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Fayolism as the Necessary Complement of Taylorism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Norman M. Pearson
Norman M. Pearson
Affiliation:
U. S. Budget Bureau
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Extract

World War II has called forth greater organizational and administrative efforts than ever before on the part of the armed forces, private industry, and government. The sheer size of the new organizations that were formed to fight battles, manufacture matériel, and administer government programs has intensified the problems of top management and executive control, as well as the technical problems of military operations, supply, and industrial production. Great dynamic changes in society always afford occasion for reappraising basic philosophies, and these significant changes in the scope and scale of our great enterprises are no exception. The field of management is perhaps less spectacular, less open to popular discussion than are the issues of foreign policy and of government participation in the national economy. But effective management of our enterprise is of fundamental importance to a successful conclusion of the war and subsequent maintenance of peace. The demands of the war on the home front have stimulated much re-thinking of the theories of government and business administration. This article is concerned with the relation between the basic theories of two of the greatest contributors to the field of management—Frederick Taylor and Henri Fayol.

We all know what the task of organizing for war has been during the past four years. Arms production of undreamed of magnitude had to be developed in a matter of months. To produce the vast number of planes, tanks, and ships, new enterprises sprang up over night and existing ones expanded to many times their original size. Similarly, the federal government, in addition to creating tremendous staffs in the War and Navy Departments, had to develop quickly “administrative leviathans” to control prices and ration goods, allocate industrial production, and direct the production and distribution of foods. War-time control had to be exercised to an unprecedented degree, frequently for hitherto unregulated matters, in connection with oil, censorship, transportation, manpower, and the like. Besides a need for more technical personnel in industrial production, there developed a need for people able to organize and direct large new enterprises.

Type
Public Administration
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , February 1945 , pp. 68 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1945

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References

1 Considerable attention, however, has been given to the development and training of foremen.

2 Bulletin of the Taylor Society, VII (Apr., 1922).

3 A similar general lack of attention to this area has prevailed in public administration. In reviewing the important recent works of two eminent political scientists on the presidency—The American Presidency by Harold J. Laski and Presidential Leadership by Pendleton Herring—Professor Charles E. Merriam called attention regretfully to their omission of consideration of the President's rôle in administrative management (“The President: Leader and Manager,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 1, pp. 74–76 (Autumn, 1940).

4 “Management as an Executive Function,” Bulletin of the Taylor Society, IX (Apr., 1924), p. 68.

5 Taylor, F. W., Shop Management (New York, 1912), p. 21.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., pp. 63–64.

7 Ibid., p. 58.

8 Ibid., p. 99. It is significant that these two additional features, which he says must replace the “military” type of organization, with its unity of command, are also couched in terms of the shop and not of top management.

9 Ibid., pp. 101–102. This latter idea has been perhaps the most questioned part of Taylor's theory on the grounds that it violates unity of command and that the higher up in the line of control the greater the difficulties resulting from the violation. Urwick, L., “Organization as a Technical Problem,” Papers on the Science of Administration, edited by Gulick, L. and Urwick, L. (New York, Institute of Public Administration, 1937), p. 52Google Scholar; Fayol, H., Industrial and General Administration, trans. by Couborough, J. A. (London, 1930), pp. 50–53.Google Scholar See also Farquhar, Henry, “The Anomaly of Functional Authority at the top,” Advanced Management, Vol. 7, pp. 51–53 (Apr.-June, 1942).Google Scholar

10 “A Technique for the Chief Executive,” op. cit., pp. 47–48.

11 Ibid., p. 48.

12 The idea of the flexible budget as the technique of the chief executive Williams develops also in later articles in the Bulletin of the Taylor Society: “The Ways and Means of the Chief Executive,” in 1923; “Top Control,” in 1926; and “The Budget as a Medium of Executive Leadership,” in 1928.

13 H. Fayol, op. cit., pp. 59–69.

14 Ibid., p. 8. The English translation uses the work “management” rather than “government,” but Urwick prefers “government,” which is less confusing.

15 Ibid., p. 14. Fayol also points out that “the technical function has long been given the degree of importance which is its due, and of which we must not deprive it, but the technical function by itself cannot ensure the successful running of a business; it needs the help of other essential functions, and particularly that of administration.”

16 Ibid., p. 35.

17 Gulick, Luther, “Notes on the Theory of Organization,” Papers on the Science of Administration, pp. 13–14Google Scholar; White, L. D., Introduction to the Study of Public Administration (New York, 1939), p. 6.Google Scholar

18 Tead, Ordway, The Art of Leadership (New York, 1935), pp. 14–15Google Scholar; L. Urwick, op. cit.; Williams, J. H., A Technique for the Chief Executive, p. 48.Google Scholar

19 Person, H. S., “Research and Planning as Functions of Administration and Management,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 1, p. 66 (Autumn, 1940).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Proceedings of the International Congress of Scientific Management (Brussels, 1926), p. 68.

21 It is striking that Fayol's principal work, Industrial and General Administration, is not available in most libraries in the United States, not even in the Library of Congress.

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