Introduction

Every organisation needs some person or body to take decisions and see that they are carried out — this activity is usually called administration or management. But administration is not just about carrying out routine tasks: it needs a body at the top that takes the major policy decisions and then supervises and coordinates the day-to-day work that flows from them. Large companies, banks, and government departments alike have such a body of chief administrators, generally called the executive. In simple terms, the executive is the body of persons responsible for implementing rules, regulations, and decisions in actual practice — as distinct from the body that frames those rules and regulations in the first place. …