Henri Fayol na encruzilhada da terceira via: organização da grande corporação e conflito social na forja do ideário fayolista

The aim of the present article is to delimit the fundamental factors in the origin of the fayolist
thought. The theoretical-historical research is inserted into sociology of knowledge and it was
conducted with foundations in scientific materialism for which an ideal formation is actively linked
to real objective conditions. The article identifies the limitations of the pursuit of elective affinities
and its contribution is to seek the constraints in the economic context of France for Fayol’s most
active period besides an immanent analisys on author’s texts which allows his association with
others historical ideologies. The research concludes that the Fayolist thought is a response to
the development of the large capitalist corporation in the midst of the economic crisis of the
nineteenth century and to the heightening of social conflict throughout the period between 1893
and 1920, approximately. By the shape of that thought, it was possible to bring it closer to the
corporatist ideas framed in the “third way” ideology that, in the face of social conflict, assumed
a conservative position between the identified limits of capitalism and the peremptory refusal of
socialism of those days.