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principles of management according to Henry fayol
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henri fayol's management theory essay
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Critically discuss the extent to which Fayol's classical analysis of the management function has largely been made redundant by the more recent empirical studies of what managers actually do, such as that favoured by Mintzberg.
Introduction
Henri Fayol, at the age of 19, began working as engineer at a large mining company in France which eventually led to him becoming a director. Through the years that led on to this Fayol then developed his 14 principles of management which he considered to be the most important. According to Fayol, these principles indicate how managers should organise and interact with their peers. Fayol’s analysis is considered to be one of the earliest theories of management that has been created and therefore can be considered to be redundant. The many arguments considered in relation to Fayol have been considered throughout this essay as well as my own argument to gain an overall conclusion as to whether Fayol’s classical analysis of management has been made redundant.
Fayol’s perspective on management
Through personal experience, Fayol distinguished what he thought to be the prime functions of being a manager. It is said that he was the first to illustrate the need for the education of management (Brodie, 1967, in Fells, 2000) and in relation to management; Fayol’s perspective was what managers should do. Through categorising business activities into six activities, technical; commercial; financial; security; accounting and management; Fayol’s work focused on the latter category, management (Fells, 2000, pg.345).
Division of work, discipline, span of control, order and equity are just a few of the 14 principles of management that Fayol constructed from his analysis. He stressed that the nu...
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...vol. 6, no. 8, pg. 345-360
Gray, I. (ED) (1984), General and Industrial Management, IEEE Press, Piscataway, NJ
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Hales, C. (1993), Managing Through Organisation, Routledge, London
Lamond, D. (2004) A matter of style: reconciling Henri and Henry, Management Decision, vol. 42, no. 2, pg. 330-356
March, J. and Simon, H. (1993), Organisations, 2nd edition, Blackwell, Cambridge, MA.
Mintzberg, H. (1975) The Manager’s Job: Folklore and Fact, Harvard Business Review, vol. 53, no. 4, pg. 49-61
Perrow, C. (1973), “The short and glorious history of organisational theory”, Organisational Dynamics, vol. 2, no. 1, pg.2-15
Tsoukas, H. (1994), “What is management? An outline of a metatheory”, British Journal of Management, vol.5, pg.289-301
Sachs, A. (2010). Management, Plain and Simple. Time, 175(15), Global 4. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.
Robbins, S.P., & Coulter, M. (2009). Management (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Henri Fayol was the first to systematize the Classical Organizational theory in fourteen principles of management. Fayol’s fourteen principles were: division of labor, authority, unity of command, unity of direction, subordination of individual interest, remuneration, centralization, the hierarchy, order, equity, stability of staff, initiative, and esperit de corps. The principles were very top down oriented and lead to a subordinate system where there is no autonomy and no sense of self. The principles promoted everyone give everything for the company that they work for while having no ability to self promote or improve ones’
Dated back in 1984, Henri Fayol a French mining engineer developed and proposed fourteen principles for management and at the same time come up with five main elements of management. Planning, organizing, coordinating, commanding and controlling were Fayol’s version. As time goes by and generation changes, these five elements of management had been modified and reduced to four, which is plan, lead, organized and control. Fells (2000) claim that Fayol’s theory of management is appropriate and relevant for management nowadays. However, there are still other individual disagree with his theory and thought it is no longer relevant to the society nowadays. However, Foyal’s process of management idea had been the main basic structure of management, which creates clear and relevant set of guidelines that managers will be managing an organization by using the organization resources efficiently and effectively (Dianne 2008). Fayol’s five principles of management are still relevant for managers in this new century as it is the basic of management. The ideas could be modified enable it to suit the new generation or society but it should not be scrap off from management as it had been the guideline for managers and proven its effectiveness in assisting managers to developed perfect managing skills for many years. In this essay I will try to prove Fayol’s five elements of management is still relevant for managers in this new era because it had been a guideline, although been modified enable to suit the new society but it still relevant as it is the basic of management.
