Advantages And Disadvantages Of Fayols Concept Management Essay

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Fayols Concept Management Essay Henri Fayol is widely acknowledged as the earliest pioneer and advocate of the task of management Parker and Ritson, 2005 His management theories were first proposed in the early 1900s. Despite many criticisms, Fayol’s theories still form the basis of management practices and teachings in the 21st century. Taking some articles for reference, this essay will mainly analyse the advantages and disadvantages of Fayol’s concept of five functions of management in modern enterprises by some examples. There are about three main parts in this essay beginning with the introduction. And in the main body of this article, based on some academic researches, there are about seven parts discussing the advantages and disadvantages of Fayol’s concept of five functions of management. A conclusion will be made at last. There is no doubt that Fayol is best known for a three-fold contribution to management theory. Among his contributions, the concept of five functions of management i s worth discussing all the time. Fayol identified five key functions of management and these functions of managerial activity are: forecasting and planning, organizing, coordination, command and control. According to Fayol, forecasting involves analyzing the future and drawing a plan of action (Pugh ad Hichson, 2007). And as for organizing, Fayol believed that an organization’s structure was important, as it can facilitate the optimum conduct of its business activities (Pugh and Hichson, 2007). According to Pugh and Hichson (2007), in his original writing, Fayol used the term â€Å"command† to illustrate a manager’s responsibility to lead and direct employees towards the achievement of organizational goals and strategies. About the function of coordination, Fayol made a suggestion that managers should bind together, unify and harmonize all the organization’s activities and efforts. In contemporary management practice, this can be explained into that the m anagers should be responsible for making sure that all the organizational business activities are coordinated to make the employees can unify together within one department or among different departments. The last not the least function of management is control. Fayol recognized the importance of control within an organization and support that it ensures â€Å"everything occurs in conformity with established rules and expressed command†. In the article of â€Å"Fayol-standing the test of time†, McLean (2011) firstly introduced the contents of the five functions of management and stated that in contemporary society, there are some advantages of these functions to development of the enterprises. First, McLean (2011) stated that with the development of globalized knowledge economy, the abilities of forecasting and planning can gain success in the competition. Second, organizing can ask the managers to carry out an appropriate infrastructure, which will optimize the organi zation’s system, resources, procedures, processes and services and enable knowledge to be disseminated to those who need it, when they need it. Third, McLean (2011) also stated that control is one of the most important responsibilities of a manager and under the control of the managers. Under control of the managers, the policies and strategies can be implemented according to plan and within budget, set timescales and allocated resources. Fourth, under the function of command, the managers can develop a thorough knowledge of their employees, which can generate a positive psychological contract that engages employees with their jobs and the organization. What’s more, Fayol’s managerial functions are frequently cited as the inspiration for the contemporary practice of dividing managerial activity (and management textbooks) into the functions of planning, leading, organizing and controlling (Davidson and Griffin, 2000; Lewis, Goodmand and Fandt ,1995).