MPA 12
ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY
IGNOU MPA 12 Solved Free Assignment
MPA 12 Solved Free Assignment July 2023 & January 2024
SECTION-I
Q. 1. Discuss the importance of Public Administration.
Ans. Public administration is the operative and the most obvious part of the government. It is an instrument of governance and also as an important mechanism for presenting and promoting the welfare of community.
Public administration is necessary for the maintenance of public order, social security, welfare and economic infrastructure.
In the modern times the role of the public administration performs a cost range of activities comprising law and order, welfare measures, development programmes, support for economic enterprise and social development.
The importance of public administration may be studied under three heads:
(i)Its importance to the people;
(ii) Its importance in a democracy;
(iii) Its importance as a subject of study.
(i) Public Administration and the People: Public administration play a very important role in the life of the people. Today we see new department coming and administration comes closer to the business of the people.
Since the child is born, he is under public administration. This birth is to be registered with the local registrar. There are welfare agencies of public administration by which the child will benefit.
There are Employment Exchanges, Rationing Offices, Royal Mints, Agriculture Department, Factory Departments, Department of Foreign Relations etc., which help almost all citizens.
Public administration also play a vital role in social process. It is the part of the social, cultural and economic life of a nation.
State can be possible to exist without a legislature or an independent judiciary but no state can exist without administration.
According to the opinion of Professor Waldo, public administration is a part of the cultural complex; and it not only is acted upon, it acts.
Due to great advancement of science and technology at all levels of human activities the problem of maintaining effective coordination between the administration and the rest of the community has become highly of great importance.
Therefore, public administration becomes the most essential element in modern times.
(ii) Public Administration and Democracy: Democracy is a form of government in which the authority belong from the people.
The ideas of democracy should be progress, prosperity and protection of the common man which can be possible only through the impartial, honest and efficient administration.
An administrator should be neutral in politics and serve faithfully any political party which comes into power.
He should have an agreeable personality, possess the ability to get along with the people, have character and integrity, have qualities of leadership, and be able to make a high percentage of correct decisions without undue procrastination.
Modern democracy has brought in the concept of a welfare state. Welfare state has increased the scope of the state activity due to the demands on public administration.
(iii) Importance of Public Administration as a Subject: Public administration holds a very important place in the life of the individual. Almost all citizens depend upon public administration, so that its study cannot be ignored by the citizens of a country.
Therefore, its teaching should become a part of the curriculum of educational institution. At the Higher Secondary stage it taught as a part of the social studies but at the college level it become a distinct subject of study.
The students of today are the administrators of tomorrow. So the study of public administration will prepare them into better administrators and they will help participation in the nation-building programmes.
The significance of public administration has been explained by the eminent scholars in the following:
Woodrow Wilson: Administration is the most obvious part of government; it is government in action, it is the executive, the operative and the most visible side of the government.
Brooke Adams: The chief function of administration is to social change and social revolution.
➤ An instrument for providing services: The role of public administration is mainly concerned with various activities performed by government in the public interest.
➤ An instrument for implementing policies: The modern government deals in the formulating and adopting sound policies, laws and regulations.
➤ A stabilising force in society: Public administration is a major force for bringing stability in society. But it also reflected when there are revolutionary changes in the forms and character of government.
➤ An instrument of social change and economic development: Public adminis-tration mainly help in social change which bring economic development in the society.
➤ Technical character: In the present day government provide various services to its citizens, specially in professional and technical services.
Gerald Coiden’s opinion on public administration has assumed the following rules in the contemporary modern society:
➤Presentation of policy;
➤Maintenance of stability and order;
➤Management of large scale commercial services;
➤Protection of the weaker sections of society;
➤Influencing public policies;
➤ Institutionalisation of socio-economic changes;
➤Ensuring growth and economic development;
➤Formulation of public opinion.
Reasons for the Growth of Importance of Public Administration
(i) Industrial Revolution: The industrial revolution gave rise to socio-economic problems making the government to assume new roles and responsibilities such as protection and promotion of the rights of workers in industrial establishments.
