THE COPPERBELT UNIVERSITY

DIRECTORATE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION AND OPEN LEARNING

MSC IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

GBS 550: MANAGEMENT THEORY AND PRACTICE

TERM PROJECT 1

By
Irad Sinkala
SIN: 21900229

Lecturer: Dr. Trinah Moore

4th October 2021

Introduction

For my Term Project, I decided to pick the exponent of administration theory Henri Fayol.

Henry Fayol was born in 1841 from a military engineer in a suburb of the now modern day
Instabul, Turkey. His father was appointed as a superintendent of the construction works the
construct a bridge called Galata across the Golden Horn. In the year 1947, Fayol’s family
returned to France and in the year 1960 Henri Fayol graduated from a mining academy. In the
same year at the age of 19, he started working at a mining firm as an engineer and management
trainee.

Under the classical school of Management, there are two approaches namely;

i. Scientific Management
ii. Administrative Management

Henri Fayol is referred to as the father of administrative management. Other contributors to

Administrative management include

 Mary Parker Follet

 Chester Benard
 Max Weber

Stoner et al. (2004), submitted that it was generally believed that managers are born, not made
but we have since learnt through this school of thought that management is a skill like any other
and can be taught if the underlying principles are understood.
Administrative Management has managed to develop basic management processes, procedures
and principles which managers can adhere to in order to achieve sound organizational structures
and success (Kuye et al., 2010). According to Kuye et al. (2010), this approach is only suitable
for simple and stable organizations and not for today's dynamic and complex organizations

Whereas scientific management focused on management as lower level in the organization,

Henri Fayol’s administrative management focuses on the entire organization as a whole or
holistically on its management processes and principles. This approach viewed the organization
from the top management point of view. I should mention here that Henri Fayol preferred to use
the term administration instead of management in his studies.
In his studies, Fayol found out that all activities in an industrial organization can be categorized
into six (6) grouping namely

1. Technical
2. Commercial
3. Financial
4. Security
5. Accounting
6. Managerial

The technical activities related directly to production while the commercial activities related
mainly to the buying, selling and exchange of the produced products in the industrial
organization. The search of capital and its optimum use was associated with the financial
activities whereas the need to protect both the properties and the people related to security
activities. Accounting included statistical activities. The last part is that of managerial activities
which includes planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and control.

He stressed out that these activities exist in every business setup regardless its size.

FAYOL’S APPROACH TOWARDS ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT

In his study of management, Fayol’s work can be divided into three parts namely;

1. Managerial qualities and training

2. General principles of management
3. Elements of management

Managerial Qualities and Training

Under this section, Fayol identified six qualities that a manager required to perform his task.
According to Kuye et al. (2010), Fayol categorised the activities into six and they are:

1. Physical – This means that a manager should be physically fit. He should be of good
physical and mental health. Additionally, he should have the vigor to perform the work in
an effective manner.
 2. Mental – Should have the ability to understand and learn new things. He should be in a
position to take rightful judgement and capable enough to undertake the task of a
manager.
3. Moral - under this capability, Fayol describes a manager as one who is firm, should be
initiative spearheaded, loyal to the organization that he works for and must possess his
own dignity.
4. Educational – On this capability, Fayol addressed competency of the manager to holder
their position. Generally being aware and qualified.
5. Technical – the manager should be aware of what the organization is actually doing and
producing. He should possess the technical knowhow of doing the work involved.
6. Experience – this arises from the work being performed. Fayol believed that the manager
becomes better with more experience acquired.

Fayol observed that out of all these qualities, the most important ability of a worker is technical
knowhow. The importance of managerial ability increases as one goes up the scalar chain whci is
to simply say the more experienced a manager gets, the better his managerial abilities gets.

General principles of management

Under the general principles of management, Fayol makes an emphasis of two aspects namely;

 The list of management principles is not exhaustive but suggestive

 The principles of management are not rigid but flexible depending on the type of the
organization involved.

