1841–1925

Henri Fayol

Henri Fayol was a French mining engineer, executive, and management theorist. He joined the Commentry-Fourchambault company in 1860, became its director-general in 1888, and led it from near bankruptcy to financial strength before retiring in 1918. Drawing on that experience, Fayol treated management as a distinct, teachable activity needed throughout organizations. Administration industrielle et générale first appeared in a professional bulletin in 1916 and set out six groups of organizational activity, fourteen flexible principles, and the managerial work of foresight, organization, command, coordination, and control. Fayol belongs in this library because he supplied classical management with a general administrative framework, complementing the shop-floor emphasis of scientific management and shaping later management education and terminology.