(ii) Emergence as Welfare and Democratic State: Welfare and Democratic State has led to an increase in the activities of public administration and the state serve to all sections of the people in the society. Public administration is also to be regulated and control private economic enterprises to meet the objectives of the state.
(iii) Economic Planning: In the developing countries, like India economic planning is very essential for socio-economic development.
(iv) Scientific and Technological Develop-ment: Scientific and technological development have brought such as power, transport and communication system. It leads to invention of telephone, telegram and other mechanical devices such as typewriter, teleprinter and calculators, photocopying machines etc.
Therefore, rapid growth of population, modern warfare, increase in natural and man-made disasters, decline in social harmony, increase in violence due to conflicts, command riots, ethnic wars, terrorism etc. have increased the importance of public administration.
Q. 2. Explain the general principles of administration.
Ans. Some of the important principles of administration proposed by the various thinkers are discussed below:
The Theory of Departmentalisation
(1) The Theory of Departmentalisation is mostly given by Luther Gullick. It is one of the important principles of administration management. On the basis of this theory work can be divided in an organisation and departments are created. There are four bases on which different departments are created. These are:
(1) Function or purpose
(2) Process
(3) Persons or clientele
(4) Place or territory
It is also known as 4 Ps of Luther Gullick.
(1) Function or Purpose: On the basis of major purpose or function, work is divided in an organisation. For creating any department one has to identify the major functions or goals of the organisation and create a department for each of the function.
For example to regulate trade and commerce in the country, there is a Department of Commerce to look the welfare of the people, there is a department called welfare department.
All these departments are created on the basis of purpose or goal. Universally, this principle is applied in governmental organisations.
Advantage of such department is that it ensures better discipline. It will eliminate the wastage of time and energy.
Another important advantage of these departments are self-contained and low coordination costs are involved in running the departments. Such departments are more certain of attaining the goals.
This theory have certain disadvantages such as, failure to use update technology, lack of possibility of work division and there is not enough work for specialist working in the department.
(2) Process or Skills: The word process means a technique or primary skill more or less specialized in nature e.g. engineering, accounting, stenography, legal advice etc. On the basis of technical skill or process departments are created in an organisation.
Thus there are Department of Law, Department of Engineering, Department of Account and Audit.
Departmenta-lization according to process bring together in a Department all those who had similar professional training or who make use of the similar skills or equipment.
Advantages of process based department is that it use up-to-date technical skill and facilitates the maximum amount of specialization.
It create uniformity and coordination as all engineering services are grouped together under one department.
It secure economy by avoiding unnecessary duplication of personnel. Such department provided opportunity for the development of career service.
Disadvantage of process based department is that it create interdepartmental conflicts. It neglected the general welfare of the community.
Further, failure of one department effects the whole enterprise. Here more importance is given to the means than to the ends.
(3) Person or Clientele: Some time a department is originated for the need or necessity of person or clientele. The clientele based department is established to meet the special problem of a section of community.
It deals with all the problems of that particular section. Thus the department for scheduled castes and tribes is a clientele based department.
Advantage of clientele based department is that it facilitates the coordination of several services provided for the beneficiary groups as these are under the some department.
Staff of such department develop the capacity to understand and solve the whole problem.
Further relationship of the beneficiaries with the department is simple. Such type of department can not be universally applied is the disadvantage of this organisation.
If departments are created on the basis of people then government divided into thousands of departments.
It is against the specialization principle. Further jurisdiction of various departments are not clear, therefore one group may overlap those of the others.
(4) Place or Territory: Where department is created on the basis of place or territory, that department is called place or territorial based department.
Foreign Affair Department and Damodar Valley Corporation is the example of place-based department.
The place-based department is suitable where difficulties of communication are involved. It is also preferred, when government take interest for the development of a particular region.
