Business Administration vs. Business Management: How Do They Differ?

Management jobs are growing fast and can bring in high pay. With a median annual wage of more than $100,000 and 1.1 million projected yearly job openings, leadership and management experts are in high demand from employers.

Pay for business graduates is on the rise at several top business schools, and more colleges are offering online degree options for working students.

Business administration and business management can both prepare students for those lucrative, fast-growing leadership positions, but they differ in several key ways.

Business administration deals with the processes of running a business — the day-to-day operations.

As a business administrator, you’ll oversee the overall workings of a company. You’ll also have specialized knowledge of accounting, entrepreneurship, finance, human resources, marketing, or nonprofit management.

If you earn a bachelor’s in business administration degree, you can pursue careers in various settings, such as healthcare, retail, finance, or tech.

A business administration degree curriculum provides a broad understanding of business processes. Courses cover accounting, economics for business, macroeconomics and microeconomics. Students also learn management theory and practice, policy and strategy, and statistics.

Beyond classroom theory, you’ll likely complete a business practicum and capstone project. These experiences provide on-the-job training and the ability to network with future employers.

In a business management bachelor’s program, you’ll learn the basics of running a business. You’ll also study how to coordinate a team and company to achieve certain goals.

If you enroll full time, you’ll complete about 120 credits over four years for a bachelor’s in business management degree.

Courses in a business management degree may overlap with business administration. Required courses cover foundational business concepts such as accounting, business statistics, and human resources. Other course topics may include managerial accounting, marketing, and organizational leadership.

As a business student, you may also complete a capstone project and business internship to put theory and analysis into practice.

Think of business managers as the face of a company. They are the company leaders who supervise staff and resources to work toward a business goal.

Business administrators, however, handle the overall operations and functions of a business, including accounting, finance, and marketing.

While both positions involve leading teams and managing a business, a business management degree focuses more on the macro side of business. That could involve long-term planning, getting an understanding of how different economic factors affect business, and looking at how trends in technology and consumer behavior could help or harm an industry.

Business administration focuses on the day-to-day skills needed to hone a business. A business administrator might lead an individual team of salespeople, for instance, or work in a more company-wide managerial role and balance the needs of different teams.

You can expect similar median salaries and job security either as a business administrator or as a business manager. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there will be 1.1 million projected yearly job openings in leadership and management from 2022-2032.

The pay for business administration and business management positions depends on experience. The lowest 10% of business administrators made less than $60,840 in 2023, while the top 10% made more than $169,020 a year, according to the BLS.

Pay also varies by industry. The BLS reports that medical and health services managers made a median salary of $110,680 in 2023. However, advertising, promotions, and marketing managers made a median salary of $156,580 the same year.

The median annual wage for all management occupations was $116,880 as of May 2023, according to the BLS, significantly higher than the median wage for all occupations at $48,060. Roughly 1.1 million management job openings are projected across the country yearly, both due to employment growth and replacing workers who leave the field.

Pay for management occupations varies widely based on where someone lands a job. Some of the top-paying metropolitan areas for management occupations included New York City, with an average wage of $188,920, and Los Angeles, California, with an average yearly wage of $151,060.

Top-paying states for managers included New Jersey, New York, and Washington, with Washington, D.C., also making the list of top-paying jurisdictions for managers, according to the BLS.

Both business administration and business management can prepare students for management and leadership positions but involve different skill sets and areas of specialization.

Someone who wants to focus on planning long-term strategies for a business, for instance, might pursue a degree in business management to get a better understanding of the wide-ranging factors that affect businesses as a whole. Someone who is interested in taking on a management role and leading a team in daily operations, however, might be better suited to pursue business administration.

Pursuing business administration or business management doesn’t mean students can’t work in either field. A business management degree won’t lock you out of taking a job that involves supervising the day-to-day operations of a business as an administrator, and a business administration degree won’t prevent you from taking on roles making high-level decisions about a company.

Note: The insights on this page — excluding school descriptions — were reviewed by an independent third party compensated for their time by BestColleges. Page last reviewed April 4, 2024.