Henry Fayol and Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Contribution to Management Thought: An Overview

Abstract

Henry Fayol and Frederick Winslow Taylor made outstanding contribution to development of management thought. Fayol wrote as a practical man of business reflecting on his long managerial career and setting drown the principles he had observed. He clearly specified the functions of management by a systematic analysis of management process. This isolation and analysis of management as a separate discipline was his original contribution to the body of management theory. He was father of management principles many of which have stood the test of time. Frederick W. Taylor was a pioneer who propounded principles of Scientific Management. Taylor worked in different capacities in steel industry saw the urgent necessity for elimination of wastages rampant in industrial organization. He observed that the only way to attract wastages and achieve efficiency to apply method of science to the field of management. They both applied scientific methods to the problems of management. Their work was essentially complementary; different in their approach was merely reflection of their different careers. If we call Taylor the “Father of Scientific Management”, it would be fair to describe Fayol as the “Father of Management”.