There are six different perspectives on social theories and how it is related to people at work.

They are known as the scientific management and the psychological humanism, Durkheims perspective, symbolic interactionism, Webers perspective, Marxs perspective and the post modernism perspective. This paper is going to be on three perspectives namely the scientific management and psychological humanism, Marxs perspective and Webers perspective. Scientific management was introduced by Frederick Taylor and this perspective focuses on human nature or our tendency to react or behave to certain things because it is our norm to react that way and how this natural behavior and attitude can be molded in a way at work place so that workers can be managed efficiently to gain maximum productivity. The psychological humanism is very similar to scientific management in the sense that it also focuses on bending human nature to create maximum productivity out of workers which is why both of this perspectives fall under the same group. Scientific management is about the specification of tasks for workers. It breaks down work for the workers in a way that the workers only have to perform one kind of task throughout their working period. This expels creative input or any sought of thinking on the workers behalf as they perform a set of planned tasks by the managers above them. This was considered to be deskilling the workers and less time was taken to train the workers to perform their tasks. The psychological humanism on the other hand explains the basic needs of human beings that affect human nature directly. There are five layers of need for human beings as explained by this perspective and they are known as the psychological needs such as water, food, breathing and sex, the second layer is known as the safety layer which involves safety of body and safety of job, the third layer is known as the love layer which involves family and friends, the fourth layer is the esteem layer which involves self esteem, self respect and other peoples respect towards one, and the fifth layer is the self actualization layer which involves creativity, sense of self importance and morality. This perspective focuses on the human empowering elements to be used in an organization to motivate the workers giving them a sense of self respect and respect. Both ways are the same in the sense that they focus on human nature to get the job done. The two explained perspectives are relevant to Malaysian organizations in the sense that scientific management is still widely being used in the Malaysian heavy industries as workers are required to do specific tasks but Malaysian organizations always have a sprinkle of psychological humanism masking the scientific management because Malaysian workers are not

heavily supervised by upper management as tasks are given out and the workers carry them out. The second perspective would be the Marx perspective. Marxs perspective basically discusses the exploitation of workers by the organization owners or capitalists. It closely relates to the scientific management except the Marx perception is a critique of the scientific management. Marx proposed that the capitalists are exploiting the workers in a way that wages given to workers are far less than the work done by the workers. He also proposed that they are being exploited in a way that they are being denied from their rights to be creative and knowledgeable workers as they are given specified jobs to perform all day long which results in alienation and the workers start hating their jobs. In the Malaysian industry, this is a very real issue as workers or managers go home everyday dissatisfied by the fact that they have no power to perform their jobs the way they want to as the higher management and the capitalists have their own agendas. Very less Malaysians are happy with the work they do according to personal observations and they constantly look for new jobs hoping that the new job might be better. The third and final perspective would be the Weber perspective. The Weber perspective explains how the managers or bosses stamp authority or take control of their workers in organizations. Weber explained that the protestant ethics was the phenomenon that brought capitalism along. He explained that the Europeans in the early days needed some kind of sign that they are blessed by god and they concluded that prosperity would be a sign from god that they are blessed. This motivated the Europeans to work and gain the money as a sign of blessing which resulted in huge capitalists and businesses. Along the way god was forgotten and capitalists only focused on the profits made from their organizations. This also led to beauracracy which is widely accepted as the synonym to power these days. Power comes through authority and there are three kinds of authority namely the traditional authority which comes out of no expectations and because of background which stimulates mutual respect, the charismatic authority which comes due to power of speech and popularity and the rational authority which stands because of legal issues which means capitalists stamp authority through the rational authority as they are business owners and they are legally powerful compared to their workers. In Malaysia, capitalists open up businesses for only one reason which h is money. Money being the only form of motivation, they do not have emotional bonding with their workers which gives them authority without belonging and workers in an organization work for the capitalists for the same reason, money.