Administrative Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The main focus of the Arthashastra, according to the passage, is statecraft, economy and diplomacy, along with political science and public administration. The passage says the book has the practical aim of showing how the government ought to be run.

It is only a concept formation is wrong because the passage says Kautilya made no serious attempt at theory building. It is not a practical guide to administration is wrong because the passage says the aim is practical. It is not a symbol of Indian political thought is wrong because the passage describes it as put forth as that symbol, though it admits this is embarrassing.

Answer: A

Kautilya insists on violence, conspiracies and espionage because they are a practical way to run the government. The passage says he recommended such measures only against enemies and traitors in emergencies, as means of protecting the state.

A diplomatic strategy is wrong because the passage ties the measures to emergencies against enemies and traitors. A matter of normal administration is wrong because they are for exceptional cases. Concerned with morality is wrong because the passage says politics and ethics do not mix easily in his thinking.

Answer: B

The passage says that politics and ethics do not go together easily in Kautilya's thinking. He did not disregard ethics, but distinguished individual morality from public morality.

The phenomena of politics and ethics are separate overstates this, because he accepted that the two meet. Kautilya disregards ethics is wrong because the passage states he did not. Kautilya insists morality is wrong because his proposition was that statecraft sometimes calls for measures that individual morality would not allow.

Answer: A

Kautilya concentrates on practical administration but not on theory building. The passage says he made no serious attempt at theory building, and that at best he described empirical reality and was normative and prescriptive.

Efficiency in administration is wrong because the passage says he was keen on efficiency. Maxims of administration is wrong because he laid down maxims such as hierarchy, selection by merit and discipline. The rationality of administration is wrong because he was keen on rationality as well.

Answer: A

Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).

F.W. Taylor's scientific management studied work as a set of motions to be timed, standardised and paid for, and treated the worker as an 'economic man' moved mainly by wages. That is a mechanistic view of the organisation: a machine whose parts are to be made efficient.

Because it saw the organisation as a machine, it left out feelings, informal groups and social needs, which is the neglect of the human side named in the assertion. The Hawthorne studies and the human relations school were a reaction to exactly this gap. The reason therefore explains the assertion, which rules out the other three codes.

Answer: D

The answer is Commanding and Controlling.

Henri Fayol listed five elements of administration: planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling. Luther Gulick's POSDCORB stands for planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting.

Commanding and controlling are in Fayol's list but not in POSDCORB. Coordinating appears in both, which rules out the first option, and 'companioning' and 'cooperating' are not Fayol's elements.

Answer: B

Follett's three types are (1), (3), (4): leadership of position, leadership of personality and leadership of function.

Mary Parker Follett distinguished leadership that comes from holding a formal post (position), leadership that comes from force of character (personality), and leadership that comes from knowing the work best in a given situation (function). She regarded the last as the most important in a modern organisation, because authority should follow the situation and the knowledge it needs.

'Leadership of planning' is not one of her categories, so every option that includes (2) is wrong, which leaves only (1), (3) and (4).

Answer: B

Leadership was analysed in terms of 'circular response' by M.P. Follett.

In Creative Experience (1924) Mary Parker Follett described every human relation as a circular response: each party's behaviour responds not just to the other person but to the relation between them, which their own behaviour is already changing. Leadership, on this view, is not one-way command but a reciprocal process of influence between leader and led.

Chester Barnard is known for the acceptance theory of authority and the zone of indifference, J.D. Millett wrote on management in the public service, and F.W. Taylor founded scientific management, which treated leadership as the issuing of instructions.

Answer: D

Simon outlined his theory in 'Administrative Behaviour : A Study of Decision-making Process in Administrative Organisation, as printed.

Herbert A. Simon's Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization was first published in 1947. It made the decision, rather than the structure, the unit of analysis, criticised the classical 'principles' as proverbs, and introduced the idea of bounded rationality and the 'administrative man' who satisfices rather than maximises.

The other three titles are made by recombining words from the real one; no book of Simon's carries any of them.

Answer: C

The first major exponent of the traditional or classical theory of motivation is Taylor.

F.W. Taylor's scientific management assumed that workers are moved chiefly by money. His differential piece-rate system paid a higher rate to those who met the standard task, and this 'economic man' view, often called the carrot-and-stick approach, is the classical theory of motivation.

Maslow (hierarchy of needs) and McGregor (Theory X and Theory Y) belong to the later behavioural school that criticised that view. Henri Fayol was a classical theorist, but of management functions and principles, not of motivation.