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Administration
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{{wiktionary}}
The word '''administration''' is from the
Middle English language Middle English ''administracioun'', deriving from the
French language French ''administration'', which is itself derived from the
Latin language Latin ''administratio'': a
Compound word compounding of ''ad'' ("to") and ''ministratio'' ("to give service").
In modern usage, the word has particular meanings in particular contexts, but all retain this sense of service provision.
Business
In
business, '''administration''' consists of the performance or management of
financial transaction transactions and other matters, and the making and implementing of major decisions. '''Administrator''' can serve as the title of the General Manager or Company Secretary who reports to a corporate board of directors. This use is archaic.
Administration can be defined as the universal process of efficiently organizing people and resources so to direct activities toward common goals and objectives. Administration is both an art and a science (if an inexact one), and arguably a
craft, as administrators are judged ultimately by their performance. Administration must incorporate both leadership and vision.
Management is viewed as a subset of administration, specifically associated with the technical and mundane elements within an organization's operation. It stands distinct from executive or strategic work.
Administration reflects management models. Such models become popular, peak in influence, and are then superseded by other emerging models. Recently influential management models have included
Management by objectives (MBO) and
Total Quality Management (TQM). Each model continues to have its proponents.
In some
organizational analyses, administration can refer to the
bureaucracy bureaucratic or
Business operations operational performance of mundane
office tasks, usually internally oriented.
Administrative functions
Administrators, broadly speaking, engage in a common set of functions to meet the organization's goals. The idea of a set of standard administrative functions carries back to
Luther H. Gulick, who in 1937 established the acronym POSDCoRB (pronounced "poz dee korb") which stood for planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting. Gulick's set of functions has been refined and condensed several times, resulting in the currently utilized five-step model: 1) planning, 2) organizing, 3) staffing, 4) directing, and 5) controlling
*
Planning is deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and who should do it. It bridges the gap from where the organization is to where it wants to be. The planning function involves establishing goals and arranging them in logical order. Administrators engage in both short-range and long-range planning.
: Planning has both symbolic and functional value. The resulting plan provides standing information to members/employees of the
organization, and it convinces stake holders to buy into the organization's goals.
* Organizing involves identifying responsibilities to be performed, grouping responsibilities into departments or divisions, and specifying organizational relationships. The purpose is to achieve coordinated effort among all the elements in the organization. Organizing must take into account
delegation of
authority and
responsibility and
span of control within supervisory units.
*
Staffing means filling job positions with the right people at the right time. It involves determining staffing needs, writing job descriptions, recruiting and
screening people to fill the positions.
* Directing is leading prople (see
Leadership) in a manner that achieves the goals of the organization. This involves proper allocation of resources and providing an effective support system. Directing requires exceptional interpersonal skills and the ability to motivate people. One of the crucial issues in directing is to find the correct balance between emphasis on staff needs and emphasis on
production.
* Controlling in the function that evaluates
quality in all areas and detects potential or actual deviations from the organization's plan. This function's purpose is to ensure high-quality performance and satisfactory results while maintaining an orderly and problem-free environment. Controlling includes
information management, measurment of performance, and institution of corrective actions.
Budgeting, excepted from the above list, incorporates most of the administrative functions, beginning with the implementation of a budget plan through the application of
budget controls.
Government
{{main|Public administration}}
In some contexts, including normal usage in the
United States, the term '''administration''' also refers to the executive branch under a specific
President of the United States president (or sometimes governor, mayor, or other local executive), for example: the "Bush administration". (Most other English-speaking countries use the analogous term ''
government'', as in the "Blair government".) It can also mean an executive branch agency headed by an administrator: these agencies tend to have a regulatory function as well as an administrative function. On occasion, Americans will use the term to refer to the time a given person was president, ''e.g.'' "they've been married since the Carter administration."
Religious
Another sense involves the administration (giving or tendering) of
sacrament the sacraments,
justice,
oaths,
medicines (see
route of administration), etc. See
Wiktionary:Administration.
