Reimagining POSDCORB for Higher Education Governance: Introducing the POSDCOROB Framework for Contemporary University Administration

University administration is increasingly shaped by complex workforce, governance and service-delivery demands that expose limitations in applying classical administrative principles without contextual adaptation. This conceptual paper re-examines Gulick’s POSDCORB framework in the context of contemporary higher education and proposes POSDCOROB—Planning, Organising, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Onboarding, Reporting and Budgeting—as an extended framework for university administration. Drawing on literature on public administration, organisational theory, higher education governance, human resource management and organisational socialisation, the paper develops a conceptual distinction between Staffing and Onboarding. While Staffing is concerned primarily with acquiring, appointing and positioning personnel, Onboarding is conceptualised as the structured process through which employees become integrated into institutional roles, systems, procedures and organisational relationships. The paper argues that this distinction is particularly relevant to university registries, where administrative effectiveness depends not only on having appropriately qualified personnel but also on their effective integration into institutional processes and expectations. The proposed framework retains the core functions of POSDCORB while adding Onboarding as a distinct function that connects personnel acquisition with effective organisational participation. The paper contributes a contemporary conceptual lens for understanding university administration and provides an analytical basis for future empirical research. Future studies are encouraged to operationalise POSDCOROB and examine its applicability across higher education institutions and organisational contexts.

POSDCOROB; POSDCORB; university administration; higher education governance

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