Principles of administration

Are there principles of administration? Nobody doubts it. What do they consist of? That is what I propose to discuss today...
- Henri Fayol, 1908.

Principles of administration are a set of principles, which determines the existence and functioning of administration.

CONTENT : A - F , G - L , M - R , S - Z , See also , External links

Quotes

Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author

A - F

• According to the dictionary, to administer is to govern, or to manage a public or private business. It means, therefore, to seek to make the best possible use of the resources available in achieving the goal of the enterprise. Administration includes, therefore, all the operations of the enterprise. But as a result of the usual way of organizing things to facilitate the running of the business, a certain number of activities constitute the special departments; the technical department, the commercial department, the financial department, etc., and the scope of the administrative department is found to be reduced accordingly.
  • Henri Fayol, (1908). "L’exposee des principles generaux d’administration". Unpublished paper, translated by J.D Breeze. published in: Daniel A. Wren, Arthur G. Bedeian, John D. Breeze, (2002) "The foundations of Henri Fayol’s administrative theory", Management Decision, Vol. 40 Iss: 9, pp.906 - 918 ; p. 911

• One could define the administrative department by saying that it includes everything that is not part of the other departments, but one can define it in a more positive manner by saying that it is specifically responsible for;
  1. ensuring that unity of action, discipline, anticipation, activity, order, etc., exist in all parts of the enterprise;
  2. recruiting, organizing and directing the workforce;
  3. ensuring good relations between the various departments and with the outside world;
  4. coordination of all efforts towards the overall goal;
  5. satisfying shareholders and employees; labor and management.
  • Henri Fayol, (1908). "L’exposee des principles generaux d’administration". p. 911

• Are there principles of administration? Nobody doubts it. What do they consist of? That is what I propose to discuss today. The subjects of recruitment, organization and direction of personnel will form the subject of the second part of this study.
  • Henri Fayol, (1908). "L’exposee des principles generaux d’administration". p. 912
  • Comment: The principles of administration Fayol presented in this publication (p. 912-916) were:
    1. Unity of command
    2. Hierarchical transmission of orders (chain-of-command)
    3. Separation of powers - authority, subordination, responsibility and control
    4. Centralization
    5. Order
    6. Discipline
    7. Planning
    8. Organization chart
    9. Meetings and reports
    10. Accounting
  • Comment: Wren, Boyd and Bedeian (2002) commented with the words: "This previously untranslated and unpublished 1908 presentation from Henri Fayol’s personal papers indicates the progress he had made in developing his theory of administration."

M - R

• Another exponent of the traditional classical approach is Lyndall Urwick, a British consultant. Urwick concentrated less on building an entire philosophy of management and more on collecting the basic ideas of earlier writers into an eclectic summary of classical concepts. He tediously compared the frameworks of Fayol, Taylor, Mooney and Reiley, and others and found a remarkable consistency in their conclusions... In a tabular presentation of statements from other writers, Urwick arrived at 29 principles of administration.
  • Joseph L. Massie (1967), "Management theory," in: Paul R. Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch (eds.), Organization and environment, p. 413; Reprinted in: James G. March (2013), Handbook of Organizations (RLE: Organizations), p. 413

S - Z

• gkrh 436ii

e can establish any immutable 'principles' of administration, we must be able to describe, in words, exactly how an administrative organization looks and exactly how it works.

• • Herbert A. Simon (1947). Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization. 4th ed. in 1997, The Free Press. p. xiv.

• Though it is possible to develop various principles of administration by generalizing from particular cases, the resulting abstractions seem to have little significance. The process of administration involves action requiring the application of any given principle in infinitely varying actual situations. In brief, administration is an art requiring skill, practice, and judgment. However much it can be analyzed in the abstract, it becomes manifest only in specific concrete situations. In fact, the best administrators may have difficulty in relating their actions to explicit principles; the fully developed skill will most often lead to quasi-intuitive action without a conscious frame of referedministration." Harvard Business Review, Spring 1945, vol. 3. 368-70; As cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 657-8

See also

• Principles of organization
• Principles of management
• Public administration
• Public administration theory