Computing
{{main|System administration}}
Legal use in the United Kingdom
In the
United Kingdom, '''administration''' can refer to the British
laws for
* the division or disposal of the
estate (law) estate of a deceased person. See
Administration#Adminstration of an Estate (on death) below
* a legally appointed interim Chief Executive (the "Administrator") to take compulsory control of the affairs of a company in difficulties. This is described
Administration#Administration of a business below.
Administration of an estate (on death)
''For an explanation of administration (as to both testate and intestate estates) in the United States, see
probate''.
Where a person dies leaving a
will (law) will appointing an
executor, and that executor validly disposes of the property of the deceased within England and Wales, then the estate will go to probate. However, if no will is left, or the will is invalid or incomplete in some way, then administrators must be appointed. They perform a similar role to the executor of a will but, where there are no instructions in a will, the administrators must distribute the estate of the deceased according to the rules laid down by statute and the common law.
Certain property falls outside the estate for administration purposes, the most common example probably being houses jointly owned that pass by survivorship on the first death of a couple into the sole name of the survivor. Other examples include discretionary death benefits from pension funds, accounts with certain financial institutions subject to a nomination and the proceeds of life insurance policies which have been written into trust. Trust property will also frequently fall outside of the estate but this will depend on the terms of the trust.
Since the
Land Transfer Act of
1897, the administrator acts as the personal representative of the deceased in relation to land and other property. Consequently, when the estate under administration consists wholly or mainly of land, the court will grant administration to the heir to the exclusion of the next of kin. In the absence of any heir or next of kin, the Crown has the right to property (other than land) as ''bona vacantia'', and to the land by virtue of the historic land rights of the Crown (and the Duchy of Cornwall and Duchy of Lancashire in their respective areas). If a
creditor claims and obtains a Grant of Administration, the court compels him or her to enter into a bond with two sureties that he or she will not prefer his or her own debt to those of other creditors.
''
Letter of administration'': Upon the death of a person intestate, or leaving a will without appointing
executors, or when the executors appointed by the will cannot or will not act, the
Probate Division of the
High Court of Justice or the local
District Probate Registry will appoint an administrator who performs similar duties to an executor. The court does this by granting letters of administration to the person so entitled. Grants of administration may be either general or limited. A general grant occurs where the deceased has died intestate. The order in which the court will make general grants of letters follows the sequence:
#The husband, or widow, as the case may be;
#the next of kin;
#the crown;
#a creditor;
#a stranger.
Where, under the rules for distribution of estates without a will (the
Intestacy Rules), a child under 18 would inherit or a life interest would arise, then the Court or
District Probate Registry would normally appoint a minimum of two administrators.
The more important cases of grants of special letters of administration include the following:
''Administration cum testamento annexo'', where the deceased has left a will but has appointed no executor to it, or the executor appointed has died or refuses to act. In this case the court will make the grant to the person, usually the residuary legatee, with the largest beneficial interest in the estate.
''Administration de bonis non administratis'' occurs in two cases:
#Where the executor dies
intestate after probate without having completely administered the estate
#Where an administrator dies.
In the first case the principle of ''administration cum testamento'' is followed, in the second that of general grants in the selection of the person to whom letters are granted.
* ''Administration durante minore aetate,'' when the executor or the person entitled to the general grant is under age.
* ''Administration durante absentia,'' when the executor or administrator is out of the jurisdiction for more than a year.
* ''Administration pendente lite,'' where there is a dispute as to the person entitled to probate or a general grant of letters the court appoints an administrator till the question has been decided.
Administration of a business
There is provision in United Kingdom law for an
insolvent company to be placed '''"in administration"'''. Various authorities may appoint an administrator, principally including:
* the courts (on application from a creditor, directors or partners)
* the holder of a qualifying floating charge over the assets of the business
* the company itself
* the directors of the company concerned
* a creditor
The task of the administrator is to manage the business so that the creditors can minimise the scale of their losses. Ideally, the administrator will sell the business as a going concern, securing the best price. It is quite probable that he or she will sell any realisable assets separately: the whole may be worth less than the sum of the parts (see
Asset stripping).
