Public Administration

The task: Henri Fayol presented his analysis of the management function in 1916 and it has largely been

Henri Fayol was acknowledged as one of the founders of contemporary management practices. His theories were the cornerstone of management as a discipline and a field (Mildred et al, 2010). Fayol advocated 14 management principles which were to be used as a guide to make a successful manager (Wren, 1995). These principles were: division of duties, authority, discipline, unity of command, unity of direction, subordination of self-interest, remuneration, centralisation, line of

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

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

The classical school of management is thought to of originated around the turn of the current century and dominated management thinking into the 1920 's. It had one main focus and this was on the efficiency of work processes, either through bureaucratic management that focuses on rules and procedures, or scientific management which concentrates on the one best way in which a job can be done. It is now commonly considered by modern theorists that these ways of management are outdated and not completely relevant to

Henry Fayol, a 20th century mine owner, first coined term, "Four Functions of Management" to define a functional organization design, focused on essential skill sets. ("Four Functions of Management", 1999) Since then, processes, projects, teams, systems, and different specialisms, like Marketing and Human Resources have manipulated, added to, and overlaid these concepts. However, these four basic concepts are still at the core of managerial thinking, they are Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling.

According tot the Administrative Management Theory, management is the process of getting certain tasks completed through the use of people. In this theory developed by Henri Fayol, he believes that it was very important to have the use of a multiplied of people instead of just relying on one person alone. Henri Fayol is known today as the “Father of Modern Management”, his theory has shaped what is know today as the Administrative Model, which relies on Fayols fourteen principles of management. These principles have been a significant influence on modern management; they have helped early 20th century manager learn how to organize and interact with their employees in a productive way. Fayols principles of management were the ground work in which his theory was formed. He believed highly in the division of work throughout a project and within the project he believed that the task at hand had to be done with a certain level of discipline in order for the division of work to be able to run smoothly without error.

What sets Fayol out from other theorists involved in management was the fact that he wasn’t American like previous theorists such as Taylor but was in fact French. He worked independently during the time when scientific management became known to the world. Originally he was a mining engineer and it was from this that he came to realise that managing a business required a lot of skills apart from technical (Morley, 2013). In 1916 he wrote, “Administration Industrielle et Generale”, which was later translated and published in English as, “General and Industrial Management”, (Morley, 2013). This publication established him as a leader in European /management in the 1900’s according to, (Morley,

• To explore the nature of classical organization theory • To become familiar with the key classical theorists’ work • To understand the principles and impact of:

Organizational theory starts general and moves to specifics. Beginning with the classical model, which its organizations operate

The classical discipline of management was primarily concerned with developing such a theory to improve management effectiveness in organizations (Hartman, n.d.). Within the classical discipline there are the bureaucratic management, administrative management and scientific management perspectives. The classical theorists, such as, Weber, Taylor and Fayol expanded the view of management. Not only did they seek to develop a comprehensive theory of management, but they also focused on providing the tools a manager required for dealing with their organizational challenges.

Classical organizational theory originated in the first half of the 20th century. This theory concentrated on formal organizations and ideas to increase efficiency in their management. This theory merged together the scientific, bureaucratic and administrative theories. Relative to structure, this theory was constructed on a hierarchical structure dividing workers based on functionality with various reporting paths on every working unit. That is, workers report to their respective manager(s) for their tasks as well as disciplinary matters. This theory puts the manager/owner of the organization in total control over the workers. Furthermore, this theory employed enabling technologies to increase efficiency. The classical

structure) and division of labor (each department is responsible for a particular aspect of the

Henri Fayol was the first to describe the four managerial functions in the later 1880s. He noted that managers at all levels, in both for-profit and not-for-profit firms must still perform each of the following functions.

Every organization has three levels of management. The first level of supervision, middle level of managing other managers or supervisors and top level of vice president. Some researchers believe that the manager has to manage the basic tasks that are associated with systems and structures. The management principles founder Henri Fayol, in his work on “general and industrial management” outlined 6 main activities, which should have management: forecasting, planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling. According to Frederick Taylor’s theory who was