In the Early 1920s, a Shift Away from Classical Management Theory Took Place as Theorists Began to Consider the Human Side of an Organization and the Social Needs of Employees. in This Lesson, You Will Learn About the

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In the early 1920s, a shift away from classical management theory took place as theorists began to consider the human side of an organization and the social needs of employees. In this lesson, you will learn about the evolution of the neoclassical theory of management and its two sources: the human relations movement and the behavioral management movement. A Shift Away From Classical Management Theory In the early 1920s, classical management theorists, such as Frederick Taylor, Henry Gantt, and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, spent their time researching how a specific job was done, what steps were taken by an employee to complete the work, and the amount of time it took a worker to complete a task using different methods. They then used this information to determine the most effective way of completing a task. While these individuals focused on the science of creating specialized work processes and workforce skills to complete production tasks efficiently, critics began to scrutinize classical management theory for its potentially harmful effects on workers. It was not so much the methodology of finding the most efficient way to complete a task that concerned critics, but the underlying assumption of classical management theorists that managers and workers would meet halfway on their attitudes towards standardization. However, many believed that placing too much emphasis on standardization of jobs and workers had not created this 'mental revolution' that Taylor and his associates had hoped for, but rather had inadvertently created an attitude among managers at the time that employees were nothing more than an appendage to a machine. While machines and processes could be standardized, critics argued that it was unrealistic to expect that standardization among emotional beings; the two needed to be looked at individually. So, as Taylor and other classical

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