Fayol listed 14 principles of management as named below

1) Division of work - this principle suggest that work should be sub divided into parts given
to individuals according to their expertise. This basically leads to specialization
characterizing in less wastage and reduce the risk of not getting the work undone.
2) Authority and responsibility - authority means power to make or take decisions whereas
responsibility means obligation to complete assigned tasks on time.
3) Discipline – this is the obedience, application, energy, behavior and respect that employess
exhibit.
 4) Unity of command – the person should get instructions or command from one superior
only
5) Unity of direction – implies one head and one plan
6) Subordinate of individual interest to general interest – organization interest must take
precedence over personal interest
7) Remuneration of personnel – It should be fair, reasonable and satisfactory. It should
provide maximum satisfactory for both the employees and employers. Turnovers is as a
result of dissatisfaction.
8) Centralization and decentralization – everything that increases the importance of
subordinates is decentralization and everything that will decrease the importance of
subordinates is centralization. Smaller companies always practice centralization.
9) Scalar Chain (Line of Authority) – There should be a scalar chain of authority and
communication ranging from the highest and lowest level.
10) Order - this principle relates to things and people being in the right place. Everything
thing should have a place and there must be a place for everything.
11) Equity – It’s a combination of fairness, kindness and justice. It’s not possible to treat every
employee equally.
12) Stability of Tenure off Personnel – no employee should be removed within a short period
of time. Must be given ample time to understand the organization.
13) Initiative – Managers should encourage their subordinates to take initiative within the limit
of their authority.
14) Esprit de Corps – a French word that means ‘union is strength’ or team spirit.

Elements of management

Under the elements of management, Henri Fayol brought out five (5) functions that should be
performed by management. In Griffin's (1993) view, Fayol was the first to identify the specific
management functions. Additionally, he viewed management as a process consisting of these
five elements or functions namely;
  Planning – Managers need to develop a plan for the future on how they will execute the
tasks to guide future decisions
 Organizing – this is appropriately determining of the combination of resources which
include man, machine and material to accomplish the task in the most effective way.
 Commanding – directing subordinates on what needs to be done and how it should be
done.
 Coordinating – arranging and integrating group efforts towards unity of action.
 Controlling – Manager must ensure that all activities that needs to be done is according to
the set plan and in case of variations, they should be controlled and aligned.

OTHER THEORIES

Koontz (1961) classified the management theories under six different groups which are as
follows.

 The management process school of thought

 The empirical school of thought
 The human behavioral school of thought
 The social systems school of thought
 The decision theory school of thought
 The mathematical school of thought

Although Koontz classification was generally accepted, many other classification have been
developed also.In the year 1976, Evans developed classification of managerial theories into
eleven.

But Hitt, Michael A, Middle Mist, R Dennis and Mathis, Robert L. (1979) classification is
widely accepted still now that clearly deviates from earlier perspectives.

These are stated as follows;

 Classical management school of thought

 Neoclassical management school of thought
 Modern management school of thought
The above mentioned categories hold a similar group of managerial ideologies. These
management theories, their inherent schools of thoughts, contributions to the field of
management as well as their individual and inherent limitations are discussed in this review

The Human Relations and Neo-Human Relations Approach

Specifically, Henri Fayol is listed among the exponents of classical school of management. The
Human Relations and Neo-Human Relations Approach found a fault in the classical school
because it mainly focused on tasks, production, and organization structure instead of the people.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the attention moved to the employee behavior and social
factor at work. This led to the human relations and neo-human relations (behavioural) approach
(Mullins, 2011; Kuye et al., 2010).

OWN EXPERIENCE AND OTHER RESEARCHERS VIEWS

The Henri Fayol administrative theory approach is mainly used by the Zambian security services
and force. Directly stating some of Fayol’s principles of management linked to Zambian security
forces are discipline, authority, unity of command, centralization, order and spirit de corps

Stoner et al. (2004), submitted that it was generally believed that managers are born, not made
but we have since learnt through this school of thought that management is a skill like any other
and can be taught if the underlying principles are understood. Administrative management has
managed to develop basic management processes, procedures and principles which managers can
adhere to in order to achieve sound organizational structures and success (Kuye et al., 2010).

I can relate this to the Zambian system where at the Police station before anyone can receive or
hear your complaint, you are made to write down a statement.

According to Kuye et al. (2010), this approach is only suitable for simple and stable
organizations and not for today's dynamic and complex organizations. This explains why our
security wings have not involved over the years because this system is suitable for smaller
organizations
REFERENCE

Stoner, J.A.F, Freeman, R.E. and Gilbert, D.R. 2004. Management, 6th edition. India: Pearson.
Thompson, V. 1961. Modern Organization. New York, NY:

George, O., Owoyemi, O. and Kuye, L. 2012. Impact of Hofstede's (1980, 2001) 'Software of the
mind' on the transfer of management practices: The case of the transfer of the British voluntarist
employment relations practice to Nigeria. Journal of Management and Strategy, 3(4): pp. 56-64

Kuye, O.L., Gbadamosi A. and Adeoye A.O. 2010. ‘Theories of comparative management’. In
Ogundele, O.J.K (eds). Comparative management and administration: A book of readings.
Lagos: Concept Publications. pp 71-87

Griffin, R.W. 1993. Management. London: Houghton-Mifflin Company.