Luthans,Hodgetts, and Rosenkrantz used trained observers to record the behavior and activities of 44 managers from different hierarchical levels in different kids of organizations. The Delphi technique was used to reduce the unstructured observations to, at first, over 100 categories; eventually, through several iterations, 12 general categories managerial activity were derived. These 12 categories, each with behavioral descriptors, were collapsed further into four: routine communication,traditional management (planning,organizing,coorpdinating,supervising,etc.) networking (interacting with outsiders and "socializing/politicking"), and human resource management (staffing,motivating,etc). A variety of subsequent studies sough to determine how managers allocated their activities among these categories. In one study of 248 managers the authors found that the mangers distributed 32 percent of their activities to the traditional mangement,29 percent to routine communication, 20 percent to human resorce management, and 19 percent to networking. When the behavior descriptors were cast into Fayol's terminology, the results were highly supportive to the traditional functions of management. Planning,controlling,coordinating,and organizing fitted the Fayolian framework;human resource management was a modern label for staffing,motivating, and perfomance evalution; and routine communication activities fitted well into Fayol's command (directing/leading) and coordination functions. Altough networking was not part of Fayol's ideas, he did include contacs with others outside the oraganization as part of the manager's job. In brief, the labels used for describing managerial work were relatively new, but the underlying activities of what managers did were supportive of Fayol's earlier work. As Carrol and Gillen concluded, the traditional elements "still represent the most useful way of conceptualizing the manager's job, especially for management education.. (because these elements) provide clear and discrete methods of classfying the thousand of activities that managers carry out and the techniques they use in terms of the functions they perform for the acihevment of organizational goals" To improve management teaching and research, it is necessary to beware of new labels for previously recognized activities and to connect observed behavior with what is to achieved by that action.
Although other studies of managerial work differ in research methodology or terminology, they are related ways of examining the same activity-that is, what managers do. to illustrate: in planning, managers receive,store,monitor, and disseminate information; they also make decisions abaouat strategy and allocation of resources and initiate planned changes. In organizing, managers act as liaisons, establish relationship between people and activities, and make decisions about the placement and utilization of resources. The staffing job involves hiring, trining, and appraising performance as well as negotiating with labor unions. In leading, managers use their authority to accomplish goals; information and communications are two important parts of this job. Controlling is based is information about performance , decissions are made about corrective action, and coordination is essentials. Stewart's work helped in understanding why some research find managers doing similar actifities (because of demans or constraints) , while other studies find differences in managerial activity (choices) . Kotter's agenda helped explain why observations of managers in actions reveal behaviors that do not appear to fit some neat categories of planning and organizing-there are regularities in managerial work in terms of accomplishing goals.
Although other studies of managerial work differ in research methodology or terminology, they are related ways of examining the same activity-that is, what managers do. to illustrate: in planning, managers receive,store,monitor, and disseminate information; they also make decisions abaouat strategy and allocation of resources and initiate planned changes. In organizing, managers act as liaisons, establish relationship between people and activities, and make decisions about the placement and utilization of resources. The staffing job involves hiring, trining, and appraising performance as well as negotiating with labor unions. In leading, managers use their authority to accomplish goals; information and communications are two important parts of this job. Controlling is based is information about performance , decissions are made about corrective action, and coordination is essentials. Stewart's work helped in understanding why some research find managers doing similar actifities (because of demans or constraints) , while other studies find differences in managerial activity (choices) . Kotter's agenda helped explain why observations of managers in actions reveal behaviors that do not appear to fit some neat categories of planning and organizing-there are regularities in managerial work in terms of accomplishing goals.
Fayol noted that managerial abilities were needed at all levels of the organization and that, as a person rose in the hierarchy, the need for these abilities increased. At the first level of supervision, modern factor analytic studies have supported fayol and have indicated that there are few differences in the jobs of first line supervisiors regardless of technologi or organization function, indeed, fayol's ideas have a remarkable longevity as a basic framework for understanding the manager's job. Inbrief, what often appears to be disagreement about the manager's job may in fact be only superficial and semantic. Although no general theory of management has emerged, research has enriched our understanding and has seved to confirm that Fayol's ideas continue to be fundamentally sound. Although it is necessary to countinue to build on fayol's ideas to fit changing markets, technologies, and people, his work was seminal and enduring. Of course the task of writing history is never done, for each day bring fresh ideas, new evidence, and variant ways of examining the tasks of the manager. It is difficult for modern scholars, so steeped in their own daily activities and so influenced by the current press og today's ideas, to sit back and put them in perspective. the zoom lens of history often leaves the near present slightly out of focus.
