Administrative Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The statements that hold for a formal organisation are (i), (ii) and (iv), which is the keyed answer.

A formal organisation grows and expands as its tasks increase, it is deliberately impersonal because positions and rules matter and not the individuals who fill them, and the relationships created by its structure, such as superior and subordinate, are to be honoured by everyone in it.

Statement (iii), that the organisation forces members to observe common rules, is the one statement the key leaves out, so every option containing it is marked wrong.

Answer: C

The keyed chronological order of Elton Mayo's experiments is (i), (iii), (ii), (v) and (iv).

The sequence the key follows starts with the first inquiry, then the great illumination study, then the study of human attitudes and sentiments, then social organisation, and ends with absenteeism in the industries.

The other three codes put absenteeism, social organisation or the illumination study at different positions, so they do not match the order the key follows. The option that simply lists (i) to (v) in numerical order is wrong because the items in the question were given out of sequence on purpose.

Answer: D

For Simon, rationality is limited by the skills, values, purpose and knowledge levels of the decision maker.

Herbert Simon's view is bounded rationality. A decision maker has limited information, limited ability to compute and limited time, and is shaped by personal values and aims, so he chooses a satisfactory alternative and does not search for the single best one.

Rationality is not uni-dimensional, since it varies with these limits. Simon rejects the idea of total rationality, and no decision maker has unlimited knowledge about the alternatives; all three of those options describe the classical economic model that Simon criticised.

Answer: B

The concept Transactional Influence was not developed by Peter Drucker.

Drucker is credited with generic management, the idea that managing is a common function across business, government and other institutions. He also gave Management by Objectives, in his book The Practice of Management, and he coined the term knowledge worker.

Transactional influence is not part of his body of ideas, so it is the odd one out. The other three options are all well known contributions of Drucker and cannot be the answer to a question asking for the one he did not develop.

Answer: B

F.W. Taylor rejected the principle of unity of command.

Taylor's functional foremanship divided supervision of a worker among eight specialised foremen, each directing one aspect of the work. That means a worker took orders from several superiors, which directly contradicts unity of command, the rule that an employee should receive orders from one superior only.

Henri Fayol, in the options given as Henry Fayol, made unity of command one of his fourteen principles, so he upheld it. Elton Mayo and Presthus did not frame their work as a rejection of this principle, so they are not the keyed choice.

Answer: D

The statement that is not a characteristic of the job-centred supervisor is that he helps subordinates when mistakes occur.

In Rensis Likert's scheme the job-centred supervisor concentrates on production. He exerts heavy pressure on workers for output, allows them little freedom, and shows little confidence in them. Helping subordinates when they make mistakes belongs to the employee-centred supervisor.

Showing confidence in subordinates is also an employee-centred trait, so the question is loosely framed, but the official key marks the option about helping with mistakes, and that is the keyed choice. Heavy pressure and little freedom are plainly job-centred traits and so cannot be the answer.

Answer: C

Likert's four systems do not include a Constructive style.

Rensis Likert named four systems of management: System 1 exploitative authoritative, System 2 benevolent authoritative, System 3 consultative, and System 4 participative (democratic). Constructive does not appear in this list.

Exploitative authoritative, benevolent authoritative and participative are all names Likert used, so none of them can be the answer to a question asking which one is not among the four systems.

Answer: A

The trait theory treats personality, motives, values and skills as attributes of leadership.

Trait theory looks for the personal qualities that distinguish leaders from followers, such as intelligence, drive, values and skills, and holds that leaders are marked out by these attributes.

Behavioural theory studies what leaders do and the styles they adopt, not what they are. Situational theory and the contingency model make leadership depend on the circumstances and the fit between leader and situation, so personal attributes alone are not their basis.

Answer: A

The correct matching is a-ii, b-i, c-iv and d-iii, which is option A.

The key matches J.S. Mill with the idea of professional governors of government, Thomas Carlyle with continental nuisance, which was his phrase for bureaucracy, John Dewey with occupational psychosis, and Veblen with trained incapacity.

The other codes pair at least one author with the wrong comment. For example, code B gives Mill trained incapacity, and code C swaps the comments of Dewey and Veblen, so neither matches the verified pairs.

Answer: A

Both statements are correct and the reason explains the assertion, so the answer is option A.

Bureaucracy is an essential ingredient of modern civilisation because large and complex organisations need a structure of hierarchy, rules and specialised offices to function. Since bureaucracies are found in all large and complex organisations, the reason accounts for why bureaucracy is so necessary and is the correct explanation.

Option B would hold only if the reason were true but unrelated to the assertion, and options C and D would require one of the two statements to be false. Neither is the case here.