[8]: 18–21  Barnard gave eight extemporaneous talks at the Lowell Institute in 1937 on the topic of "functions of the executive," and on the invitation of Dumas Malone (the director of Harvard University Press who met Barnard through Arthur W. Page), he revised the material from the talks to create the book.

[8]: 46–59  As cited in the book, his intellectual influences included Arthur F. Bentley, Vilfredo Pareto, Lawrence Joseph Henderson, Talcott Parsons, W. H. R. Rivers, Frederic Bartlett, Elton Mayo, Fritz Roethlisberger, Mary Parker Follett, James Harbord, Alfred North Whitehead, and John R.

[5]: 77 In the 1968 edition, the Introduction by Kenneth R. Andrews evaluates the book and summarizes its place in the management literature.

"[2]: xxi  He contrasts Functions of the Executive with the "classical" approaches to organizations found in books such as Principles of Management by Harold Koontz and Cyril J.

[2]: xiv, xxii Barnard gives an overview of his arguments in his Preface:[1]: xi–xii Formally this work is divided into four parts, but in a sense it consists of two short treatises.

The second is a study of the functions and of the methods of operation of executives in formal organizations.Part I is "Preliminary Considerations Concerning Cooperative Systems."

In the chapter, Barnard defines "formal organization" twice as "a system of consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons.

[1]: 122 Part III is titled "The Elements of Formal Organizations" and begins with Chapter X (pages 127–138) about "The Bases and Kinds of Specializations."

According to Barnard, "in all sorts of organizations the affording of adequate incentives becomes the most definitely emphasized task in their existence"[1]: 139 [15]: 151  Specific inducements range from "material inducements" to "ideal benefactions" (e.g., "pride of workmanship"), while "general incentives" include "personal comfort in social relations.

A person can and will accept a communication as authoritative only when four conditions simultaneously obtain: (a) he can and does understand the communication; (b) at the time of his decision he believes that it is not inconsistent with the purpose of the organization; (c) at the time of his decision, he believes it to be compatible with his personal interest as a whole; and (d) he is able mentally and physically to comply with it.

"[1]: 282 [5]: 82 The "Conclusion" (Chapter XVIII, pages 285–296) highlights 16 major observations of the book and contemplates the relationship of science and art in management: I believe that the expansion of cooperation and the development of the individual are mutually dependent realities, and that a due proportion or balance between them is a necessary condition of human welfare.

[21]: 1  Among other works, the book influenced:[2]: xvi–xvii [6]: 255 [21]: 1 Of course I built squarely on Barnard, and have always felt deeply indebted to him; science is a cumulative endeavor.

Most of the rest is highly "Barnardian," and certainly even those "novel" ideas are in no way inconsistent with Barnard's view of organizations.Barnard's book also anticipated In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., the concept of management by objectives that Peter Drucker popularized, the two-factor theory of Frederick Herzberg, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

[5]: 79–80 Examples of papers that have examined Barnard's "zones of indifference" concept include: As of 1961, the book had sold over 35,000 copies.

[3][27] It has been translated into many languages, including Arabic,[9]: 1  Chinese,[28] German,[29] Hebrew,[30] Italian,[31] Japanese,[32] Polish,[33] Portuguese,[34] Spanish,[35] Swedish,[36] and Turkish.

[37] One issue of the International Journal of Public Administration in 1994 contained papers in honor of Barnard, many of which concerned the book.