Likewise, modern scholars attribute and trace the introduction of the primary functions to two presentations, given on separate occasions, by Fayol, to colleagues in the French mining industry. In 1916, Henri Fayol released a publication to a local trade journal in France titled, “Administration de Industrielle et Generale.” In 1917 that publication was released as a book to the French public. Ultimately, nearly thirty years after its circulation in France it was translated to English and about 15,000 copies were distributed throughout Great Britain (Breeze, Bedeian, Wren, 1998, p. 907). It was the translated information within his publication and two presentations that originally brought forth Fayol’s five primary functions and fourteen principles of management. Fayol began his career as a mining engineer and all of his daily research and data was tested and recorded utilizing the scientific method of enquiry (Wood, Wood, 2002, p. 146). Fayol applied noteworthy restorative techniques while operating as acting C.E.O. of the Commabault Firm. He acquired the company position during a looming bankruptcy and pending acquisition of the mining companies located within the town of Dacazeville, France. Considering his scientific background and exemplary managerial skills in the face of adversity, I am not surprised that Fayol managed to innovate a trustworthy system
Managers nowadays do not actually do what a manager really should do back in the eighties. Changes that occurred in the new economy, the increasing use of technology in business, and the effects of globalisation towards business world have led management into a whole new dimension. New managers are expected to be able to manage on an international scale, act strategically, utilize technology, establish values, and of course, act responsibly as well. (Crainer, 1998) Henry Mintzberg once asked, "What do managers do?" After conducting his research based on a study of five CEOs, he concluded that managerial work involves interpersonal role, decisional role and informational role. And the fact is that, managers get things done through other people. Therefore, managers are required to possess certain skills and competencies which allow them to play these roles effectively and efficiently throughout the four functions of management. (Mintzberg, 1998)
Our group project is on Henri Fayol’s “Administrative Management Theory”. As a group member I took on a task of researching his theory.
Miles, R. (1975) Theories of Management: Implications for Organisational Behaviour and Development. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Management plays a significant role in how business operates. The diversity of approaches to the theoretical and practical background of management has come up with several versions of what is meant by such key words as management and organization. The academia views expressed in relation to management theories take a different role than that prescribed to managers. There has not been any concrete definition of management even though the classic definition of Henri fayol still remains in contention to be the preferred choice after eighty years. In the context of what is required I would like to elaborate on the following journals.
Henri Mintzberg considers the image of management which was developed from the work of Henry Fayol as one of folklore rather than fact. However, it could be argued that the image portrayed by Fayol is superior to that of Mintzberg, and the latter’s description is of rather ineffective management! Who do think is right?
Rodrigues, C. (2001), “Fayol’s 14 Principles of Management then and now: a framework for managing today’s organisations effectively”, Monclair State University, New Jersey.
Nowadays, management has become an important part of the society. The role of management is to assist the organisation to make the best use of its resource to achieve its goal. Base on the aim of management, one of the theorists Henri Fayol proposed the four necessary management functions: planning, organisation, leading, controlling are the tools managers use to achieve these goals. (Jones 2006) This essay is going to describe and discuss these functions.
Gosling, J. and H. Mintzberg (2003). "The Five Minds of a Manager." Harvard Business Review (November 2003): 1-10.
Over the past hundred years management has continuously been evolving. There have been a wide range of approaches in how to deal with management or better yet how to improve management functions in our ever changing environment. From as early as 1100 B.C managers have been struggling with the same issues and problems that manager’s face today. Modern managers use many of the practices, principles, and techniques developed from earlier concepts and experiences.
First and foremost, to learn more about the foundation for the birth of the management theory and its details, we will look at Fayol’s life, work, attainments and his theory. Henri Fayol was born in France in 1841, educated at the Lycée at Lyons and afterward trained to be a mining engineer at the national School of Mines at St Etienne. He then joined the Commentry - Fourchambault Company, a coal mining and iron foundry combine where he quickly ascended through the managerial ranks – from engineer aged 19, became manager of the Commentry pits at the age of 25, to manager of a group of coalmines at 31. When being 47 years old, he finally took the position of managing director of Commentry - Fourchambault and remained as its chief executive until retiring in 1918. In the 1916 to 1923 period, he published General and Industrial Management and set up a Centre for Administrative Studies (CAS) to develop and publiciz...