• What is administrative management?
• Administrative management functions
• Administrative management characteristics
• History of administrative management

We explain what administrative management is, its functions, importance and characteristics. Also, a brief historical overview.

Administrative management controls and coordinates the actions of a company.

What is administrative management?

Administrative management is the set of activities carried out to direct a organization through a rational management of tasks, efforts and resources.

Their ability to control and coordinate the actions and the different roles that are carried out within the company allows to prevent problems and reach the objectives. The systematic conduct of proper administrative management favors obtaining favorable results for the organization.

The importance of administrative management consists of preparing the organization and arranging it to act in advance, considering all the means and procedures it needs to meet its objectives and reduce negative effects or possible problems.

Administrative management functions

Administrative management is a process that includes four main functions:

• Planning. It is the first function necessary to guide and successfully develop the following stages. It consists of projecting goals, define the objectives and establish the necessary resources and the activities to be carried out in a certain period of weather. For this, for example, an internal investigation and the environment can be carried out through analysis like "Porter's Five Forces" or "SWOT."
• Organization. It consists of putting together a structure to distribute the human Resources and the economic ones available to the business to order and develop their work and achieve the planned objectives. Here the areas within the organization are determined, tasks are grouped according to job positions, and suitable personnel are selected.
• Direction. It consists of executing the strategies planned, directing efforts towards objectives through leadership, the motivation and the communication. It involves encouraging employees, maintaining fluid communication with all areas of the organization and establishing constant evaluation mechanisms, among others.
• Control. It consists of verifying that the daily tasks are progressing in line with the planned strategies, in order to optimize the decision making, redirect some activities, correct problems or evaluate results, among others. It is an administrative task that must be carried out with professionalism and transparency. The measurement of the results obtained (to compare them with the planned results) allows to look for a continuous improvement.

Administrative management characteristics

Administrative management is the responsibility of the administrative manager, who oversees the organization's operations and ensures that the flow of information is effective and that resources are used efficiently. Provide added value to the organization, since it can identify obsolete practices and develop processes that contribute to improvement.

The administrative manager usually has a work team in charge, made up of bosses, analysts and managers. The administrative manager and his team have several responsibilities to fulfill and, depending on the field or specialty in which they work, they can take care of:

• Propose and elaborate politics, rules and procedures.
• Lead various work teams.
• Supervise the budget execution of the company.
• Propose and implement improvements in personnel management policies.
• Control the process of compensation to employees.
• Develop programs training and staff development.
• Perform studies and diagnoses periodically, on the work environment.
• Propose, inform and update the directory of the organization.
• Prepare sales plans and forecasts.
• Select sales strategies.
• Diagram the distribution of the workspace for the employees.

History of administrative management

Adam Smith postulated the need for the division of labor and free competition.

The current administrative management is the result of various contributions that took place throughout history. Among the main protagonists are:

• Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC). He was a philosopher, politician and renowned Chinese thinker who enunciated a series of rules for the public administration. For example, public employees should know well the situation in the country in order to solve problems, they should not be selected because of favoritism or partisanship, and officials should be honest people.
• Adam Smith (1723-1790). He was a Scottish economist and philosopher who in his thesis "The Wealth of Nations" enunciated the key to social welfare that resided in two principles: the division of labor and free competition, as necessary actions to increase the level of production and to achieve the specialization of positions within an organization.
• Henry Metcalfe (1847-1927). He was an American military man, inventor, and theorist who published new control techniques for the scientific administration through his book "The cost of production and administration of public and private workshops."
• Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924). He was an American politician and lawyer who managed to separate the concepts of politics and of management, granting the latter the status of science, which propelled his teaching at the academic level.
• Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915). He was an American industrial engineer and economist promoter of Scientific methods of work, with the aim of achieving greater efficiency in industrial production by optimizing the employee's work.
• Henry Fayol (1841-1925). He was a Turkish engineer and theorist who developed the general theory of management, but focused on the performance of the hierarchical direction of the organization so that it developed all administrative functions (and not only in the work of the employee as proposed by Taylor).