A Study of Fayol's Principles: Applicability in Today's Organization

In contrast to the other management theories postulated around the same time, the Fayol model still closely resembles the cotemporary management thinking and practices. Many researchers believe that Fayol principles have stood the test of time owing to the inherent adaptability and flexibility. Brodie (1967) argued that the word “principles” should not be interpreted too restrictively. “It is a case of setting it going, starting a general discussion-that is what I am trying to do by publishing this survey, and I hope that a theory will emanate from it.” (Fayol, 1949). Fayol intended to start a debate, which he hoped will converge into a concrete theory of management sometime in the future. He also emphasized that the number of principles accentuated in his study were arbitrary and non-exhaustive. (Brodie, 1967, Fayol, 1949). Thus, it is considered appropriate to use his observations for further exploration and research with respect to contemporary organizations. Basing our study on the fourteen principles of management propounded by Henry Fayol, we aim to test the degree of their applicability in today's organizations. A sample of 179 people was taken cutting across different sectors. A Likert scale was used wherein the employees were asked to rank their perceived degree of application of each principle. Further, we performed an exploratory factor analysis to test for the presence of latent factors in the observed variables. The three resultant factors were identified as ‘Operations’, ‘Human Resource’ and ‘Line and Extent of Authority’. The analysis was subsequently utilized to test for any significant differences in the perceived applicability of variables loaded on each factor based on gender, sector and industry. The testing of hypothesis was done using parametric tests such as Independent T test and ANOVA.