The content of Taylorism has shifted over time, moving somewhat away from the ideas Taylor and the Gilbreths originally articulated. Taylor argued that other important elements of scientific management included extra pay for the extra hard work and rigid standardization of the system, careful attention to not overextending workers, listening to workers' ideas and compensating them for adopted improvements, a system of functional foremen, and study of worker motivation. Much of this has been lost in the subsequent development of Taylorism into a management system. Both Taylor and the Gilbreths were careful to warn against overwork. However, as the system was diffused and elaborated, Taylorism commonly came to be understood primarily as an emphasis on breaking down work into discrete tasks that can be analyzed for waste through motion and time study. In addition to sharply limiting worker autonomy, the system has often been experienced by workers--and denounced by unions--as a form of work speedup, leading to many problems in the workplace, such as increased worker stress, resentment, and dissatisfaction, often resulting in labor-management conflict, individual forms of resistance like work sabotage, and organized forms of resistance.

Taylorism is an important part of the model of traditional mass production often referred to as "Fordism," which was developed in the United States and became the dominant form of production in most industrialized countries, particularly after World War II. As a model of work organization, Fordism refers to the supply-driven, mass production of standardized goods using semi-skilled workers. Taylorism is key to Fordism because it contributes to efficiency improvements via scale economies through the separation of conception from execution--often understood as a process of deskilling--as managers and engineers in the planning department are responsible for breaking down tasks into their simplest operations and determining standards, while workers are expected only to execute their tasks as directed.

Taylorist methods have been used widely in all manufacturing sectors in developed and developing countries and were also embraced by the Soviet Union under Lenin. However, the ideal of complete separation of conception and execution was not fully realized in most places. One reason for its imperfect realization was resistance by workers and unions. Perhaps more important, in order for many factories to operate smoothly on a daily basis, workers had to retain and  exercise some amount of discretion to deal with problems in the planning process.

Though the Fordist model is increasingly being replaced by post-Fordist forms of production, such as the demand-driven model of lean production, the status of Taylorist methods in the post-Fordist labor process is debated among scholars. Taylorist methods are widely used in service industries today, as exemplified by the extreme task division and standardization in the fast-food industry as pioneered by McDonald's.

Another example of Taylorist standardization in services is scripted talk required in a wide range of industries in which workers must interact with customers, from restaurants to retail stores to call centers.

In the manufacturing sector, however, some argue that post-Fordist models like lean production have initiated a reintegration of conception and execution, hence overturning the Taylorist model. However, as many observers have noted, although lean production methods explicitly aim to induce workers to contribute ideas for continuous process improvement, work remains highly regimented into discrete tasks, and a primary goal is to develop new and improved work standards through, among other things, detailed motion and time study. Thus, many see lean production methods as a form of neo-Taylorism that engages workers in setting and developing new standards. 

References 

1)Taylor, Frederick Winslow. 1998. The Principles of Scientific Management. Mineola, NY: Dover. 

2) Vidal, Matt. 2007. "Manufacturing Empowerment? 'Employee Involvement' in the Labor Process after Fordism." Socio- Economic.

3) Wren, Daniel A. 2004. The History of Management Thought. 5th ed. New York: Wiley.

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