Administrative Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The grapevine is an informal communication network. The key accepts that it is not controlled by management, that most employees find it more believable and reliable, and that it is an important source of information, which is (i), (ii) and (iv).

Statement (iii), that it is largely used to serve the organisational interest, is wrong because the grapevine is used mostly to serve the personal interests of those who pass on information, and it may even harm the organisation. The other options leave out a true statement or include (iii).

Answer: D

From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology was edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, who translated and introduced Weber's essays in 1946. The booklet prints the first name as Hearth, which is a misprint.

Talcott Parsons translated The Protestant Ethic and The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, which are different works. C. W. Mills alone, or Gerth alone, would leave out one of the joint editors, so the combination of the two is the answer.

Answer: B

The major functions of a line agency are making decisions, maintaining production and taking responsibility, which is (i), (iii) and (iv). Line agencies are directly concerned with the main purpose of the organisation, so they decide, produce and answer for results.

Statement (ii), ensuring that the chief executive is adequately informed, is a staff function: staff agencies advise and assist. The options that include (ii) are therefore wrong.

Answer: C

According to the Arthasastra a king should avoid lust, greed and vanity, which is (i), (ii) and (iv). Kautilya listed the six enemies within as lust, anger, greed, pride, arrogance and overjoy, and held that a king who has mastered the senses by avoiding them can rule well.

Confrontation, item (iii), is not one of the six vices, so the options that contain it are wrong, and the options with only two items are incomplete.

Answer: C

The statement that charismatic authority can be routinized so that it continues after the leader's departure was made by Max Weber. He held that charismatic authority is unstable and is turned into traditional or legal rational authority through the process of routinization of charisma.

Herbert Simon wrote on decision making, Chester Barnard on the functions of the executive and Peter Blau on bureaucracy. The concept of routinization is Weber's.

Answer: A

The correct matching is Herbert Simon with bounded rationality, Charles Lindblom with incrementalism, David Easton with the black box model and Geoffrey Vickers with the art of judgement. This is code A, (iv) (i) (ii) (iii). Easton described the political system as a black box taking inputs and giving outputs. Vickers wrote The Art of Judgement.

Modified rationalism, item (v), is not a match with any of the four, so options B and D that use it are wrong, and option C misplaces Simon.

Answer: B

The term representative bureaucracy was coined by J. Donald Kingsley, in his book Representative Bureaucracy (1944), on the British civil service. He argued that the civil service should reflect the social composition of the community it serves.

Robert Merton wrote on bureaucratic structure and personality. F. M. Marx edited the Elements of Public Administration. Herman Finer is known for his debate with Friedrich on responsibility. The term is Kingsley's.

Answer: A

The official key gives the statement that classical theory treats organisation as a closed system as the one that is not Follett's criticism. Follett's criticisms of the classical view were that it is one sided, mechanical in approach and ignores the psychological aspects of work. The closed system point is the criticism made by later open system theorists.

So the other three options are criticisms associated with Follett and are wrong for a question asking which is not.

Answer: C

The correct matching is the linking pin model with Rensis Likert, the decision tree with Duncan, the garbage can model with Cohen, March and Olsen and the ERG theory with Alderfer. This is code C, (i) (ii) (iv) (iii).

Likert's linking pin and Alderfer's existence, relatedness and growth theory are the clearest pairs, and the garbage can model is the work of Cohen, March and Olsen. Options A, B and D give ERG theory or the garbage can to the wrong name.

Answer: D

The key gives Simon and March as the writers who called scientific management a physiological organisation theory. In Organizations (1958) March and Simon described the classical theory of Taylor as a theory of physiological organisation, since it treats the worker as a machine like part with physical limits.

Robert Hoxie wrote a critical study of scientific management and trade unionism, and Oliver Sheldon wrote on the philosophy of management. Peter Drucker is a management writer. They do not use this term.