Management, as it is known today, exists in all organizations. With the continuous growth of size and complexity of these organizations, it has become necessary to follow a defined and professional approach to the practices of management. Samson & Daft (2012) defines management as "the attainment of organizational goals in an effective and efficient manner through planning, organizing, leading and controlling organizational resources". The foundation to modern day management theory lies in the study of one of the oldest schools of management knows as classical management which emerged during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its developers focused on efficiency and contained three subfields: scientific, bureaucratic and administrative management. .
Scientific Management was a theory created by Frederick Winslow Taylor, an American engineer. He believed that the limited success in organizations during the nineteenth century was was due to poor management practices rather than poor labour. Taylor believed that by increasing specialization and the division of labour, the production process would become more efficient. He introduced the development of a science for each unit of a task of a person's work, replacing the old 'rule-of-thumb' methods previously used in industry. He achieved this by studying each task and then developing a standard method to perform that job. He would then select workers with specific skills and train them. Taylor also believed that a healthy working relationship between workers and managers was essential. In addition, Taylor proposed a reward system for workers to increase output. Taylor's work inspired many others such as Henry Gantt, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, to study and propose theories for scientific management (Samson & Daft 2012). This theory was developed to overcome the lack of skilled workers in the twentieth century and increase production.