The Unity of Command
Generally, an organisation is headed by an individual or a body of individuals who wield the final authority in decision- making. It provides unity of purpose and responsibility for the direction and performance of the organisation.
The principle of unity of command means that an employee should receive orders from one superior only. It requires that every member of an organisation should report to only one leader.
Fayol held that each employee in an organisation should have only one direct superior from whom he should receive orders and direction about the work to be done by him. Gullick argues with Fayol who said “a man cannot serve two masters”.
Unity of Direction
Unity of direction takes place where we have specialised single authority. This principle indicates that if each unit of an organisation has a single activity that is well planned and headed by one executive, organisational and administrative efficiency increases.
This principle is based on the belief that one director or executive should head organisation. According to Urwick, “Well managed administrative unit in the government are always headed by a single administrator.”
He was against the use of committees for effective working of the administration. He thought board and commissions are inevitably slow, cumbersome, wasteful and ineffective. They do not cooperate with other agencies.
The Principle of Division of Work
According to this principle work has to be divided and entrusted to the people who are specialised in this field. For bringing efficiency and effectiveness in the working of the organisation, this principle is best.
Individuals differ in their skills, efficiency and attitudes. A single person cannot work in two places at a time. Also he can’t perform more than one activities at a time.
Because of these reasons division of work and entrusting different types of work to different people is inevitable.
By division of work, production and efficiency of the organisation are increased. In the words of Gullick, division of work is reason for the existence of organisation.
It is the basic principle of organisation. He felt that every complicated enterprise or large scale requires many men to carry its work.
But whenever many workers are working together, the best results are secured when there is a division of work among these men. He says man invented organisation as he failed to perform the work in a single hand.
As a result he had divided the work and this division of work was the cause for genesis of organisation. But this principle is not applicable if the work is too less.
Work can be divided only when there are people available with skills to perform it. Integrating divided parts follows division of work. Division of work are bootstraps by which mankind lifts itself in the process of civilization.
The Principle of Hierarchy
In an organisation hierarchy, means superior-subordinate relationship through a number of levels of responsibility reaching from the top to the bottom of the structure. Mooney and Reiley call it as scalar process.
It is a graded organisation of several successive levels or steps. It facilitates easy flow of work in the organisation and avoid delay. Here authority command and control descends from the top to bottom step by step.
It is structured in a pyramidal form. In this principle, entire administrative organisation is divided into successive units and subunits.
Thus; control and coordination make it easy. It fixes responsibilities of individuals and makes it clear who is accountable to whom.
The Principle of Span of Control
Simply, span of control means the number of subordinates or the units of work that an administrator can personally direct.
It emphasises that a superior can not control more than a certain number of subordinates. In the words of Urwick, “No supervisior can supervise directly the work of more than five or six subordinates who work interlocks.”
This principle is related to the principle of “span of attention” described by V.A. Gracunass. Here question arises what should be the length of the span, as human capacity is limited.
If the span of supervision is extended too thinly, unsatisfactory results occur. Therefore, some scholars limit it to 3 or 4. Others have put the figure of ten or twelve.
There is no unanimity as to the exact number but general agreement is that the shorten the span, the greater will be the contact.
Actually, the exact length of span will depend on many variable factors like the calibre of the subordinates, personality of the supervisor, diversification of the functions of the organisation, the age of the organisation and the environment of the organisation.
The Principle of Delegation
Delegation means devolution of authority by a superior person to his agent or subordinate, subject to his supervision and control. Legally delegated power rests with the executive and in practice exercised by subordinate or agent.
In the absence of such delegation the subordinate become irresponsible. It is duty of a manager to train and educate his subordinates in the art of sharing responsibility and making decision which is possible only through delegation.
Without delegating power, it would be physically impossible for the head to carry on the entire tasks of the organisation himself.
Urwick felt that organisation do not function efficiently if executive do not delegate the function to their subordinates.
Urwick maintains that “Lack of courage to delegate properly and knowledge of how to do. It is one of the most general causes of failure in organisation.”
