Comment on Kautilya’s views on Authority and Accountability.

6. Comment on Kautilya’s views on Authority and Accountability.

Ans - Authority and responsibility go hand in hand. That seems to be the reason why the King is not only vested with all powers of the State, he is also made responsible for the progress and happiness of the subjects. He is supposed to pursue the goal with appropriate use of authority. Kautilya believed in a system ofauthority and prescribed a number of punishments for a number of offences on the part of the people as well as of government servants. 

        The fact that the public official should be answerable to the law as well as to the institution they belong to has been emphasised by all administrative thinkers and practitioners alike, However, responsibility for an officer’s work or actions is not to be seen merely ina legal framework, it has to be judged in a perspective of professional conduct and ethics including the extent to which an employee's action or behaviour promotes or hinders the values of justice, equity and morality in and among the subjects.   

         Keeping this aspect of accountability in mind. one finds that Kautilya attached great importance to the legal, moral and ethical dimensions of administrative role dispensation. He clearly laid down the methods and procedures of performing one’s duties beginning from the king to the other heads of departments. In his view, the work performance should be judged on the basis of whether the officials employed the just process of discharging their work. while aiming at achieving the results and meeting the ends determined at the highest level.

 

7. List out the bases of Integration as suggested by M.P.Follett.

Ans - Prasad (2010) in his Book on Administrative Thinkers has observed that the following are the bases for achieving integration as put forward by Follet.

1)      The first step towards achieving integration, as per Follett, is to bring the differences into the open instead of suppressing them. “We cannot hope to integrate”, she asserts, “our differences unless we know what they are”. What is needed, therefore, is to uncover, identify and understand the real issues involved in a conflict.

2)      The second step is breaking up of the whole Le., to consider the demands of both sides involved in conflict and to break them into their constituent parts. This involves examination of symbols, use of which is unavoidable in organisational work. This in turn involves a careful scrutinising of the language used to see what it really means. To Follett, all language used is symbolic, and therefore, one should be on guard to know as to what is being symbolised. Integration not only involves breaking up of the whole, but sometimes onc has to do the opposite. It is important to articulate the whole demand, the real demand, which is being obscured by miscellaneous minor claims or by ineffective presentation.

3)      The shind step is the anticipation of conflict. It does not mean avoidance of conflict but responding to it differently. To Follett, integration is like a game of chess. Anticipation of response is by itself not enough; there is need for preparation for response as well. This involves building up of certain attitudes in the people.

Normally, people are adjusted to the idea of dominative behaviour, by their character and habit. So, it is not easy to convince the idea of integration. Effective integration generally requires high intelligence, keen perception, discrimination, and inventiveness.

 

8. What is Barnard’s contribution on Decision Making?

Ans - Barnard made a significant contribution to the theory of decision making. He focused on organisational decision making rather than individual decision making. According to Barnard organisational decision making is the result of deliberation, evaluation and thought while the individual decision making is a result of subconscious, responsive and emotional factors. The decisions made by organisation are more logical and rational than personal decisions. Barnard has indicated five significant differences between an individual's personal decisions and organisational decisions. They are:

1)      Organisational decisions arc impersonal and are dominated by organisational ends.

2)      Organisational goals are explicitly stated, whereas this need not be so for personal decisions.

3)      The ends oforganisation are usually arrived at, after a high degree of logical thought processes, which may not be the case with personal goals, where sub-conscious processes predominate.

4)      Personal decisions cannot be delegated to others; organisational decisions can and are in fact, delegated.

5)      Organisational decisions are specialised, while personal decisions are not. Barnard  said that a decision maker should be able to identify the relevant facts which affect the fulfilment of organisational purpose from those which arc irrelevant. This is Chester Barnard possible with the search of strategic factors by analysing situations. Strategic factors should be controlled as they influence the decision making.

 

9. What do you mean by bounded rationality?

Ans - Bounded rationality is the idea that rationality is limited when individuals make decisions, and under these limitations, rational individuals will select a decision that is satisfactory rather than optimal.

Limitations include the difficulty of the problem requiring a decision, the cognitive capability of the mind, and the time available to make the decision. Decision-makers, in this view, act as satisficers, seeking a satisfactory solution, with everything that they have at the moment rather than an optimal solution. Therefore, humans do not undertake a full cost-benefit analysis to determine the optimal decision, but rather, choose an option that fulfils their adequacy criteria. An example of this being within organisations when they must adhere to the operating conditions of their company, this has the opportunity to result in bounded rationality as the organisation is not able to choose the optimal option.

Some models of human behavior in the social sciences assume that humans can be reasonably approximated or described as "rational" entities, as in rational choice theory or Downs' political agency model. The concept of bounded rationality complements "rationality as optimization", which views decision-making as a fully rational process of finding an optimal choice given the information available. Therefore, bounded rationality can be said to address the discrepancy between the assumed perfect rationality of human behaviour (which is utilised by other economics theories such as the Neoclassical approach), and the reality of human cognition. In short, bounded rationality revises notions of "perfect" rationality to account for the fact that perfectly rational decisions are often not feasible in practice because of the intractability of natural decision problems and the finite computational resources available for making them. The concept of bounded rationality continues to influence (and be debated in) different disciplines, including political science, economics, psychology, law and cognitive science.

 

10. Write a short on Immaturity-Maturity Theory.

Ans - This Theory was developed and presented by Chris Argyris in his work on Personality and Organisation. It is one of the many theories that seeks to explain the relationship between the human nature and behaviour with the organisational structure. In this, Chris Argytis, compared bureaucratic/pyramidal values (the organisational counterpart to Theory ‘X’ assumptions about people) that still dominate many organisations with a more humanistic/ democratic value system (the organisational counterpart to Theory “Y’ assumptions about people). According to this Theory, a person’s development is processed along a continuum ofan immaturity to a maturity scale.

        According to Argyris, still the age-old organisation structures are treating the people as “immature” characterised by laziness, lack of interest and apathy. People are still being believed as money hungry, wasteful and prone to errors. So, to keep them in pace with organisation goals, they are using old organisation principles of task specialisation, unity of direction, chain of command and span of control that require employees to be obedient, submissive, dependent, and passive or subordinate towards organisation leaders. These old organisation principles follow rigid and stringent rules and regulations and emphasise on managerial controls that make the employees feel dependent on their superiors and fearful of the staff personnel in charge of the various types of controls.

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