DEFINITION
OF ADMINISTRATION.
Administration means coordination of men
and materials within organization for the accomplishment of identifiable
purpose. It
represents functioning of an organization as “People running processes based on rules using tools”.
A process (aka business process) is a set of
activities (operations, tasks) aimed at creating a desirable outcome. Typical
examples of processes are sales (convincing a potential customer to
buy one of our product/services), service delivery (e.g., fixing customer
problem), purchasing (Choosing, buying
and paying what we need), product development.
Some activities completed in the frame of a
process belong to the category of doing something in the real
world, like going to a customer site and fixing some technical problem during service
delivery. Others, like getting instructions on where to go and reporting
back on amount of time
spent for fixing the problem, belong to administration.
They are needed to ensure the processes producing desirable outcomes. For
example, back reporting is
needed for the finance department being able to send an invoice and ultimately
get paid.
The goal of administration (more exactly administrative
activities) is to ensure smooth running of the organization’s processes by
coordinating people participating in the processes, and providing them with
information needed for completing their assignments.
Administration deals with gathering, processing, and
communicating information. Practically, everybody working for an organization
participates in the administrative activities.
Even those who do not hold any managerial position participate when receiving
written or oral instructions and reporting back on the outcome of their work.
Those who have managerial positions complete much more administrative
activities, for example, they are engaged in planning of various processes, and
assigning resources to various do it in the real world activities.
The administration is regulated by rules (operational instructions, or
procedures) that prescribe or recommend who should be doing what and in what order
in each type of the processes. Rules can exist in a written form or as a
tradition. They can even be incorporated in computerized tools.
To carry out administrative activities people
employ tools.
Typical tools here are communication channels, e.g. mail,
email, telephone, chats, and information storage means, e.g., paper folders, shelves,
boxes, computer servers, information systems etc.
Administration, to paraphrase Wilson,
“is a part of political life only as the methods of the counting-house are part
of the life of the society, only as machinery is part of the manufactured
product. Administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics.
Administration question are not political question (Wilson, 1941)
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