The Principle of Matching Responsibility with Authority
This principle suggest that authority and responsibility must be co-equal. According to Henry Fayol, responsibility is a corollary of authority. It is natural consequence and essential counterpart.
Those who wield authority also carry responsibility for its own task. It is not enough to hold people accountable for certain activities, it is also essential to delegate them the necessary authority to discharge that responsibility.
The responsibilities of all persons should be absolute. The person exercising authority should be personally accountable for all actions taken by subordinates.
The Principle of Staff
This principle suggest that a chief executive can’t exercise his powers and perform his functions effectively, promptly and efficiently, without help of a large number of officials.
Those officers provided help to the executive in the performance of organisational activities are nothing but the staff agency. The staff is of two categories (1) Special Staff (2) General Staff.
Head of a large organisation requires the help of both special staff or general staff. General staff assist the executive in knowing, thinking and planning function whereas special staff assist the executive in carrying out the basic operation of the organisation.
In military organisation, general staff aid their supervisors in their central task of command, control and coordination.
The Principle of Coordination
This principle emphasises that an organisation has many tasks that are performed by different departments and individual. All these tasks can be done properly by coordination of different departments.
Without proper coordination it is not possible to achieve the task of an organisation. Coordination is basically bringing together of the work done by different individuals in the organisation. It is a continuous and dynamic process.
It emphasises unity of efforts. Higher the degree of integration, higher is the degree of coordination. Coordination is relevant for group efforts and not individual efforts.
Coordination entails the smooth and harmonious working of all parts of an organisation or a whole, without conflict and overlapping to reach the desired goal in the minimum time with the maximum economy and efficiency.
Co-ordination is the first principle of organisation. Example of such principle is that it is the effective efforts of two men move a stone and says “here we have coordination”.
Q. 5. Describe the structure of an organisation.
Ans. Organisations have generally the structure of a pyramid. It contains a large number of field staff who are working under the supervision, coordination and direction of fewer persons at the higher levels of the hierarchy.
The chief executive is the highest official at the head and performs the functions of making final policy-decisions.
There are three ways by which organisation structure can be analyzed in the public administration:
➤First, on configuration or size and shape.
➤Second, on operational aspects or characteristic.
➤Third, on responsibility and authority.
By chief executive we mean person or body of persons at the head of the administrative system of a country. The chief executive is the apex of the administrative hierarchy.
For example, Queen is the chief executive of England, in India he is the President, in Switzerland it is the Federal Council and in the USA President is the chief executive.
The chief executives in all the countries are the administrative head and their primary duty is to formulate policy and to see that it is properly implemented.
There are three different forms of chief executives, viz.
- The President Form, as in the USA.
- The Cabinet Form, as in India and UK.
- The Collegiate Type, as in Switzerland.
The presidential pattern of government has its origin in the USA and it is based on Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of powers. The President of USA not only serve as the head of government, but also as chief of state.
He is absolutely free with respect to the exercise of his powers and tenure of office, all appointments made and treaties concluded by him are ratified by the senate.
India and British have parliamentary system or cabinet system of government. It parliamentary system, King of Britain and President of India are nominal executives whereas the real authority rests with cabinet in which Prime Minister is the head.
In a parliamentary system, the government is constituted from the majority party. Thus, in the parliamentary system of government cabinet is a wheel within a wheel and it is supreme directing authority of the government.
At present Switzerland having a mixed or collegiate type of chief executive with some features of both parliamentary and presidential executives. The executive authority by a commission of seven men known as the Federal Council.
The Federal Council is chosen after every four years by the Federal Assembly and one of its members is annually elected to be a Chairman and he is designated as President.
As Chairman he only exercises a casting vote. Thus, plural executives is basically based on unity of purpose of independence.
The administrative functions of the chief executive are-planning, organising, staffing, leading and controlling.
The chief executive is primarily a political head but the actual day-to-day administration is carried on by the permanent heads of department.
