Administrative Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The item that is not one of Kautilya's five elements is rules about pension to servants.

In the Arthashastra's discussion of counsel (mantra), Kautilya names five elements to be considered in any undertaking: the means of starting the work, the excellence of men and materials, the apportionment of place and time, provision against failure (remedies against dangers), and the accomplishment of the work.

The means of starting undertakings, excellence of men and materials, and provision against failure are on that list. Pension rules for servants are not part of it.

Answer: D

The keyed answer is that the classical thinkers saw the organization as a structure of authority.

The classical school (Taylor, Fayol, Gulick, Urwick, Weber on bureaucracy) described the organisation by its formal structure: hierarchy, chain of command, span of control and division of work. The organisation was a pyramid through which authority flows from the top downwards.

Wider participation of individuals (A) and the existence of informal organisation inside the formal one (C) are themes of the human relations school and later behavioural writers, which classical thinkers largely ignored. Rationality of individual behaviour (B) was assumed by some classical writers, such as in the economic man of scientific management, but the idea that most clearly marks the classical school is the structure of authority, which is what the key chooses.

Answer: B

The keyed answer is the fact-value dichotomy, the one item of the four that the key does not count as a feature of modern organisation theory.

Modern organisation theory looks at the organisation as a system and at the behaviour of the people in it. Decision-making (A) is its core theme, organisational humanism (C) is its concern for the person at work, and the recognition of sources of authority beyond the formal hierarchy (D), such as expertise and the acceptance of authority by subordinates, is part of its break with the classical view.

By elimination the fact-value dichotomy (B) is the odd one out in the keyed reading. I could not confirm a textbook list that states this, and Herbert Simon, a leading modern theorist, did draw a distinction between facts and values in decisions, so the question rests on the key's list rather than on a source I could check.

Answer: D

The observation is Mary Parker Follett's.

It comes from her paper 'The Giving of Orders' (1925). Follett noted that to some people giving orders seems a very simple affair, while others find it surrounded by many difficulties. Her answer was the 'law of the situation': orders should be depersonalised and derived from the requirements of the situation, which both superior and subordinate can recognise, rather than from personal authority.

Chester Barnard developed the acceptance theory of authority, Chris Argyris the conflict between the individual and the organisation, and Peter Drucker management by objectives. Each wrote on authority or management, but the giving of orders is Follett's theme.

Answer: C

Such a person is called a squealer.

The term comes from the Bank Wiring Observation Room study in the Hawthorne experiments (Roethlisberger and Dickson). The workers' informal group had norms: do not turn out too much work (or you are a 'rate buster'), do not turn out too little (or you are a 'chiseler'), and do not tell a supervisor anything that could harm a colleague (or you are a 'squealer').

A rate buster over-produces and a chiseler (printed 'chesler') under-produces. 'Cheater' is not one of the Hawthorne labels. The person who passes damaging information to the superior is the squealer.

Answer: B

The keyed answer is both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).

(A) is true: Max Weber saw bureaucracy as a major expression of the rationalization of modern life, with rules, offices and expertise replacing tradition and personal rule. (R) is true in the sense that Weber linked Protestant (Calvinist) ethics to the rational conduct of life that favoured modern capitalism and the rationalizing spirit of the age.

That link, however, explains the rise of the capitalist spirit more directly than the spread of bureaucracy, so the key does not treat it as the explanation of (A). The reading of (R) as true is a loose one, because Weber's thesis is about capitalism; I follow the key. Codes A, C and D are therefore wrong.

Answer: A

The correct matching is a-3, b-1, c-4, d-2.

• 'The Science of "Muddling Through"' (1959) is Charles Lindblom's (printed 'Lindbloom') article setting out incrementalism (3).
• Public Policymaking Reexamined (1968) is Yehezkel Dror's (printed 'Yezkel') book proposing an optimal model (1).
• Administrative Behavior (1947) is Herbert Simon's study of decision-making (4).
• The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization (1933) is Elton Mayo's account of the Hawthorne findings (printed 'Organization') (2).

Only the first code gives (3), (1), (4), (2). The others swap Lindblom and Dror, or Simon and Mayo.

Answer: C

The characteristics of post-modern societies are (1), (3) and (4): situational, consumerism and the decentred self.

Postmodern thought rejects universal truths and grand narratives, so knowledge and values are treated as situational and context-bound. Postmodern societies are organised around consumption and the play of signs and images rather than production. And the self is seen as decentred: fragmented, fluid and constructed, rather than a stable, rational subject.

Logical positivism, the doctrine that only empirically verifiable statements are meaningful, belongs to the modernist faith in science and method that postmodernism rejects. So any code that includes (2) is wrong.

Answer: C

Waldo attacked (1), (3) and (4).

In The Administrative State (1948), Dwight Waldo argued that the orthodox public administration of the 1930s was itself a political theory in disguise. He criticised its belief in fixed, universal principles of administration, its narrow elevation of economy and efficiency as the supreme values, and the unscientific, inconsistent way the 'principles' had been derived.

He did not attack human emotions in organisations; if anything, the classical writers he criticised were the ones who neglected the human side. So codes including (2) are wrong, and the code with only (1) and (4) leaves out his central attack on efficiency as a value.

Answer: A

The view is Taylor's.

In the introduction to The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), Frederick Winslow Taylor set out to prove that the best management is a true science, resting on clearly defined laws, rules and principles, and that these fundamental principles apply to all kinds of human activities, from personal acts to the work of great corporations.

Henri Fayol wrote on the functions and principles of administration, Max Weber on bureaucracy and authority, and Luther Gulick on POSDCORB and departmentalisation. None of them made this claim about management as a true science in these words.