Fayol: from experience to theory

Draws extensively on the unpublished papers of Henri Fayol to show how his experiences as an engineer, director and CEO for Commentry Fourchambault provided the basis for the ideas presented in his classic Administration Industrielle et Générale (1916). Emphasizes Fayol′s experiences managing coal miners; his direction of a firm facing crisis owing to depletion of its primary assets (coal and ore deposits); and his struggle to assert the primacy of the CEO in dealings with the company board of directors.