The main staff agencies of the chief executive in India are the Prime Minister’s office, the Cabinet Secretariat, the Cabinet Committees and Planning Commission.
The structure of organisation deals with the various principles, they are- hierarchy, unity of command, span of control, authority and responsibility, supervision, coordination, delegation, centralisation and decentralisation, etc.
Modern organisation is based on hierarchy or scalar principle, in which Mooney and Reiley call it the “Scalar Process”.
The principle of unity of command stated that an employee should receive orders from only one superior in the organisation. According to Max Weber, there are three types of authority-legal authority, traditional authority and charismatic authority.
In a legal-rational authority system, the bureaucracy forms the core of the administrative system. In a democratic state, minister or cabinet are responsible for the state affairs.
All the policy formulated by the minister and it was implemented by the civil servant, they provide information and help them in the formation of public policy. Civil servants implement the policy under the direction of cabinet.
On the whole, organisation development is different from management development, it promote problem solving. It is a planned, organisation-wide which is designed to increase organisational effectiveness.
Thus, it is related to the real problems of the organisation which is based on educational strategy for bringing planned change.
SECTION-II
Q. 6. Examine Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory.
Ans. Abraham Maslow was a great psychologist. He has studied the human behaviour through psycho- analysis. He develops the concept of holistic psychology.
He has developed “A Theory of Human Motivation” in which he has presented “the hierarchy of human needs”.
To him human beings are pleasure-seeking beings and they are motivated for satisfaction of their need.
He has opposed the views of all administrative thinkers that human being are like an instrument, used for higher productivities of the organisation.
To Maslow man is a self-actualising being. Self-actualisation refers to man’s desire for self-fulfilment. According to Maslow, man is driven only by unsatisfied needs.
If the physiological and safety needs are satisfied, then they wanted love and affection and belongingness needs.
According to Maslow, human being is an organisation, which drives into action to satisfy its needs. But its needs are u If one needs of an individual is satisfy, then the other needs take its place.
Maslow sees human needs in the form of a hierarchy, standing in an ascending order from the lowest to the highest needs and concludes that when one set of needs are satisfied then the need for other set arises.
He say that human behaviour is a reflection of more than one need. He classified human needs into five categories, which are discuss below:
➤Psysiological needs
➤Security or safety needs
➤The belongingness and love needs
➤The esteem needs
➤Needs for self-actualisation
➤Psysiological Needs: Psysiological needs are synonymous with the biological needs of the human beings like food, cloth, shelter, sleep and sex. These are the basic needs for sustaining human life itself.
According to the theory, once these are satisfied, they no longer motivate. Rather they are motivated for only the next higher level of needs.
➤ Safety Needs: Maslow stressed emotional as well as physical safety. These are needs to be fear of losing a job, property, food, cloth and shelter.
The whole organisation may become a safety seeking mechanism. Yet as is true of the psysiological needs, once these safety needs are satisfied, they no longer motivate.
➤ The Belongingness and Love Needs: As man is a social animal, once his physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, he seeks love, affection and belongingness from other human beings.
He carves for affectionate relationships and a place of belongingness with his people. These desires motivate their behaviour consciously or unconsciously.
➤ Esteem Needs: The esteem needs represents the higher needs of human beings. Maslow pointed out that the esteem level contains both self-esteem and esteem from others. The needs of power, achievement and status come under these needs.
➤ Needs for Self-actualisation: Maslow regards this as the highest needs in his hierarchy. It is the desire to become what one is capable to becoming to maximise one is potential and to accomplish something.
The desire for self-fulfilment, actualisation and learning a meaningful life is reflected in this need. In effect, self-actualisation is the person’s motivation to transform perception of self into reality.
In the hierarchy of need, satisfaction of “physiological needs” are most essential. Once these needs are satisfied, the “safety needs” become more powerful.
When these safety needs are fulfilled, the need for “belongingness” becomes uppermost and the persons behaviour is directed towards securing a respected place in his group consisting of both his superior and his equals.
