We explain what the administration and the different schools are focused on. In addition, what are its general characteristics and evolution.
What is the administration?
The administration is called social science that studies human organizations and the possible techniques and procedures to plan, organize, direct and control their resources with the objective of obtaining the greatest possible benefit of them.
There are numerous possible definitions of the administration and various perspectives from which to study it, but in general it is described as An organizational analysis in social groups which has a specific approach to an objective and pays attention to effectiveness and productivity performance.
Four specific objectives are traditionally assigned:
- Planning. The conceptual disposition of the elements that constitute the organization to meet a previous mission and vision in the best possible way.
- Organization. Coordinate and synchronize the parties involved in the construction of the social organism to establish their tasks and their realization sequences.
- Address. The leadership and leadership of the organization at the tactical, operational or strategic level.
- Control. The diagnostic and feedback capacity of the system, in the face of their needs and operation.
See also: Financial Administration.
ORIGIN OF THE ADMINISTRATION
The word administration It comes from the Latin word Ministercomposed of minis (“less”) and ter (comparison suffix), next to the particle AD– (toward). Therefore, it can be translated as “towards subordination” or “towards control.”
This implies that the administration has been present Since there was a need to hierarchize or coordinate human activitiesthat is, from the very beginning of life in society, when human groups were forced to organize their efforts for mutual cooperation and benefit.
The importance of this discipline He began to formally studied after the industrial revolutionWhen the large companies that required professionals in the design of resource management and planning models arose.
Historical history
The administration occupied man since ancient timesand evidence of this is the history of the work and coordination standards that accompanied their great timeless works.
Some examples are The construction of large monuments (For which contingents of slaves and construction materials should be coordinated), or the maintenance of extensive territories that included distant colonies (such as the territory of the Roman Empire or the Spanish colonies in America) that raised the need for regulations, plans and a personnel that executed them in accordance with the provisions.
First theorists
Although the first academic postulates regarding the administration theory They date just from the nineteenth century (The first class in the matter was issued in a tertiary by Joseph Wharton in 1881), it should be said that since the remote times of ancient China (the “rules” of confucio), ancient Greece (the political reflections of Plato and Aristotle) and the ancient Rome, there were already theoretical concerns regarding the ideal way of distributing resources and coordinating efforts to achieve a purpose in the most efficient way.
All these experiences and literature that produced would lay the foundations so that, after the globalization and commercial society, the administration arose It would impose itself as an academic, professional and social need.
Administration schools
1. Classic approach schools
The so -called classical administration theory school He was born in the United States in the twentieth centuryduring the governments of Roosevelt and Wilson. This school was divided into four main currents:
- School of Scientific Administration. He intended to give administrative theories a scientific basis, helping with other social sciences.
- Classical Administration School. Founded by Henry Fayol around 1916, it sought to systematize management knowledge based on the 14 fundamental principles of the administration:
- Subordination of particular interests
- Command unit
- Centralization
- Hierarchy
- Division of Labor
- Authority and responsibility
- Discipline
- Personal remuneration
- Order
- Equity
- Stability and duration of a person in office
- Initiative
- Team spirit
- Empirological School of Ernest Dale. It suggests that the administration must be taught through real and non -abstractions, since each particular case merits its own and detailed analysis.
- School of human relations. Opposite to classical theory, this school emerged in the United States from Elton Mayo and its collaborators, who focused on the human processes and social needs of workers, instead of more technical aspects.
2. Humanistic approach schools
A true revolution suffered the field of administration studies when the humanistic approach arose, which put the worker and his needs in the center of the analysis instead of theoretical or organizational aspects. This approach produced the emergence of two schools:
- Structuralist-burocratic school. He focused his interest in organizational relationships among staff, both at a formal and informal level. The claim was to balance the resources of the company, balancing humans and structural ones.
- Behavior School (Psychological). Starting from the basis that people live complex lives and that they want much more than instant gratification, this school gave hands to psychology to study the possible organization of human relations in a company to enhance their performance.
3. Systemic Schools of the Administration
Locusing cybernetics, mathematics (administration mathematical theory) and other conceptual resources (such as systems theory), this school proposes a new way of understanding the organization of companies, attending to the importance of the parties that constitute a whole.
One of the theories that this school supports is anthropomorphic, which raises the similarities between the functioning of the human body and that of the administrative body of the company, so Their failures would be diseases or pathologies with which to deal with.
4. Decision making school
This school was organized around the theory that every organizational model It depends on a decision -making mode which can be studied and conducted through logical processes, notable by algorithms and other conceptual tools.
5. Contingencial School
It is also called “situational school” since perform your analysis based on the specific situation facing the administrator and the circumstances that surround it according to its possibility of feedback: a successful administrative decision will influence the context as much as it does in the company.
6. Strategic Administration School
One of the most contemporary aspects, arising after 1980. Base your analysis on a double approach: Normative, by the hand of experts and those who handle the “must be” and another descriptive, which focuses on how administrative strategies are formulated and applied. In this school the diagnosis is essential for an effective approach to the company.
Evolution of the Administration
As the history of administration evolves, More and more steps are taken towards the composition of a general theory of organizationswhich seems to be the definitive task of this succession of schools and theoretical-practical approaches around the way of understanding human organizations.
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