経営 and 運営: managing a business and running activities
Read 経営 through an inn and a store's expenses, and 運営 through a library and competition, without making profit status a fixed dividing line.
経営: managing an inn and business expenses
経営 (けいえい) means management or operation. 「夫婦で海辺の小さな宿を経営している。」 means “The married couple runs a small inn by the sea.” The couple runs an inn, so the focus here is managing a business. Identify the operators and the inn without adding sales figures or a profitable outcome that the sentence does not provide.
「店の経営を立て直すため支出を見直した。」 means “We reviewed expenses to turn the store's business around.” Expenses were reviewed with the aim of improving the store's business. The review is an action that occurred; recovery is its purpose. Keeping these separate clarifies what is being managed and why.
運営: keeping activities running
運営 (うんえい) means operation or management. 「地域の人々が協力して図書室を運営している。」 means “Local residents cooperate to operate the library.” Local residents cooperate to operate a library. 運営 describes keeping this facility's activities running together; it does not make the residents a single business owner.
「大会の運営には多くの係員が必要だ。」 means “Running the competition requires many staff members.” The competition requires many staff members to run it. 必要だ states a staffing need, without saying that everyone has been hired or that the competition has already succeeded.
Find the object behind overlapping translations
Both 経営 and 運営 can be translated as management or operation. Here the objects are business management and expenses, library activities, and a competition. Profit-making and nonprofit status do not provide an exclusive rule for choosing between the words.
Ask what is being managed or run and whether the sentence states ongoing activity, an action taken, or a requirement. The couple's inn, the residents' library, and the competition staffing need belong to separate situations.
What do the expense review with 経営, the residents' library with 運営, and the competition's staffing need each focus on?
Show the answer and why
They focus on business management, running library activities, and staffing needed to run a competition. The translations overlap, so profit status is not an exclusive dividing line. Reviewing expenses does not prove business recovery, and requiring staff does not prove completed hiring.