Shaping the American Workplace The modern American company is one I

Five sources will be used for this research, including two offering historical perspectives, one examining the role of scientific management (and its validity as a science), one which examines why individuals are motivated to work at all (and what benefits they derive from their efforts), and one which considers the effect of modern management on the culture as a whole. Taken together, these readings provide insight as to why the American workplace has assumed the shape it currently has, and how the workplace has shaped other facets of the culture.

The Industrial Revolution is largely responsible for the change in the American culture which took place at the end of the last century. The machines introduced by the Industrial Revolution made it possible to produce larger number of goods with a product uniformity which had previously been impossible. At the same time, the increased numbers of people in the workforce ensured that there was a market for those goods as wages were paid to workers who previously were not earning an income.

In the "Working" chapter of Victorian America, we learn that the United States underwent significant changes during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Women and children entered the work force in large numbers as the political power and economic force of the independent farm

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d an entire product from start to finish, the Industrial Revolution made it possible for individuals to perform only a single tasks (or a small number of tasks) which would make it possible for them to be more efficient from a manufacturing standpoint. At a time when the nation as a whole was transfixed with science and ways in which science would benefit the culture, "scientific management" was certain to capture the attention of early capitalists. Frederick Taylor is generally credited with being among the first to take a scientific approach to management. Where scientific principles were being used to revolutionize the production floor from a technological standpoint, Taylor sought to apply scientific principles to managing human resources (which were not viewed as substantially different from other capital inputs, including land and capital) (Braverman 85). At the heart of Taylor's work was the issue of who controlled the decisions that are made during the course of everyday work. Taylor argued that these decisions should be left to managers and that workers should rely on the managers' knowledge and experience (plus their desire for higher productivity) to guide their efforts (Braverman 107). By cloaking his ideas in th
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Approximate Word count = 1686
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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