Introduction to Public Administration Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Promotion means a change in responsibility and designation.

A promotion moves an employee to a higher post in the hierarchy. It brings greater duties and responsibilities, a higher designation or rank, and usually higher pay and status. Both elements are needed; promotion is upward movement, not merely a new title or new tasks.

A change in responsibilities alone may be a reallocation of work at the same level, and a change in designation alone may be only a renaming. A transfer is a move to another post of the same rank and pay, which is horizontal rather than upward, so it is the opposite of promotion.

Answer: C

Informal training is imparted through the trial and error method.

Informal training is the learning that happens on the job, without a planned course: the employee picks up skills by doing the work, making mistakes, observing colleagues and correcting themselves over time. Trial and error is the typical way this happens.

The syndicate method (small groups studying a problem and reporting), the lecture method and the case study method are all techniques of formal training. They are planned, conducted by trainers and usually held in a training institution, which is what distinguishes formal from informal training.

Answer: C

The keyed answer is the contingency approach.

The contingency approach, associated with Fiedler's model, holds that the effectiveness of a leader depends on the fit between the leader's style and the situation in the group: leader-member relations, task structure and the leader's position power. Fiedler built and tested it on leaders and their working groups, which is why the key links it with small groups.

The trait approach (B) looks at the personal qualities of the leader, not at the group. The situational approach (A) is also tied to the circumstances of the task and followers, and the participative approach (D) is about sharing decisions, so the question separates them only by the keyed textbook reading. I could not confirm the source that calls contingency the approach focused on small groups.

Answer: A

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

The pairs come from Rensis Likert's description of the participative group system (System 4) in New Patterns of Management and The Human Organization:

• Leadership process: superiors show complete confidence and trust in subordinates (4).
• Motivational forces: motivation comes through group participation in setting goals and rewards (3).
• Communication (interaction-influence) process: extensive, friendly interaction with a high degree of trust (1).
• Decision-making: done throughout the organisation through overlapping groups linked by 'linking pins' (2).

Only the first code gives (4), (3), (1), (2).

Answer: A

Goodnow's two functions are Politics and Administration.

Frank J. Goodnow, in Politics and Administration (1900), argued that every government performs two distinct functions: politics, the expression of the will of the state through policy, and administration, the execution of that will. With Woodrow Wilson's essay of 1887, this is the classic statement of the politics-administration dichotomy on which early Public Administration was built.

Management is a part of administration, not a separate function of government; justice and policy formulation are not the pair Goodnow named, and policy formulation is itself part of what he called politics.

Answer: B

The Managerial Grid was developed by Blake and Mouton.

Robert R. Blake and Jane S. Mouton (1964) plotted leadership styles on a 9 x 9 grid with concern for production on one axis and concern for people on the other. Its positions include impoverished management (1,1), country club (1,9), authority-compliance (9,1), middle-of-the-road (5,5) and team management (9,9), which they held to be the most effective.

Rensis Likert is known for his four systems of management and the linking pin; Tannenbaum and Schmidt for the leadership continuum from boss-centred to subordinate-centred behaviour; and Fred Fiedler for the contingency model of leadership.

Answer: D

The item that is not a barrier is upward communication.

Upward communication, from subordinates to superiors through reports, suggestions and grievances, is one of the directions in which communication flows in an organisation. It completes the feedback loop and is a remedy for poor communication, not an obstacle to it.

The other three are standard barriers. Unclarified assumptions lead sender and receiver to read the same message differently; semantic distortion arises when words carry different meanings for different people; and lack of planning means a message is sent without a clear purpose, timing or channel.

Answer: B

Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).

The assertion is true: classical or conventional Public Administration, from Wilson and Goodnow onwards, rested on the separation of politics (policy-making by elected representatives) from administration (neutral execution by officials).

The reason is also true as a description of practice: the civil services of India and Britain follow the convention of political neutrality, under which civil servants do not take an active part in politics. But that is a feature of two particular systems. It does not explain why conventional Public Administration as a discipline was built on the dichotomy; the dichotomy came from American thinkers' concern to free administration from party patronage.

Answer: A

The five bases are legitimate, coercive, reward, expert and referent.

John French and Bertram Raven (1959) identified five bases of social power: legitimate power from a recognised position; reward power from the ability to give benefits; coercive power from the ability to punish; expert power from knowledge and skill; and referent power from others' identification with and admiration for the person. Raven later added informational power as a sixth.

Traditional, charismatic and legal-rational are Max Weber's three types of authority, so the options built on them mix up two different classifications; 'charismatic' in option C is likewise Weber's term, not French and Raven's.

Answer: A

Internship and apprenticeship are pre-entry training.

Pre-entry training is given before a person joins the service: it prepares a candidate for a career in general or for a particular occupation. Internships and apprenticeships, in which a student or trainee works under supervision to learn the job before being formally recruited, are its typical forms.

Post-entry training is given after recruitment, as orientation or on-the-job training; mid-service training refreshes or upgrades the skills of officials during their career; and 'pre-fresher training' is not a recognised category.