Mintzberg vs Fayol

2306 Words10 Pages
With the publication of his work “General & Industrial Management” (Fayol, 1949, French version in 1916), Henri Fayol has been one of the most influential contributors to the concepts of management. Wide applications of his concepts on management have proven to be successful for the past decades, and his classical functions are still being widely applied today. However, recent empirical studies of management, more prominently, “The Nature of Management Work” (Mintzberg, 1973) disagrees with Fayol’s concepts. The outline of this essay is to provide a brief description of both Fayol’s and Mintzberg’s managerial studies, before analysing criticisms of Fayol’s work from the researchers of recent empirical studies of management, favourably by Mintzberg. In the analysis, weaknesses of the criticisms would be identified, which would be corresponded by counter arguments that support Fayol’s managerial studies respectively. Thereafter, critical comparison of both Fayol’s and Mintzberg’s work will be analysed, before concluding that Fayol’s work is still relevant to the contemporary managerial studies and application of management today. Henri Fayol established his managerial studies based on his own working experiences and a wide range of theoretical studies. He started work as an engineer at a large mining company since he was 19, before eventually assumed the director role of his company for 30 years, where the size of the organization has accumulated to more than 10,000 employees (Fayol, 1949). After retirement from his managerial career, he devoted his time into the study of management. Fayol studied problems of the state public services and conducted lectures at well-known institutions such as the “Écoles supérieures de guerre” (Fayol, 1949). According to Fayol (1949), management is defined by five classical functions: “Planning and Forecast,

More about Mintzberg vs Fayol

Open Document