Fayol VS Mintzberg, or Fayol AND Mintzberg
✜Introduction
Management can be defines as “the organization and coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve defined objectives” (businessdictionary.com, 2014). Pryor and Taneja (2010) regard to Henri Fayol as a ‘pioneer on the field of management theory’. He developed one of the first studies of management, which was a general theory of business administration that approaches management and organisations in a rational approach. His view on management is sometimes called Fayolism (Witzel, 2003).
However recent empirical studies such as Mintzberg (1975) are against Fayol’s view of management, and believe that it is folklore (Mintzberg, 1975).
In this essay, I will be describing and critically analyzing both Fayol’s theory as well as Mintzberg’s theory, and seeing the extent to which Fayol’s theory has been made redundant by Empirical researchers. I will also explain ways in which both theories relate to each other.
✜ Description of Henri Fayol’s work.
Henri Fayol was a French mining director and engineer who used his experience to develop his theory and concept of administration in his book “administration industrielle et générale” which was published in 1916. It was only in 1949 where Fayol’s work became more known after the publication of the English translation of his book “General and industrial administration”. (Wren, Bedeian, and Breeze, 2002).
Fayol (1949) argued that all industrial organisations
Henri Fayol was an Engineer and French industrialist. He recognizes the management principles rather than personal traits. Fayol was the first to identify management as a continuous process of evaluation. Fayol developed five management functions. These functions are roles performed by all managers which includes planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling. Additionally, he recognizes fourteen principles that should guide management of organizations.
1925: Henri Fayol died in aris, 19 November 1925 at the age of 84 years. During final period of his life, rather like Taylor before him. Henri Fayol has also spent considerable time with the introduction of his administration, management theory is Fayolisme. He has founded an organization that is the Center d 'Etudes Administrative, which he himself who chaired the weekly meeting of prominent industrialists, writers, other than he had been an officials, academics and is a member of the military. One result can be seen in the circulation of 2000 copies of pamphlets against the French army by Marshal Lyautey in Morocco which has applied the principles of this theory Fayol in the military administration. In addition, Fayol himself also gave a talk at the Ecole Supérieure de la Guerre, and teach his ideas on French navy 's supply school.
Mintzberg doesn’t just look at the internal factors that influence managers but he also looks at the external influences as he uses the systems approach. Managers do not just spend their time planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling, they also do other important task such as dealing with customers, going to meetings and
Henri Fayol (1841-1925) was a theorist who believed in a theory which was based on how management interacts with the performance of a business. Management theory is defined as ‘bringing change in actual behaviour’ (chapter 2 article). In this modern day, many businesses rely on Fayol’s Classic theory to manage staff effectively. Fayol introduced the idea of splitting crucial activities that firms carry out on a day to day basis into 6 separate groups (technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting and management). However, out of those activities, Fayol believed that managerial activities within organisations, whether they are big or small, where senior jobs are present, most important. (Henri Fayol article 1949) He came to the conclusion that within the managerial sector, there are five elements. This included, planning, organisation, command, coordination and control. These were listed in his book General and Industrial Administration (1916) (Henri Fayol article 1949). This essay is going to explore different interpretations of management and specifically comparing classical theorists such as Fayol and Taylor as well as humanist theorists such as McGregor and finally, empirical theorists such as Luthen. This essay will also analyse Fayol’s theory and how it has been criticised over the years.
The management and organisations discipline considers Henry Fayol (1841 – 1925) to be one of the early practitioners of management who recognised principles and theories of management. Indeed, current students, teachers and practitioners find Fayol’s management principles to be of interest. This is especially the case since numerous management authors (Bose, 2013: Lamond, 2005: Lewis, 2007) have the common belief that Fayol’s effort founded the elementary framework and principles for management theory currently being applied. Fayol dedicated a lot of time to endorsing the theory of administration and throughout this time argued that all business activities precipitate undertakings which are classified into six groups: financial, commercial, technical, accounting security, and management (Lamond, 2005). While focusing on the management aspect, Fayol considered it to be a systematic arrangement and integration of the financial, accounting, production, and sales functions of the organisation. Hence, the purpose of Fayol’s management theory was a way of establishing management as a different aspect from other technical activities, however, important to the integration of various organisational activities in order to realise a common objective. In that respect, Parker & Ritson, 2005 posit that Fayol’s management principles offered and continue to offer an overall management outlook for practising managers as well as an instructional manual for academicians in the management discipline. The objective of this report is to therefore critically discuss Fayol’s perspectives through an analysis of these views as well as other
Assessment - Essay Assessment (Essay, 2000 words, 30%) is an individual essay. The assignment requires you to use to build an argument that answers the question “Is Henri Fayol’s management theory relevant today?” Your argument should be presented as an essay. You may however make use of headings to highlight sections of your work Your essay should: Define the topic: outline what the report is about and how it will be structured i.e. what aspects are you focusing on and why.
