Introduction From the beginning of the application of management principles in organizations, the way of maximize workers' efficiency while

keeping them motivated and devoted has been a challenge for all managers and entrepreneurs. Pioneered by Frederick Winslow Taylor in his scientific management theory, the applied of science to the engineering of processes and to management has been a revolution method to boost productivity and efficiency within an organization. The theory of scientific management has made a great impact on management practice and was the fundament for the management theory until the current day. On modern industry, the greater use of Frederic Taylor theory still is the key for any organization to be effective and competitive, especially in the development economic like Viet Nam. The aim of this essay is to clarify Frederick Taylors scientific management theory and its criticism as well as its application in Vietnam business. The Understanding of theory In 1911, Frederic Taylor public his book, Principles of Scientific Management, in which he described his techniques that were took over to improve the efficiency of employees at Bethlehem Steel. In this, he proposed that by optimizing and simplifying jobs, productivity would increase. He also developed the idea that workers and managers needed to cooperate with another. This was very different from the working method that was typically done in businesses before. By the time working in the steel industry, Taylor has notice that the majority of worker intentionally perform below their capacity. He referred to this kind of behavior as soldiering and attributed soldiering for three cause: the common belief among workers that if they become more productive, the fewer of them would be need and they could be eliminated, non-incentive wage system to encourage productivities if the employee receive same pay regardless how much they produce, worker waste much of their time by depending on the rule-of-thumb method rather than the optimal method decided by the scientific study of the task. Taylor believed that money can motivate worker to perform better, so he has come with the idea of "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work." In other words, if an employee didn't achieve the target in a day, he didn't deserve to be paid as much as another worker who was working hard. He also applied the scientific method to study the optimal way to do any type of workplace task. As such, he found that by calculating the time needed for the various elements of a task, he could develop the "best" way to complete that task. These "time and motion" studies also led Taylor to conclude that certain people could work more efficiently than others. These were the people whom managers should seek to hire where possible. Therefore, selecting the right people for the job was another important part of workplace efficiency.

From what he learns in the workplace experiments, Taylor developed four principles of scientific management. These principles are also known simply as "Taylorism":

Work methods based on a scientific study of the tasks carried out should be adopted. Employees should be scientifically selected and trained by the management and not left to their own devices. Managers should train workers and audit the workers' performance to ensure that the adopted scientific methods are being properly performed. Work should be divided between managers and workers so that managers can apply the established scientific methods and processes of production, whereas the workers can perform the job according to the established procedures. The main advantage of scientific management is that in theory, efficiency is totally maximized. The smallest amount of time possible is wasted in day to day proceedings, and as a whole this raises productivity in the workplace. Higher levels of productivity lead to the business becoming more successful, which in turn leads to increased salaries for workers. Employees are then incentivized to work even harder in order to achieve more bonuses (there is a multiplier effect). Human capital in the company rises and standards of achievement continue to increase. In addition, scientific management provides staff members with a structured plan to follow, which minimizes confusion.

On the other hand, although scientific management is perfectly sound in theory, it is also received some criticism. First of all, Taylor used the functional foremanship on management, which means each worker was under command of eight bosses. This application contrasts with the principle of unity of command, where workers only received order only from one manager. The lack of unity of command can result in confusion and misleading in the organization. Taylors approach on the human recourse was also received criticisms, as he focuses too much on importance to efficiency but did not consider the human element on each worker. Taylor considers workers as robots, which could seep up the work at any cost. He also assumed that

worker can only be motivated by money and used that at an incentive. Though, in reality employee are not only be encouraged by financial gains but also by social needs and personal egos.