Management: Fayol vs Mintzberg

Asforthe word ‘management’, there has been long debate about its meaning. For our purpose, we take the perspective of the functions that managers

After comparing Ch.2, 3, and 4 of Mintzberg’s novel, Simply Managing with Lussier’s textbook, Management Fundamentals, as well as the material covered in class, and my own personal experiences a few connection have been brought to mind regarding each chapter. In the paragraphs below, I will explain the connections I found related to each chapter.

According to our text, Henry Mintzberg created three managerial roles. These roles include interpersonal, information, and decisions roles. The interpersonal role requires a figurehead, leader, and a liaison. Informational roles require monitor, disseminator, and a spokesperson. Or in other words, informational roles involve "collecting, receiving, and disseminating information" (Pg 11). Decision roles need an entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiators. According to Mintzberg, decisional roles should involve thinking and doing.

Henri Fayol, was a French mining engineer by trade for a company called Commentry-Fourchamboult-Decazeville, before becoming a managing director at the same firm. He wrote a short publication ‘General and Industrial Management’ – which was translated by Constance Storrs and printed in 1949. Within this publication, Fayol laid out a rational outlook as to what management is; which entailed 5 fundamentals: to forecast and plan – to come up with a “plan of action”; to organise – arranging a task; to command – directing those involved with the

The administrative management viewpoint evolved early in the 1900s and is most closely identified with Henri Fayol (1841-1925), a French industrialist. Fayol’s work, “Administration industrielle et générale (1916)”, later translated into the 1949 “General and industrial administration”, is one of the first and most widely quoted analyses on management. As a result, Fayol influenced many writers, most notably Urwick. Although, there have been many theories supporting Fayol’s ideas, but there have been many writers who have directly opposed Fayol, the most prominent one being Henry Mintzberg, who in his “The Nature of Managerial Work (1973)” regarded Fayol’s ideas as “folklore”. The aim of this essay is to evaluate the works of both Fayol and Mintzberg, discussing the pros and cons of both the theories. Moreover, the essay will depict that how Fayol has been able to withstand “the test of time” and prove that his theory cannot be termed as “folklore”.

In 1888, a French man named Henri Fayol was a director of a mining company that was going out of business when he changed the company and made it profitable once again (Carpenter, Bauer, Erdogan, 2010, p. 68). Fayol realized that what he had discovered helped him to save his company, so he decided, after retiring, to share his knowledge and tools with other companies if they wanted to also be successful (Carpenter, Bauer, Erdogan, 2010, p. 68). He believed that people did not have the guidelines for proper management, since he had the knowledge he put together what is now known as Fayol’s fourteen principles of management (Yoo, Lemak, Choi, 2006, p. 353). Fayol saw a problem that he could potentially fix, and with that the foundation of proper management skills was

Critically, an early pioneer of this managerial structure within organisations was Henri Fayol. Fayol devised a ‘common sense’ view of the managerial responsibilities

While scientific development emphasised principles to improve worker effectiveness, another branch within the classical school arose, administrative management, with its main contributor being French industrialist Henri Fayol. He is regarded as the father of administrative management as he proposed fourteen principles of management intended to assist managers in determining what to do to manage an organisation more effectively (Rodrigues, 2001). Fayol’s ideas are still valid in today’s organisations and his definitions of management are widely used in this field of study. In his book General and Industrial Management, published in 1916, he defined management as “to manage is to forecast and plan, to organise, to command, to coordinate and to control” (Fayol, 1916). This definition yielded the now known functions of management. Fayol’s approach to management has several similarities with Taylor’s scientific management theory. Included in Fayol’s fourteen principles is the division of work, which outlined the need for workers to specialise in specific jobs (Rodrigues, 2001). This idea of work specialisation has been derived from Taylor’s principles of scientific management. Furthermore, the empowerment of managers, proper training of employees and the use of a reasonable rewards system were principles that originated

Henri Fayol’s theory was almost a century old and was originally written in French. Further review on several journal articles has led to an overview background of Fayol’s working life which provided the foundation that conceptualized his theory. According to Wren (2001), Fayol was appointed as the Director in a mining company, Decazeville, where he succeeded to turnaround the company to become profitable. Fayol was the first person to classify the functions of a manager’s job. Fayol (1949; as cited in Wren, 2001) identified five key functions in managerial works.as planning, organising, command, coordination and control. Planning consists of any managerial work that involves setting goals and coordinating actions to

Administrative theory is a theory that emphasizes the perspective of senior managers about the guidance to design an organization as a whole. Generally, it is a formalized administrative structure which is relevant to their responsibilities. Therefore Henri Fayol, a French mining engineer and executive has summarized his management experiences which is known as Fayol’s Fourteen Principles of Management. His intention was on how managers should accomplish their managerial duties. Henri Fayol discussed the fourteen principles which is Division of work, Authority, Discipline, Unity of Command, Unity of Direction, Subordination, Remuneration, Centralization, Scalar Chain, Order, Equity, Stability, Initiative and Esprit de corps. These

The Herzberg theory is the subject of this paper. The purpose of this paper is to explain Mr. Herzberg’s management theory. The background of the Herzberg theory comes from five different sources and those sources all wrote about or either published Mr. Herzberg’s theory. The sources are (Accel-Team, 2005),

The paper will explore different theories of Management, include Henri Fayol and Henry Mintzberg. This section of this paper provides an overview of functions, roles and skills required of a manager. What is Management? Management can define as the process of reaching organisational goals by working with and through people and other organisational resources. (Management Innovation, 2008).

Early management theories adopted by such proponents as Henri Fayol, Mary Parker Follett and Max Weber are relevant in todays’ world. In this essay I am going to discuss about all three theorists and how their theories are still relevant for managers in the 21st century in meeting the challenges. In the classical approach to management there are three branches under it. They are, scientific management, administrative principles and bureaucratic organisation. Henry Fayol and Mary Parker Follett developed theories for administrative principles and Max Weber developed a theory for bureaucratic organisation (Schermerhorn et al. 2014, p.36). First we will be going through Henri Fayol and then Mary Parker Follett as they both made theories

Henri Fayol (1841-1925), was ‘’famous for the classical school of management, which emphasises command and control’’. (Robinson, 2005) He is deemed to be one of the founders of general management; also referred to as the administrative theory and later on becoming known as ‘Fayolism’.

Henri Fayol: Henri Fayol was administrative management’s most articulate spokesperson. A French industrialist, Fayol was unknown to U.S. managers and scholars until his most important work, General and Industrial Management, was translated into English in 1930. 16 Drawing on his own managerial experience, he attempted to systematize the practice of management to provide guidance and direction to other managers. Fayol also was the first to identify the specific managerial functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. He believed that these functions accurately reflect the core of the management process. Most contemporary management books still use this framework, and practicing managers agree that these