See also
*
Academic administration
*
Public administration
*
System administration
{{1911}}
Category:Administration *
bs:Administracija
br:Melestradurezh
ca:Administració
cs:Správa
de:Verwaltung
es:Administración de medicamento
fr:Administration
io:Administro
lt:Administravimas
nl:Administratie
pl:Administracja
pt:Administração
scn:Amministrazzioni
Category:Applied sciences
Category:Political science
bg:КатегориÑ?:Ð?дминиÑ?трациÑ?
de:Kategorie:Verwaltung
hu:Kategória:Közigazgatás
see
:Administrators
{{H:h|moderator toc}}
'''Administrators''' are wiki users who have "''sysop rights''". The wiki software has few features whose use is restricted, but they are quite important.
What sysops can do
Page protection
Sysops can edit protected pages and protect and unprotect pages. Protection of a page means that a non-sysop cannot modify it.
= MediaWiki namespace
=
As a result, sysops can edit the protected pages in the "MediaWiki:"
Help:Namespace namespace, which contain the messages that appear at the top of pages such as
Special:Whatlinkshere and the page that a blocked user will see when they try to edit a page, as well as many other aspects of the interface.
Page deletion
Sysops can delete pages and their history. They can also view and restore deleted pages and their history.
Sysops can also permanently delete images. This is a non-reversible change: once deleted, always deleted. Note that there is no particular reason that image deletion should not be reversible; this is simply the way the software works at present.
Reversion
Sysops can
Help:Reverting a page to an earlier version revert pages quickly. When looking at a user's contributions, a link that looks like this: [
rollback] appears next to edits that are at the top of the edit history. Clicking on the link reverts to the last edit not authored by that user, with the
Help:Edit summary edit summary ''(Reverted edits by X to last version by Y)''. This expedites the reversion of edits by anonymous vandals. Note, however, that all users, including those who are not logged in, can revert pages, only less conveniently. (By using the page history to open the version required, edit page, save.)
Sysops can hide vandalism from the
Help:Recent changes Recent Changes page. To do this, add
&bot=1 to the end of the url used to access a user's contributions. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Michael&bot=1
When the rollback links on the contributions list are clicked, both the revert and the original edit that you are reverting will be hidden from the default Recentchanges display. This mechanism uses the marker originally added to keep massive bot edits from flooding recentchanges, hence the "bot". These changes will be hidden from recent changes unless you click the "bots" link to set
hidebots=0. The edits are not hidden from contribs, history, watchlist, etc. The edits remain in the database and are not removed, but they no longer flood Recentchanges. The aim of this feature is to reduce the annoyance factor of a flood vandal with relatively little effort.
Block and unblock
*Sysops can block and unblock IP addresses. IP blocks expire after 24 hours.
*Sysops can also block usernames.
Special:Ipblocklist lists currently blocked addresses and usernames. Username blocking is not enabled by default. It can be switched on by setting
$wgSysopUserBans=true; in LocalSettings.php. When it is not switched on, you will get an error message telling you the 'IP Address does not exist.' Note: Set this code at the bottom of the script; it does not work placed right at the top. Nonexistent usernames can also be blocked, so be certain you have the correct username.
Database queries
Sysops can run read-only queries on the database.
Making sysops
Users with "bureaucrat" status can
Setting_user_rights_in_MediaWiki turn other users into sysops (but not remove sysop status). Bureaucrats are created by developers.
(Note that the following applies to version 1.5; I don't know about earlier versions.) The configuration script which runs when you first access your newly installed MediaWiki creates the first account, and automatically gives it "bureaucrat" and "sysop" status. To grant "bureaucrat" status after installation, a developer, or someone with developer skills, needs to directly
Setting_user_rights_in_MediaWiki manipulate the database records within MySQL.
Signed-in privileges
Users with ordinary access, including visitors who haven't "signed in", can still do many things, including the most important: editing pages and helping with maintenance tasks. But only signed-up users can
Help:Images and other uploaded files upload files or
Help:Renaming (moving) a page rename pages.
See also
*
m:Setting user rights in MediaWiki
{{H:f|langs=|enname=Administration}}
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