However, there are limitations to his view. An important note to remember is that, as parts III and IV were never published, his work was incomplete. Also, in contrast to modern management, Fayol’s view failed to recognize self-management within an organization:
“I have attempted to set a numerical value to the relative importance of each ability (managerial, technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting) in the evaluation of employees and heads of businesses… In businesses of all kinds the essential ability of the lower ranks is the technical ability characteristic of the business and the essential ability of the higher ranks is managerial ability.”
(Fayol 1949, p. 8)
I believe that the five components that Fayol noted are a portion of those required by modern management. They are of equal importance alongside other characteristics such as motivation and empowerment. Often managers are required to perform standard activities such as “non-managerial activities, like conducting or assisting with technical work.” (Hales 2001, p. 51)
Robert’s case study, based on empirical research (Roberts, J. 1984), illustrates how Val, a manager of a sales team, has shifted to a more humanistic approach and from Douglas McGregor’s Theory X to Theory Y:
“Rather than controlling her staff, she now had to concentrate on stopping herself controlling; she seemed to recognized that treating staff ‘like kids’ might well have been a contributory factor to the high rate of turnover in staff. Now, rather than forcing them to work, she had to force herself to let others be responsible – ‘you can’t expect people to act responsibly if you’re standing over them’. Deprived of its coercive character she was now able to present herself to staff as an adviser and co-ordinator of their activities.”
(Roberts, J. 1984, p. 292)
McGregor’s Theory X and Y moves away from the idea of a single solution to managing and is known as a ‘contingency approach’ to management. They build on different assumptions but fail to recognize that these may be self-fulfilling. I believe that Fayol recognized that managers’ role was not just to control and command employees but also included allowing them to use their own initiative and in some way empower them:
“The manager must be able to sacrifice some personal vanity in order to grant this sort of satisfaction to subordinates. Other things being equal, moreover, a manager able to permit the exercise of initiative on the part of subordinates is infinitely superior to one who cannot do so.”
(Fayol 1949, p. 40)
In today’s society, organizations exist in a wide variety of structures, sizes and operations. Managing is an art form and not science. It involves getting things done though people as a very large proportion of managers’ time is spent talking to various people in different environments. Also, studies have found that managers infrequently command their subordinates, especially higher up the organizational hierarchy one goes. As a result, they are constantly on the move with work being fragmented. (Watson T. 2006, p. 172)
With the additional affect of globalization and subsequent mergers across national boundaries, managers have to adapt their role. In addition, there are the added affects of an increase in middle-management, empowerment within organizations and organizational downsizing. As a result, managers may play a smaller part in organizing and a greater role in commanding. Also, this could lead to what theorists have described as ‘the end of management’ or at least be significantly altered:
“There is a strong case that management … could finally die out sometime early in the twenty-first century”
(Koch, R. & Godden, I. 1996, p.17)
In his work, Hales also questions what managers actual do and whether their role has an impact on their organizations. “First, it is still not clear which activities are exclusively “managerial” – as distinct from other behaviours in which managers may engage, and activities which are concerned with “managing” but are carried out by non-managers or undertaken by everyone as part of their daily lives. The question “what do managers do and no-one else does?” remains unanswered.” (Hales 2001, p. 51)
In ‘In Search of Management’ (Watson T. 2006), Watson trails an organization and produces an account on the managers’ views on their work and organization, as well as the role they play. One of the technical managers called Steve clearly felt that he had lost his function within the organization and raises the question as to whether his occupational identity is still clear:
“I certainly don’t feel like I’ve given up working but I have to admit, all joking aside, I really do wonder that my bloody job is sometimes. I say to myself “I’m in charge of this office and the office in Birmingham” but then I ask whether I’m really in charge of even myself when it comes down to it. I get told to jump here, jump there, sort this, sort that, more than I ever did before I was even a section leader.”