Management is the concept of getting work done through others. This concept began evolving in the 1880’s from being ideas and practices into a field of study. In Chuck Williams’ recent edition of “Management”, he establishes that there were several instrumental influences on the paradigm shift in the field of management. Those parties include but are not limited to, Fredrick Taylor, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Henry Gantt, and Henri Fayol. These parties developed and engineered complimentary principles, ideas, and tools of management, which have been given significant credit in the foundation of management as a field of study.
The essay will endeavor to provide an insight into how Fayol’s basic principles of Classical Management Functions are indeed useful in describing managerial work. In the last (20th) century, the role of managers in business becomes more diverse as the number of tasks in which businesses were involved in significantly grew in quantity and complexity. As a result there was an increased interest in the most effective and efficient method of management. This led to the development of different management theories, which included classical
Many experts in management field have analyzed the concept of management in some certain ways, but one of the most comprehensive concept tends to be the concept stated by Fayol (1930). These concepts consist of “Division, Authority, Discipline, Unity of Command, Unity of Direction, Subordination of Individual Interests, Remuneration, Centralization, Scalar Chain, Order, Equity, Stability of Tenure of Personnel, Initiative, and Esprit de Corps (Team Spirit)”. Management can be defined as the art of using
Henri Fayol (1841-1925), was ‘’famous for the classical school of management, that emphasises command and control’’. (Robinson, 2005) He is deemed to be one of the founders of general and modern management; also referred to as the administrative theory and later becoming known as ‘Fayolism’.
In 1919, for the first time the world were introduced to the idea of management by Henri Fayol when the book Administration Industrielle et Générale – Prévoyance, Organisation, Commandement, Coordination, Contrôle was published. This is one of the earliest books explicitly discuss about management. Henri Fayol (1841-1925) was a very successful businessman with more than 30 years experiences as a managing director. In his book, Fayol defines management as comprising five functions: planning, organising, co-ordinating, commanding and controlling. While he has his modern critics, his approach to management continues to have appeal (Witzel, 2003). However Henry Mintzberg (2000), in his article The manager’s job: Folklore and fact has
For instance, Mintzberg (1973) claims that the Fayol’s management model has nothing in common with the reality of managerial work. Thus, relying on own observation of five senior managers, he concludes that managers would get some responsibilities and behaviours that will need to be adhered to with the type of management they are doing or for the type of organisation that they are working for, (Mintzberg, 1971; Fells, 2000). However, the main point of debates is the fact that the classical management theory outlined only general principles and provided a framework of what is the nature of managerial work. Fayol’s work is also regarded as being one of the first to be written down about manager’s roles based on observation research method. So as he was the first there is always a chance that he could be wrong, or this could be because times change, and this is apparent when trying to compare the classical approach to Mintzberg’s systems approach. Although Fayol’s classical approach was not really a tested solution so lacked any evidence, whereas another approach has been tested and can therefore be backed up by evidence to make it a more solid argument. In this case, the point is that the future studies could be more informative and
Henry Fayol has come to be recognized as the founding father of the classical management theory during the XX and XXI century. His theories, which are very famous all around the world, have been over the years the framework in the development of what is known as modern management. According to Van (2011) “Fayol gained world-wide fame for his 14 general principles of management. He distinguished six general activities for industrial enterprises: technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting and managerial. He defined five functions of management for the management component and these are still seen as relevant to organizations today”. Despite the fact that Fayol’s theories about management and administration ware born early 1900s, nowadays many directors and managers relay on such concepts to drive their organization towards success.
Henri Fayol (1841 – 1925) was the first father of management and was an overseeing executive for a French mining organization. He was seen as an issue supporter to traditional school of management hypothesis. His French management scholar accepted that management is a gained ability that can be taught where human skills are applies to system, not systems apply to individuals. He depicts management as capacities focused around his individual perception and involvement in the work force, while Henry Mintzberg has unlike opinion. Fayol has five elements of management; planning, commanding, coordinating and controlling. These elements are to foresee the future, plan for the future, creating diverse method structure, overseeing exercises, send data to staff and make sure that the things are going according to the plan furthermore get criticism with a specific end goal to remedy unseemly exercises.
Modern management principals are still based upon Fayol’s functions, Mintzberg’s roles and Katz ‘s skills even though they have been around for a long time in our dynamic environment. This is evident if you firstly understand what Fayol’s functions, Minzberg’s roles and Katz’s skills actually are and you look into new management texts and businesses.