Administration (business)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For Wikipedia's administration, see Wikipedia:Administration.
The word "administration" is from the Middle English administracioun, deriving from the French administration, which is itself derived from the Latin administratio: a compounding of ad ("to") and ministratio ("to give service").
In business, administration consists of the performance or management of business operations and thus the making or implementing of major decisions. Administration can be defined as the universal process of organizing people and resources efficiently so as to direct activities toward common goals and objectives.
Administrator can serve as the title of the General Manager or Company Secretary who reports to a corporate board of directors. This title is archaic but in many enterprises this function, and its associated Finance, Personnel and MIS services, is what is intended when the term "the Administration" is used.
In some organizational analyses, Management is viewed as a subset of administration, specifically associated with the technical and mundane elements within an organization's operation. It stands distinct from executive or strategic work.
In other organizational analyses, administration can refer to the bureaucratic or operational performance of mundane office tasks, usually internally oriented and usually reactive rather than proactive.
[edit] Administrative functions
Administrators, broadly speaking, engage in a common set of functions to meet the organization's goals.
- Planning is deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and who should do it. It maps the path from where the organization is to where it wants to be. The planning function involves establishing goals and arranging them in logical order. Administrators engage in both short-range and long-range planning.
- Planning has both communicative and practical value. The resulting plan provides standing information to members/employees of the organization, and it convinces stake holders to buy into the organization's goals.
- Organizing involves identifying responsibilities to be performed, grouping responsibilities into departments or divisions, and specifying organizational relationships. The purpose is to achieve coordinated effort among all the elements in the organization. Organizing must take into account delegation of authority and responsibility and span of control within supervisory units.
- Staffing means filling job positions with the right people at the right time. It involves determining staffing needs, writing job descriptions, recruiting and screening people to fill the positions.
- Directing is leading people (see Leadership) in a manner that achieves the goals of the organization. This involves proper allocation of resources and providing an effective support system. Directing requires exceptional interpersonal skills and the ability to motivate people. One of the crucial issues in directing is to find the correct balance between emphasis on staff needs and emphasis on production.
- Controlling is the function that evaluates quality in all areas and detects potential or actual deviations from the organization's plan. This function's purpose is to ensure high-quality performance and satisfactory results while maintaining an orderly and problem-free environment. Controlling includes information management, measurment of performance, and institution of corrective actions.
Budgeting, excepted from the above list, incorporates most of the administrative functions, beginning with the implementation of a budget plan through the application of budget controls.
[edit] See also
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
