of Management, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The knowledge economy and the knowledge work that fuels it have created muc h
debate in relation to the types of workers it requires and how they should be managed. The central
issue is that “knowledge workers” are only valuable while possessing a body of knowledge to utilise
in the process of their work. The management of workers with knowledge runs counter to the
more mainstream Taylorist systems based on the assimilation of knowledge into the organisation.
The purpose of this paper is to theoretically analyse the usefulness of Scientific Management as
a management system for controlling knowledge work.
Design/methodology/approach – Through a review of relevant literature this paper compares the
main principles of scientific management with the theory of knowledge work in an attempt to
understand their relationship.
Findings – This paper finds that: despite the need for workers to retain knowledge the main
principles of scientific management can still be applied; and the application of Scientific Management
to knowledge work will result in an increasing division of knowledge, as opposed to division of task,
which compliments the trend towards increasing occupational specialisation.
Originality/value – This article proposes that Scientific Management should be considered as
a useful tool to manage knowledge work. This view runs counter to more mainstream accounts where
Scientific Management and knowledge work are seen as incompatible. This paper partially fills the
gap in understanding of how knowledge workers should be managed and is useful to academics
seeking to characterise knowledge work and practitioners seeking to manage in the knowledge
economy.
Keywords Scientific management, Knowledge economy, Knowledge work, Braverman, Deskilling,
Knowledge management
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
The phrase “knowledge worker” (Drucker, 1959; Miller, 1977) now seems to be firmly
embedded in the vocabulary of management literatu re. Although not new, this ter m
has seen increased significance recently due to the emergence in the 1990s of the “new”
knowledge-driven economy (Stewart, 1997) now considered crit ical to national
competiveness (Brinkley, 2010; European Communities (EC), 2004). In the UK alone
employment in knowledge-intensive services went up by 93 per cent between 1979 and
2010, in contrast, employment as a whole only went up by 13 per cent (Business
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), 2009). In additi on between 1995 and 2010
the contribution of high-technology manufacturing and knowledge-intensive servi ces
to UK gross value added has increased steadily to over 40 p er cent (Brinkley, 2010).
To support this growth and partly as a response to the capture of low skill
work (particularly in manufacturing ) by low cost econo mies overseas it has become
a priority of the UK government to grow the knowledge and skills base of the
workforce to support the knowledge-based economy (Business, Innovation and Skills
(BIS), 2011).
To deliver success within this new economy it has been asserted that companies
must effectively capitalise on worker knowledge (Ichijo et al., 1998) while rewarding
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Employee Relations
Vol. 35 No. 1, 2013
pp. 20-38
rEmeraldGroup PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425451311279393
20
ER
35,1
and valuing it (Karoly and Panis, 2004). The defining features of these “knowle dge
workers” are their possession of a variety of types of knowledge such as embrained
and embodied and explicit and tacit (Blackler, 1993, 1995; Nonaka and Konno, 1998;
Polanyi, 1958, 1967; Tywoniak, 2007) and their ability to apply this knowledge in the
process of work to identify and solve complex workplace problems (Blackler, 1993;
Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).
However this current trend towards knowledge retention in workers demanded by
the knowledge economy runs counter to mo re critical and longer-standing analyses of
the workplace which argue that organisations in their search for greate r control and
efficiency endeavour to remove knowledge from their workers by the application of
scientific management (Taylor,1911) and its derivatives (Braverman, 1974; Thompson,
1989; Zimbalist, 1979).
As long ago as 1959, Drucker signalled the inadequacy of applying “personnel
management theories” developed for “machine workers” to “managing tomor row’s
employees” (Drucker, 1959, p. 122). So while scientific management has served
industry well in the last century the issue raised by the contempo rary knowledge
economy is whether it can be used effectively when the objective is not the extraction of
knowledge from the worker for assimilation into the organisation but the exploitation
and leveraging of knowledge while it is retained within the worker.
This issue is of growing importance as the label knowledge work is being applied to
more occupations as the amount of skills ne eded to carry out work is increasing
(Cortada, 1998). From its beginnings in professional work it has become attac hed to
engineering and scientific work and more recently has become associated with every
aspect of the contemporary economy where knowledge is at the heart of the value
add – from high-tech manufacturing to the creative industries such as media and
architecture (Kok, 2003).
The central tension is therefore how can management effectively control workers
who own the organisation’s knowledge assets? Toaddress this issue the purp ose of this
paper is to carry out a theoretical analysis of the usefulness of scientific management
in the management of contemporary knowledge work. The objectives of this
theoretical review are; first, unpack the debates around knowledge work and
understand how these are related to the debates on labour process theory; and second,
to revisit the principles of scientific management and apply these to knowledge work;
and lastly to conclude on how these elements can be applied to knowledge-intensive
work.
This paper will address current gaps in understanding of the manageme nt of
knowledge workers, and provide insights on the relationship between scientific
management and knowledge work. This work will contribute to our understanding of
whether there is a distinct line which defines the limits of the use of scientific
management and so results in a privileged class of knowledge workers who are not
subject to its control.
Knowledge work: managing, class and Braverman
Despite the relative recency of the debates on knowledge work the existence of work
types that use specialist knowledge is not new as it has existed in rudimentar y forms
since the first human performed activities based on something other than instinct o r
reaction. However as technology has advanced and industry has become more complex
and diverse the concept of knowledg e in work has become incre asingly relevant
(Drucker, 1992). Early attempts to characterise knowledge work were initiated by the
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Introducing
Taylor
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