JOSÉ ANTONIO FERNÁNDEZ ARENA: BIOGRAPHY, METHOD AND CONTRIBUTIONS - DUDAS - 2025

José Antonio Fernández Arena was one of the most important administration experts in Mexico. From a young age he became interested in administration and management with the use of mathematics. Like many twentieth-century Mexican administration authors, Fernández Arena's concepts have strong European and North American influences.

Arena studied in the United States and there was influenced by the administrative ideas of the country. The main focus of her ideas is linked to the audit process, and her ideas revolve around the proper development of an administrative audit considering all the aspects that influence the entire management process of a company.

National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), of which José Antonio Fernández Arena was the first graduate in Administration

Biography

José Antonio Fernández Arena was born on May 24, 1936 in the Federal District of Mexico. He dedicated his professional studies to administration and studied Accounting and Administration at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Studies in the United States

After graduation, he went to the United States to specialize in the administrative area. There he made two specialties at the prestigious Northwestern and Stanford universities. The insights he gained and rubbing shoulders with American students and intellectuals gave him broader ideas about administration.

He was the first graduate of the administration degree at UNAM, and he dedicated his life to the development of texts related to the world of administration and its influence on the business world.

His thinking revolved around the satisfaction of objectives within companies through the use of administrative systems. After making numerous contributions to global management, he passed away on January 8, 1998.

Method

Fernández Arena saw administration as a social science whose objective is to satisfy the goals and needs of an institution using tools and systems that are built and reinforced over time. According to the author, the institutional objectives were the following:

Service objective

It is the objective that every company should have to provide a high level of satisfaction to its customers. It is about guaranteeing its consumers a service of either good quality and in good condition.

Social objective

The social objective revolves around the place that a company occupies in society. It is about establishing quality relationships with the government, with investors and with members of the community to which the company belongs who are affected or involved by the process of the same.

Likewise, the social objective seeks to take care of the monetary interests of all the parties involved, and uses both interpersonal relationships with important members of each area and public relations to maintain the relationship between entities in good condition.

Economic objective

The economic objective is to safeguard the economic interests of the institution and its investors, distributing the profits equitably and correctly to maintain the maximum happiness of each group involved in the operation of the company.

Structure of the companies according to Fernández Arenas

For Fernández Arenas, the process of forming the business structure includes a balance between all the parts that make the company work. This involves all personnel, material resources - such as capital and the area where it operates - and the systems that are used to keep everything in order.

In turn, the structure of the company must be complemented with the correct organization of all its assets. If the company has a correct organizational process, all the parties involved in the structure will have the highest possible quality, both material and staff employed by the institution.

According to Fernández Arenas, the organized structure divides the company into five equally important fragments:

The direction

The management of the company is divided into two parts. On the one hand, there is the administrative council or presidency, who are in charge of making sure that the objectives of the company are being met through the correct use of what is stipulated in meetings and agreements.

The second division of the management is known as the general management, which evaluates the policies that are in place within the institution but without neglecting the external factors that may affect them. In other words, certain changes in the environment to which a company belongs may mean a necessary alteration of its policies.

Planning system

It is the leading part of a company that is responsible for managing all the areas that make up the structure of a company to correctly plan the execution of plans and objectives using the resources available.

Operating system

It is the area of ​​the company that carries out the objectives and works subordinate to the planning created by the members of the institution's planning system

External advice

This area does not carry out tasks that are directly linked to the operation of the institution, but it does carry out functions that must be carried out so that the company remains standing, such as all the legal and legal operations necessary for the company not to close or be fined.

Ideas

Fernández Arenas' operating system has the idea of ​​a structure broken down into several entities, similar to the ideas proposed by Ernest Dale, also emphasizing the Euro-American influence that the notions of the Mexican author had.

The fulfillment of social and business objectives and the rest of those proposed by Arenas, must keep the company on its feet by delegating functions to staff.

Contributions to the administration

Among the most important works by Fernández Arenas, two books stand out: The Administrative Process and Six Styles of Administration.

In these books, Arena reflected his ideas and broke down the administrative process into what he considered the fundamental parts within companies.

In addition, he wrote Administrative Audit, where he raises the importance of a correct business audit taking into account the objectives of a company and all the areas and resources that are required to fulfill them. Many consider this book their most important work.

References

1. Administrative Audit, José Antonio Fernández Arena, taken from dyndns.org
2. Six Styles of Management, José Antonio Fernández Arena, 1984. Taken from books.google.com
3. José Antonio Fernández Arena, (nd). Taken from academia.edu
4. Most representative Mexican authors and the critical approach to the study of the administration, Textos UNAM, (nd). Taken from unam.mx
5. Applications of quantitative methods to the decision-making of the administration, Víctor Castro, (nd). PDF taken from 132.248.9.195