Ultimately, the needs for “esteem” and “self-actualisation” come into play. Here we marked that each higher need level emerges before the lower needs have been completely satisfied.
Q. 8. Discuss the concept and components of Organisational culture.
Ans. Each organisation is unique in its own way. Employees create the culture of organisation, which enables one to predict attitudes and behaviour of the people of organisation.
Organisations have cultures that influence employees action toward clients, competitors, superiors and subordinates.
According to Pacanowsky and O’Donnell, organisation culture is described as
(i) A submerged part of organisational iceberg.
(ii) A concept created and resides in the minds of people.
(iii) Pervasive, yet somewhat intangible.
(iv) The personality of organisation-its overall orientation, values, its unwritten codes and norms.
(v) Can not be discovered and verified, rather only inferred, conjured and interpreted and defined.
Sergiovanni and Corbally define organisational culture in the following words: “Culture governs what is worth for a particular group and low group members should think, feel and behave.
The staff of culture includes customs and traditions, historical accounts be they mythical or actual, tacit under standings, habits, norms and expectations, common meanings associated with fixed objects and established rites, shared assumptions and inter-subjective meanings.”
Schein analysis six meanings of organisation culture. They are noted below:
(i) The dominant values which are espoused by the organisations.
(ii) Observed behavioural regularities in the interactions, language and rituals of the organisational members.
(iii) The rules of the game one must learn in order to survive and be accepted in the organisation.
(iv) The philosophy that guides the decisions and policies of an organisation.
(v) The norms that evolve over a period of time in working groups.
(vi) The feeling and climate that pervades and gets conveyed in the day to day functioning of the organisation. Organisational culture can be manifested and studied at different levels.
The following are some of the common expressions of organisational culture:
Physical Artifacts: There are the most tangible and visible manifestations of organisational culture. Physical layout and decor, nature, availability and use of facilities; centralisation or dispersion of common utilities.
They represent symbolic expression of an underlying meaning, value or belief, which is shared by the people in the organisation.
Cultural Artifacts: Cultural artifacts are symbolic in nature. Their values lie not in what they are, but in what they mean to people. Examples
(a) Work in Maruti Udyog starts every morning with all employees assembling and doing yoga.
(b) TISCO encourages its employees to go for mountain trekking in groups.
Language, Jargon and Metophors: Most organisations use unique terminologies, phrases, acronyms as a means of universal communication.
Such linguistic symbols distinguish between members and non-members and reinforce cultural identity. Examples
(a) In one organisation, members of the corporate office are referred to as Nawabs.
(b) In another organisation, the acronym J.I.T. (Just-In-Time) was jokingly used to describe all badly planned fire-fighting jobs.
Stories, Myths and Legends: Important culture assumptions, beliefs, values and norms are communicated through stories, myths and legends to the new members.
Ceremonies and Celebrations: These are consciously enacted collective behaviours that helps in reinforcing an organisation cultural values and assumptions.
Examples
(a) Every year the Indian Institute of Public Administration celebrates Foundation Day.
(b) Every year several universities have an Alumnus Day intended to reinforce the identity and collective pride of the old boys with the institution.
Routines, Rites and Rituals: Organisations carry out repetitively many routine activities, without giving them a second thought, such as: staff meetings, training programmes; rituals of fillings out performance appraisal forms, superiors annual visits etc., which often acquire a life of their own.
Such rituals serve the purpose of providing a sense of security and personal identity, giving meaning to members’ actions and serving as mechanisms of control.
Behavioural Norms: It evolved the nature of the individual in the organisation. Organisation behaviour transmitted to new members through a process of socialisation.
Shared Beliefs and Values: Beliefs and values are mental pictures about organisational reality and are fundamental for justifying a member’s behaviour as right or wrong.
Basic Assumptions: Competent professional do not remain for a long time in the organisation. These are conscious values and beliefs held by the members of the organisations.
IGNOU MPA 11 Solved Free Assignment 2023-24