De la pratique à une science ? la nouvelle doctrine d'Henri Fayol dans son contexte conceptuel

This article addresses the question of whether Fayol was a management technician or an enterprise theorist. In other words, did he simply reduce his practice to that of an art or does his approach represent a theoretical construction? As a theorist, his input is far from that of a Promethean innovator in business administration. When Fayol began the managerial reform of his company, Commentry-Fourchambault, other CEOs had already introduced solutions that, on closer examination, actually appear to surpass Fayol’s plans. They had, for example, reformed the career development of engineers-administrators at the head and at intermediary hierarchies of their companies to improve their job satisfaction. In the same manner as Fayol, they also sought to adopt principles of authority and leadership to coordinate and automatize operations. Fayol’s contribution, however, is more than that of managerial technique as it is a theoretical and conceptual framework dealing with principles which can be applied generally. We term this concept a “regime of operative thinking” and believe it supports the argument that Fayol’s objective was to use his “administrative doctrine” to develop a new science. As it is independent of the technical system to which he had applied it, this doctrine can be taught, passed on and widely adopted.