List of Relevant and Important Business Administration Interview Questions and Answers
JEROME MICHAEL EBRUPHIYO
Monday, July 19, 2021
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Here are the list of relevant and important Business Administration questions and answers which will assist you and prepare your mind for personal interviews and online selection tests as a beginner as well as job interviews for professionals. This article is useful for MBA, BBA students and candidates interested in making a career in management.
Business administration simply means the way of managing a business or non-profit organization so as to both maintain the stability of the organization and develop it at the same time. It consists of various departments starting from the operations to management. Also, there are various roles related to business administration which include business support, office manager, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and most companies have a dedicated group of administrators.
A business administrator understands the business operations and processes. His roles may involve accounting, finance, marketing, economics, statistics, human resources, and decision-making. In small organizations, business administrator manages administrative support services but in large organizations there are several levels of managers who specialize in different areas from human resources to facilities management.
Administration is concerned with the setting up of objectives and crucial policies for every organization, while management is the act of putting the policies and plans decided upon by the administration into practice. Another point is that an Administration is a decision making body, while management executes those decisions made by the administration. Lastly, an Administration is at the top level, while management operates at the middle level.
When a business enterprise is setting objectives and planning strategies for the future, economic growth is an important aspect to consider. Growth of the economy is related to business as business involves money. Real economic development can be seen from the major improvements in living standards, expansion of the existing market and the opening of new markets. Economic growth is measured through the changes in the gross domestic product of a country over a year.
Yes, management is considered a profession with the following reasons:
Well defined body of knowledge: There is a systematic body of knowledge in management which is an important feature of any profession
Restricted Entry: You can enter any profession through an examination or degree. But management companies prefer to appoint candidates with an MBA degree
Presence of professional associations: In every profession you need to get registered to special associations that are established for that particular profession same also applies to management
Existence of ethical codes: There are sets of ethics fixed by professional organizations which is to be followed by all the employees and employers of that profession. Same also applies to management
SWOT stands for 'Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats'. This is a method to analyze the environment and the company's standing in it. SWOT consists of two parts. The strengths and weaknesses refer to the internal environment of a company while the opportunities and threats are related to the external environment. Internal problems and issues are constantly dealt with. But external factors such as opportunities and threats are not in a company's control.
This can be achieved by identifying:
Different kinds of problems - You need to categorize the kinds of problems you face and have to find answers accordingly as every problem cannot be solved in the same way
Employees' needs and wants - It is always important for you to keep a track of your employees' needs and wants as it will be a source of motivation for them
Organizational strategies - It is very important for an organization to make a position for itself in the market through its products. Various strategies are used for this purpose
Competitiveness - The feeling of competition among your employees is reflected in the positive changes of the organization which is, in turn, related to the flexibility of an organization
Longivity of an organization depends on the implementation of new and improved techniques and technologies which holds the key to its survival and ultimate success. To survive for a long time you require long term profits in your business and:
Continuous development
Keeping up with technology
Retaining key employees
Satisfying employees
Offer training to the staff
Offering excellent services
This can be an individual, an organization, a social group or a society at large that has a stake in a business where stake is an essential interest in the business or its activities. It can include ownership and property interests, legal interests and obligations, and moral rights.
Management as an art possess the following characters:
Practical Knowledge
Personal Skill
Creativity
Management is considered a soft science which consists of principles and theories proven by experiments. Science aims to give answers by prediction, taking into account the work to be performed. Management can therefore be considered as both a science and an art as it fulfills the features present in science and sometimes it does the same for arts.
Management functions include;
Planning- Planning is something that is necessary for the working of every organization in order to avoid confusion, uncertainties, risks, wastage, and so on
Organizing- Organizing is a process that includes identifying activities and classifying them into different categories like assigning duties, delegation of authorities and creating responsibility, and coordinating authorities
Staffing- Staffing involves the recruitment and selection of employees. It is an important process in an organization as selecting the right person for the right job is highly important
Directing- Directing is the most important function for any organization as it puts the planning, organizing and staffing together in order to work efficiently for to achieve the organizational goals
Controlling- Controlling is equally important as it looks over the working of all the other functions in order to make sure that the enterprise's objectives and plans are put together in an effective manner without making mistakes
The essential steps include;
Analyzing the present structure
Decision-making for the future structure
Determination of objectives and strategies
Implementation and evaluation
Short-term planning is the type that looks over the present status of the company and accordingly plans are made and strategies are developed to implement them while Long-term planning is done keeping in mind the social, economic, and political situations.
Proactive Decision is about acting in advance for a future situation. It means taking measures in advance to control some situations rather than just waiting for something to happen. Reactive business decisions are those that respond to some unexpected event only after it occurs, while proactive strategies are designed to handle expected possible challenges.
Qualitative decision making is concerned with the experiential knowledge of various factors involved in a decision. For example, if you are to use the qualitative approach to solve a dispute over resources between two departments of an organization, the manager must understand the complexity of the interaction, i.e. the interpersonal connections among the supervisors of all the departments, and the overall availability of resources for which the two departments are competing. While quantitative approach uses mathematical methods to translate the problem. Accordingly, the quantitative approach works best for objectively measurable problems.
