The emergence of the management process and organization theory.

The emergence of the management process and organization theory.

This chapter is focus in two individuals whose their contributions to the evolution of management thought were really important. Both lived during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. One got knowledge through experience and the other one was an academician, but neither was accorded the full measure of his contributions until some decades, after his death. Henri Fayol, a french manager-engineer was the first writer to advance a formal statement of management elements and principles. Max Weber a german economist-sociologist addressed the more fundamental issue of how organizations should be structured. But both wanted to mix theory with practice. Those ideas have influenced for all these years even today, even today, continue to significantly influence managerial thinking.

HENRI FAYOL: ( 1841-1925)

Jules Henri Fayol was born in Constantinople; Henri received his elementary education in La Voulte, later Henri attended a polytechnic school in Valence, where he was graduated. Henri followed his father’s footsteps so he studied to be a mining engineer. He graduated in 1860 and went to work at the Commentry coalfield in central France.

From 1860 until 1866 Fayol worked as an engineer and made notable advances in the technique of fighting underground coal fires. This technique helped that he could achieve a good charge in the company. In 1888 Comambault was in dire financial straits, this same year Fayol was named as a managing director of Comambault and charged with revitalizing its operations. He started to seek the solution at the dire financial straits of the company with the assistance of Joseph Carlioz. Fayol integrated Comambault backward to mine coal and iron ore and forward to smelt the iron into steel and to sell both the mined coal and raw steel. Fayol established research facilities to advance Comambault’s technological capacity. He opened new mills to expand Comambault’s geographical base. hired staff specialists in research, manufacturing, and selling; and, to gain a competitive advantage repositioned Comambault as a supplier of specialty steels.

For Fayol, management involved all the activities associated with producing, distributing, and selling a product. A manager needed to be able to formulate plans, organize plant and equipment, deal with people, and much more. But he never learned that in engineering school.

From his experiences as a general manager, Fayol began to develop his own ideas about managing. Beginning in his early days as a mining engineer at the Commentry coalfields, Fayol had kept notes on events that had affected mine output. Foreshadowing modern thinking on work groups, Fayol organized miners into self-selected teams. This increased group cohesiveness and, in turn, reduced employee turnover. Moreover, work-group output increased as the teams refused to accept inferior members.

...