Briefly discuss the Industrial Activities of Henri Fayol

Perhaps the real father of modern management theory is the (French industrialist) Henri Fayol. His acute observations on the Principles of general management first appeared in 1916 in French, under the little “admistration industrielte in generale “.

This monograph, reprinted in French several times, was not translated into English until 1929. No English translation was made or published in the US until 1949.

Fayol found that industrial activates could be divided into six groups as shown in figure.

1. Technical (Production)

2. Commercial (buying, Selling and exchanging).

3. Financial (Search for, and optimum use of capital).

4. Security (Protection of property and persons).

5. Accounting (including Statistics).

6. Managerial (Planning, organization, command, contribution and control).

Henri Fayol pointed out that these activities exist in every size of business. Fayol observed that first five were well known and he devoted most of his book to an analysis of the sixth.