Gathering information
Identifying the principles to judge the alternatives
Listing of different possible solutions
Evaluating each choice on the basis of its consequences
Determining the best alternative
Putting the decision into action
Evaluating the outcome of your decisions and actions
Board of Directors or Owners- A company’s board or owners create a mission and write a mission statement for the internal and external audiences that they will never compromise with their standards and values
Top Management-The management at the top has to convert the mission and vision into real achievements over the time. Of all the management levels, top managers spend the most amount time making decisions and plans
Middle Management- After the top management is done with the decision making, it is up to the middle management to choose smaller plans of action that are put together to fulfill strategic goals
Operational Management- Also known as the first-line management, operational management is the level that is directly responsible to the employees as they choose their goals on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. First-line management accomplishes the objectives of middle management
Centralization is a process where decision making is in the hands of a few managers or authority is concentrated. Only one or a few people have the authority to make decisions. While decentralization is a systematic delegation of authority at all the levels of the management of an organization. In decentralization, authority is delegated to different levels of management according to their knowledge and experience and they have the power to take decisions at different stages.
vertical organization's structure is in a descending order from the top to bottom where the chain of command is distributed and the person at the top has the maximum power. While horizontal organization has a team of employees working in the same designation and each person has pre-defined duties.
Departmentalization can be understood as the dividing of an organization into different departments where the tasks are assigned according to the departments' specializations in the organization.
Job enrichment can be considered a motivational technique that every organization uses in order to boost the morale of its employees. It gives additional responsibilities to the employees so that they manage their duties more by themselves.
People Skills: If you have the right people with the right skills, the output you will get from them will be more. Managers have to give and receive constructive feedback to encourage continuous improvement
Time Management: A manager should have the quality of being able to distinguish between what is important and what can wait. He should get into the proactive mode and should not be reactive every time
Project Management: When managers have the skill of strategic thinking along with those of brainstorming and decision-making for any project, the end result that comes is always the best
Conflict Management: Conflicts are a very common part of any organization, but its management gets difficult at some point of time. So negotiating skills in managers are always helpful for keeping projects and people on the track of achieving goals and objectives
Other Skills- Stress-management skills are especially important during the times of conflicts. Office management skills such as procurement, reporting, hiring and budgeting can also help keep things operating smoothly
Effective business policy should have these features:
Specific
Clear
Reliable
Appropriate
Simple
Flexible
Stable
Lower level is also known as supervisory/operative level of management and their duties include;
Assigning jobs and tasks to various workers
Guiding and instructing workers about the day to day activities
They are responsible for the quality as well as the quantity of production
They have to maintain good relations within the organization
They need to tackle the workers' problems and act as a link between the higher authority and higher level goals and objectives, and the workers
They solve the grievances of the workers
They supervise and guide the sub-ordinates
They are responsible for providing training to the workers
They prepare periodical reports about the performance of the workers
They ensure discipline in the enterprise and also act as a source of motivation for the workers
They are the image builders of the enterprise because they are in direct contact with the workers
BPM stands for Business Process Management. BPM life-cycle is for continuous business process improvement. In this they capture the process in a structured way, then monitor and optimize the process. This cycle of process improvement repeats continuously throughout the life of the process. This introduces a culture of continual process improvement into the organization in a structured but easy-to-use way.
Model: Acquiring the business processes at the top level, making sure that the top level detail is correct without being distracted by the details of how it is going to be implemented
Execute: Instances of the process are launched and interacted with by the end users
Monitor: Measure the key performance indicators and process performances to understand where the inefficiencies in the process are
Optimize: Improve the business process and performance by reducing the inefficiencies identified during monitoring. Determine which changes will deliver the maximum benefit
Human-centric BPM
Integration-centric BPM (Enterprise Service Bus)
Document-centric BPM (Dynamic Case Management)
BPM stands for Business Process Management and SOA stands for Service Oriented Architecture. BPM is related to business process and SOA is technical. BPM provides managerial road map for the integration of human-driven process with IT business solution While SOA provides a flexible set of design principles for developers which are used during the systems development and integration phases. BPM defines processes and sets goals while SOA provides technological means to achieve those goals.
Departmentalization is important for every organization as it helps in specialization, growth and expansion, fixing responsibility, bettering the customer service, Performance appraisal, Management development optimizing the utilization of resources and facilitating better control and the bases for departmentalization are:
Functional: It is commonly used as it offers certain advantages such as specialization, performance of activities, elimination of unnecessary activities, organization and control of important functional activities
Product: Product departmentalization is important for product expansion and diversification when the manufacturing and marketing characteristics of each product are of primary concern
Geographical: Territorial or geographical departmentalization is especially useful for large organizations such as banking, insurance, transportation, etc. as these are geographically spread
Process: In process departmentalization, processes involved in production or various types of equipments used are taken as the basis for departmentalization
Customer: The basic idea of this departmentalization is to provide services to clearly identified groups of customers
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