Administration vs Management

7. Administration vs Management

The words "administration" and "management" are often used loosely as if they mean the same thing, but the classic distinction taught in this unit separates them by the LEVEL and TYPE of work involved:

• Administration is generally associated with top-level activity: determining the organisation's overall objectives and major policies — the big-picture, THINKING function of deciding WHAT is to be done and broadly WHY.
• Management is generally associated with putting those objectives and policies into actual effect — organising people and resources and directing day-to-day operations to achieve what administration has decided — the DOING/execution function of HOW the objectives get carried out.

On this classic view, administration is more of a determinative, policy-level function, while management is more of an executive, operational-level function that works within the boundaries administration sets. In practice, in most modern business organisations, the SAME top-level people (the Board, the CEO) perform both roles together — deciding policy AND overseeing its execution — so the sharp textbook separation between the two words matters more as a conceptual distinction to understand than as a description of two entirely separate groups of people in every real organisation.