(Watson, T. 1994, p.29)
Both of these pieces of research support the view that maybe managers are a dying breed and eventually all organizations will become horizontal structures. However, the term organizational culture which has been influential since the 1970s will probably always be associated with organizations. This is the shared organizational values, beliefs and norms. CMT (contemporary management theory) assumes that organizations are in a new era of society, technology, economics and politics, and continues to be fundamental to modern organizational and management thinking. As a result, organizations are more flexible and less bureaucratic. The distribution of such a theory has been gradual; however, Japan has witnessed great success and as a consequence been admired by the West. The shared values in Japanese management are split up into ‘soft’; skills, style and staff, and ‘hard’; structure, strategy and systems. (Pascale & Athos 1982) The successful Japanese organizations were those that concentrated on all seven Ss, unlike most US organizations who concentrated on only the hard Ss. As a result, there was a reduction in internal conflicts between workers and functions in the successful organizations.
Related to CMT is the idea that storytelling is a different field within management. Organizational theorists such as Karen Legge and Yiannis Gabriel see leadership as ‘storytelling’; having the capacity to provide a convincing narrative about what the organization is and how individuals fit into it. Associated with this is the idea of ‘charisma’ and the effectiveness of storytelling lies not just with the leader but with the ‘followers’ and how ‘the story’ fits in with the situation. In addition, with the existence of roles and skills, that does not mean that there is only one way to lead. Different styles of leadership have been identified by behavioural studies.
To summarize, my conclusion is that the role of future managers will have a greater number of components and the number of managers may decrease, for example, as a result of downsizing, but they will still be present in the foreseeable future. Returning back to the start of this essay and Fayol’s work, I believe that he recognized that his components and principles were subject to change and not exhaustive. At that period, they were a useful tool to raise and develop management theories which he thought were important:
“There I bring to an end this review of principles, not because the list is exhausted—this list has no precise limits—but because to me it seems at the moment especially useful to endow management theory with a dozen or so well-established principles, on which it is appropriate to concentrate general discussion…. Are they to have a place in the management code which is to be built up?”
(Fayol 1949, p. 41)
References:
Clegg, S., Kornberger, M. & Pitsis, T. (2008) Managing & Organizations An Introduction to Theory & Practice. 2nd ed. London: SAGE
Fayol, H. (1949) General and industrial management / translated from the French edition by Constance Storrs, with a foreword by L. Urwick. London: Pitman
Hales, C. (2001) Does it matter what managers do?, Business Strategy Review, 12 (2), 50-58.
Koch, R. & Godden, I. (1996) Managing without Management. London: Nicholas Brealey
Pascale, R. T. & Athos, A.G. (1982) The art of Japanese management. London : Allen Lane
Roberts, J. (1984) The Moral Character of Management Practice, Journal of Management Studies, 21 (3), 287-302.
Watson, T. (1994) In Search of Management. Rev. ed. London: Routledge
Watson, T. (2006) Organizing and Managing Work. 2nd ed. Harlow: FT Prentice-Hall
Bibliography:
Clegg, S., Kornberger, M. & Pitsis, T. (2008) Managing & Organizations An Introduction to Theory & Practice. 2nd ed. London: SAGE
Fayol, H. (1949) General and industrial management / translated from the French edition by Constance Storrs, with a foreword by L. Urwick. London: Pitman
Hales, C. (2001) Does it matter what managers do?, Business Strategy Review, 12 (2), 50-58.
Hales, C.P. (1986) What do managers do? A critical review of the evidence. Journal of Management Studies, 23 (1), 88-115.
Heller, R. (1990) The Making of Managers. Harmondsworth: Penguin
Koch, R. & Godden, I. (1996) Managing without Management. London: Nicholas Brealey
O’Gorman, C., Bourke, S. & Murray, J.A. (2005) The nature of managerial work in small growth-oriented small businesses. Small Business Economics 25 (1), 1-16.
Pascale, R. T. & Athos, A.G. (1982) The art of Japanese management. London : Allen Lane
Pfeffer, J. (1992) Managing with power: politics and influence in organizations. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press
Roberts, J. (1984) The Moral Character of Management Practice, Journal of Management Studies, 21 (3), 287-302.
Watson, T. (1994) In Search of Management. Rev. ed. London: Routledge
Watson, T. (2006) Organizing and Managing Work. 2nd ed. Harlow: FT Prentice-Hall
Willmott, H. (1987 Studying Managerial Work. A Critique and a Proposal. Journal of Management Studies, 24 (3), 249-270.