In a short essay, discuss the work of Henri Fayol and Max Weber as it relates to the general administrative approach to management

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: Rather than look at the performance of individual workers the way Taylor did, Fayol and Weber applied scientific management to managers themselves. They observed how managers functioned on the job in an attempt to identify practices and attitudes of good management.

Fayol's first major contribution was to identify the five fundamental functions of management. These five functions still serve as major building blocks of basic management theory today, though they have been pared down to only four functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Fayol also identified the Fourteen Principles of Management.

Weber focused on observing and analyzing bureaucracies, which he saw as highly rational, and constituted an ideal way to configure an organization. Weber did not feel that all organizations should be bureaucracies, however. The form worked best, he thought, for very large organizations.