Compare Frederick Taylor And Fayol's Principles Of Management

Compare and contrast Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management Perspective with (a) Henri Fayol’s Principles of Management and (b) Max Weber’s Bureaucratic Management theory.

The classical approach to management is an organizational management theory that evolved in the late 19th and early 20th century as a result of the industrial revolution. It is the first body of management thought whose theories focus on achieving the efficiency of workers and the organization based on management practices. This classical approach saw to contributors such as Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management, Henri Fayol’s Administrative Management and Max Weber’s Bureaucratic Management theories.

Frederick Winslow Taylor, known as the father of scientific management,

Organizing – This involves establishing and outlining the structure of activities.

c. Commanding - This involves guiding, supervising and leading people to the attainment of an established goal.

d. Coordinating - This involves harmonizing all activity or efforts to complete a task.

e. Controlling – This involves having control over all elements, activities or efforts involved in completing the task.

These are the five elements that Fayol believed management is built of. He held the view that in order for organizational efficiency to be achieved, managers needed to have flexible skills, abilities, knowledge and experiences suitable for a dynamic business environment. It is from this view that he theorized fourteen principles of administrative management that are still considered useful in contemporary management practices; these are:

1. Division of work – in which he suggests that job specialization can be applied to any area, technical or otherwise.

2. Authority – in which he included both formal authority stemming from official rank, as well as informal authority gained from leadership skills, competence etc.

3. Discipline – in which he deemed obedience and respect between workers and managers essential to

With little argument, Henri Fayol’s theory of administrative management fit together nicely into the bureaucratic superstructure described by Max Weber, a German theorist and sociologist. Max Weber is a prominent contributor to the classical approach to management who proposed a Bureaucratic management model theorizing that organizations could be “managed on an impersonal and rational level (Abhijith, R., 2011).” He embellished Frederick Taylor’s scientific management theory with his bureaucratic model by putting focus on dividing organizations into a formal system based on hierarchical levels and strong lines of authority which he believed was essential to maintaining organizational efficiency.

In his quest to explain how efficiency could be achieved, like that of Taylor and Fayol; he suggested three types of authority systems under which he believed formed the proper environment for the success of his bureaucratic model. He spoke of:

a. Charismatic Authority – which he believed was derived from the personal qualifications of the