Administrative Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: D

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

• Chester Barnard described the organisation as a cooperative social system in The Functions of the Executive.
• M. P. Follett argued that business management should be treated as a profession.
• Chris Argyris put forward the immaturity-maturity theory of personality and organisation.
• Abraham Maslow explained motivating behaviour by his hierarchy of needs.

The option a-4, b-2, c-1, d-3 swaps Follett and Argyris, and the others misplace Barnard or Maslow.

Answer: B

The wrongly matched pair is Management Guru - Elton Mayo.

Elton Mayo, the leader of the Hawthorne studies, is known as the father of the human relations school. The title of management guru belongs to Peter Drucker.

The paper treats the other epithets as correct: Chester Barnard as the spiritual father of the social system school, F. W. Taylor as the father of scientific management, and Mary Parker Follett, whose ideas were neglected and rediscovered, under the title given in the option.

Answer: C

The trait that is not charismatic is they don't have ability to convince followers.

Charismatic leadership, in the descriptions of Max Weber and later of Robert House, rests on the leader's power to inspire and persuade followers to accept a vision. Lacking that ability is the opposite of charisma.

High dominance, strong self-confidence and a firm conviction in the moral rightness of their beliefs are exactly the characteristics House listed for charismatic leaders, so those three options describe them correctly.

Answer: A

Fayol held that administrative skill is needed in industry, government as well as home management.

Henri Fayol argued that the administrative function, planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling, is common to every undertaking, whether industrial, commercial, political, religious or domestic. So administration is needed everywhere, from the state to the household.

The other options each leave out part of this, naming only two of the three spheres, so they are incomplete.

Answer: C

(A) is true but (R) is false.

Frederick Herzberg's study of engineers and accountants (The Motivation to Work, 1959) identified the strong determinants of job satisfaction: achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility and advancement. So the Assertion is true.

The Reason is false because duality is precisely what Herzberg did find. Satisfaction and dissatisfaction came from two different sets of factors: motivators produce satisfaction, while hygiene factors such as pay, supervision and working conditions only prevent dissatisfaction. This is why his model is called the two-factor theory. With (R) false, the options that treat it as true are wrong, and (A) is not false.

Answer: C

New Patterns of Management (1961) is by Rensis Likert.

In it Likert, of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, presented his research on supervisory styles and the linking-pin structure, developed further in The Human Organization (1967) with its four systems of management.

Ferrel Heady is known for Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective; Chris Argyris for Personality and Organization; and Peter Drucker for The Practice of Management and management by objectives. None of them wrote this book.

Answer: B

The worker as more than an 'economic man' is Elton Mayo's view.

The Hawthorne studies (1924 to 1932) that Mayo led found that output depended on group norms, attention and social belonging rather than on pay and physical conditions alone. This replaced the 'economic man' of scientific management with the 'social man' of the human relations school.

F. W. Taylor is the clearest believer in economic man: he relied on differential piece rates to motivate workers. Luther Gulick belongs to the classical, structural school (POSDCORB). Chris Argyris came later and built on human relations ideas, but the rejection of economic man is credited to Mayo.

Answer: D

Taylor's methods aimed at efficiency.

Scientific management replaced rule of thumb with time and motion study, standardised tools and working conditions, and scientific selection and training of workers. The goal Taylor stated was the 'one best way' of doing each job, that is, maximum efficiency, with higher output and wages following from it.

Productivity is a result of that efficiency rather than the principle the methods were designed around. 'Mental revolution' is Taylor's phrase for the change of attitude he wanted in both workers and managers; it is not produced by work study or tools. Workman welfare was not the aim of these techniques.

Answer: C

The wrong pair is Rensis Likert - Two-Factor Theory.

The two-factor (motivation-hygiene) theory is Frederick Herzberg's. Likert is known for his four systems of management and the linking-pin model.

The other pairs are correct. Mary Parker Follett described 'circular response', in which each party's behaviour responds to and alters the other's. Abraham Maslow proposed the hierarchy of needs (1943). Chris Argyris, with E. Wight Bakke, developed the fusion process theory, in which the individual and the organisation each try to shape the other.

Answer: B

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

Riggs revisited his prismatic model of transitional societies; Argyris set out the conflict between the mature personality and formal organisation. The other codes give Riggs Likert's book, or swap Argyris and Waldo, so they fail at the first or second pair.