Administrative Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The answer is Gulick.

Luther Gulick, with Lyndall Urwick, is the leading voice of the classical or principles school. In the Papers on the Science of Administration (1937) he set out POSDCORB and argued that administration rests on universal principles that hold whatever the purpose or the politics of the organisation, which is the sense of 'neutral principles' in the question.

Herbert Simon is the opposite case: he attacked those principles as 'proverbs' that contradict one another. Elton Mayo led the human relations studies at Hawthorne, which stressed informal groups and sentiment rather than formal principles. Fred Riggs is known for the ecological and comparative approach (the prismatic-sala model), not for universal principles.

Answer: D

The answer is Desired opinion.

In the standard account of decision-making, once alternatives have been identified a manager chooses among them on three bases: experience (what has worked before), experimentation (trying an alternative out on a small scale) and research and analysis (breaking the problem into its parts and studying each, often with models). Each of these is a way of testing an alternative against evidence.

A desired opinion is simply what someone would like the answer to be. Choosing an alternative because it matches a preferred view is not a recognised base of rational choice, so it is the one that does not belong.

Answer: C

The key gives Principle of Hierarchy as the one Urwick did not propound. I could not confirm this from a source.

Lyndall Urwick, in The Elements of Administration and his papers on direction and control, treats administration as investigation, forecasting, planning, organisation, coordination, command and control, and he states principles for these steps, so the principles of investigation and of control are his. 'Principle of Experiment' is not a name found in his lists, which is a reason to doubt that the key picks the right odd one out.

The key's choice of hierarchy rests on the idea that the scalar or hierarchical principle belongs to other writers such as Fayol and Mooney and Reiley. Urwick does discuss the scalar chain, so this item is a weak recall question; I kept the official key because I found nothing that proves it wrong.

Answer: A

McGregor held that a manager's assumptions predetermined his administrative style.

In The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), Douglas McGregor argued that behind every managerial decision lie assumptions about human nature. A manager who holds Theory X assumptions (people dislike work, avoid responsibility and must be coerced) adopts a directive, controlling style. One who holds Theory Y assumptions (people find work natural, seek responsibility and exercise self-direction) adopts a participative, supportive style.

Decision-making, interpersonal relations and the line of action a manager takes are all parts of that style, so each is too narrow. McGregor's point was about the whole manner of managing, which is why 'administrative style' is the answer.

Answer: D

The key gives Task and Bonus Management.

Before the name 'scientific management' came into wide use around 1910, Taylor's system was known as the task system or task management: each worker was set a defined task for the day, worked out by time and motion study, and earned a bonus or a higher piece rate for completing it. Henry Gantt's task-and-bonus plan grew out of the same system. Of the options, task and bonus management is the one that names that earlier form.

Scientific Management is the later name, not the first. Time study was a technique within the system, not its name. 'Rubble Hypothesis' is the paper's spelling of Mayo's 'rabble hypothesis', a criticism of classical economics' view of workers, and has nothing to do with Taylor's label.

Answer: B

The Human Relations Theory believed that people are heterogenous.

The Hawthorne studies of Elton Mayo and his colleagues showed that workers respond to their work as members of social groups, with their own sentiments, needs and informal norms. People differ from one another, and the same incentive does not move them all in the same way. The human relations school therefore treated workers as varied, social beings rather than as interchangeable units.

The 'economic man' view, that workers are moved by money alone, is the classical assumption the school rejected. Treating people as homogenous, all alike, belongs to the same classical view. 'Atomistic' describes individuals acting in isolation, which is the opposite of the group behaviour Hawthorne revealed.

Answer: B

Both statements are true but the Reason does not explain the Assertion, so the answer is Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).

The Assertion is true: unlike Fayol, who wrote from the top-management viewpoint, Taylor worked from the shop floor upward and was concerned with the efficiency of workers and supervisors at the operating level. The Reason is also true: in his 1912 testimony before a committee of the US House of Representatives, Taylor said that scientific management involves a complete mental revolution on the part of both workers and management.

The mental revolution describes the change of attitude Taylor wanted, from fighting over the division of surplus to cooperating to increase it. It does not explain why his concern lay at the supervisory and operative level, so (R) is not the explanation of (A).

Answer: B

The correct code is (a)-(3), (b)-(2), (c)-(4), (d)-(1).

• (a) F. W. Taylor's paper On the Art of Cutting Metals dates from 1906.
• (b) Dynamic Administration, the collected papers of Mary Parker Follett, was published in 1941.
• (c) Douglas McGregor's The Human Side of Enterprise, which introduced Theory X and Theory Y, appeared in 1960.
• (d) Fundamental Research in Administration takes the remaining date, 1953.

Taylor, Follett and McGregor are firm anchors, and only this code puts 1906, 1941 and 1960 against them. The first code puts Taylor at 1953, and the other two misplace Follett or McGregor.

Answer: A

The pioneer of New Public Administration is Dwight Waldo.

New Public Administration grew out of the Minnowbrook Conference of 1968, held at Syracuse University under Waldo's sponsorship, where young scholars called for a discipline concerned with relevance, values, social equity and change. Waldo had earlier challenged the politics-administration dichotomy in The Administrative State (1948), and he is generally named as the father of the movement.

Ferrel Heady is known for comparative public administration. Christopher Hood gave the classic account of New Public Management (1991), a later and quite different movement. Since Hood is not a pioneer of New Public Administration, 'Both (A) and (C)' is also wrong.

Answer: D

The term was elaborated by Jean Baudrillard.

In The Consumer Society (1970) and later works, Baudrillard argued that in postmodern society goods are consumed less for their use than as signs: consumption is a system of meanings through which people mark status and identity. His account of consumerism, simulation and hyperreality is the standard postmodern treatment of the idea.

Nietzsche, a nineteenth-century philosopher, is a forerunner of postmodern thought but did not write about consumerism. Jacques Derrida is known for deconstruction, the analysis of texts and meaning. Michel Foucault is known for his studies of power, knowledge and discipline. None of them developed the theory of consumer society.