Unit 5: Administrative Behaviour - Practice Quiz

1 What is the main purpose of coordination in an organization?

2 Which of the following is an important requirement for effective coordination?

3 Coordination is especially needed when different departments have:

4 Which method can help coordinate the work of government departments?

5 What is communication in administration?

6 Which element is necessary for a communication process?

7 Which type of communication moves from a superior to a subordinate?

8 A report sent by an employee to a department head is an example of:

9 What is leadership primarily concerned with?

10 A good leader should provide employees with:

11 Which quality is commonly associated with effective leadership?

12 Leadership in public administration should mainly serve:

13 What is supervision?

14 A supervisor is usually responsible for:

15 Which activity is part of supervision?

16 Constructive feedback from a supervisor helps employees to:

17 What is decision-making?

18 What is usually the first step in decision-making?

19 Which factor is important when making an administrative decision?

20 A decision made according to established rules is called a:

21 A public health department and a municipal sanitation department are planning separate campaigns to reduce waterborne diseases. What is the most effective coordination strategy?

22 Two divisions in a government agency are using different procedures to process similar applications. Which action would best improve coordination?

23 A disaster-response team includes police, firefighters, medical staff, and local officials. Which arrangement is most likely to prevent conflicting instructions during an emergency?

24 A policy implementation committee discovers that several agencies are collecting the same data from citizens. What should it recommend first?

25 A supervisor sends a technical policy document to field workers, but implementation errors continue. Which communication improvement is most appropriate?

26 An agency announces a major organizational change through an informal messaging group before issuing an official notice. What is the main administrative risk?

27 A citizen complaint is passed through several offices and loses important details. Which measure would best address this problem?

28 During a staff meeting, employees remain silent even though several implementation problems exist. Which action would most improve upward communication?

29 A newly appointed administrator inherits a team with low morale after repeated policy changes. Which leadership response is most appropriate?

30 A department head must lead professionals who possess more technical knowledge than the head. Which leadership approach is most effective?

31 A public organization is introducing a digital service, but employees resist the change because they fear job losses. What should the leader do first?

32 A manager gives employees authority to solve routine service problems but retains responsibility for major policy decisions. This illustrates which leadership practice?

33 A supervisor notices that an employee repeatedly submits incomplete case files. What is the best initial supervisory action?

34 A supervisor checks every minor action taken by staff, causing delays and reducing initiative. Which adjustment would improve supervision?

35 A field officer meets performance targets but receives frequent complaints about discourteous treatment of citizens. What should the supervisor do?

36 A supervisor wants to assess whether a training program improved employees' performance. Which method provides the strongest evidence?

37 A public manager must choose between two programs, but the available data are incomplete. Which approach is most appropriate?

38 A committee selects a proposal because its members support it, even though an alternative has stronger evidence of effectiveness. Which decision-making problem is shown?

39 A manager must reduce operating costs without reducing essential services. Which decision-making step should come first?

40 A department continues using an outdated procedure because changing it would require effort, even though better alternatives are available. What bias is most likely involved?

41 A public health department, municipal council, and water authority must jointly reduce cholera outbreaks. Each agency agrees on the goal, but their performance indicators reward separate outputs. Which coordination mechanism is most likely to produce sustained joint action?

42 Two departments repeatedly delay a housing project because each must approve the other's technical submissions. Their formal mandates overlap, but neither has authority to resolve disputes. Which intervention best addresses the underlying coordination failure?

43 A disaster-response network performs well during routine operations but fails when a flood creates simultaneous demands across agencies. Which design principle would most improve coordination under these conditions?

44 A coordination committee has representatives from ten agencies, but meetings produce consensus statements rather than operational commitments. Which change is most likely to improve its effectiveness?

45 A ministry sends accurate policy instructions to regional offices, yet implementation varies widely because local officers interpret key terms differently. Which communication improvement is most appropriate?

46 During an emergency, officials receive frequent situation reports from multiple sources. The reports are individually credible but collectively contradictory. Which communication strategy best supports administrative judgment?

47 A supervisor's message is technically clear, but employees conceal implementation problems because they fear sanctions. What is the most important communication diagnosis?

48 A government agency introduces a digital dashboard to improve transparency. Staff begin optimizing visible indicators while neglecting unmeasured service quality. Which communication-related risk does this illustrate?

49 A newly appointed administrator inherits a fragmented agency with low trust and strong professional subcultures. Which leadership approach is most likely to create durable change?

50 A leader must implement an unpopular austerity measure while preserving staff commitment. Which action best reflects ethically effective administrative leadership?

51 A technically exceptional director makes all important decisions personally. Short-term performance rises, but staff initiative and succession capacity decline. Which leadership correction is most appropriate?

52 A reform leader receives praise for visible early successes, but frontline indicators suggest that implementation burdens are growing. What should the leader do first?

53 A supervisor evaluates caseworkers solely by the number of cases closed. Closure rates rise, but unresolved appeals increase. Which supervisory redesign is most defensible?

54 A field office consistently misses deadlines because procedures require approvals from an unavailable central officer. The supervisor should first:

55 A supervisor notices that employees follow rules rigidly even when doing so harms vulnerable clients. Which supervisory response best preserves legality while encouraging sound judgment?

56 A remote-work team appears highly productive according to activity logs, yet service users report declining responsiveness. Which supervisory approach best addresses this discrepancy?

57 A policy team must choose among alternatives using incomplete evidence, limited time, and potentially irreversible consequences. Which decision rule is most appropriate?

58 A committee reaches a unanimous decision after members suppress doubts to preserve harmony. Later evidence reveals major risks that no one discussed. Which safeguard would have best reduced this failure?

59 An agency must allocate scarce emergency shelters. A purely efficiency-based rule serves more people overall but excludes a small high-risk group. Which decision process is most defensible?

60 A program appears successful because its beneficiaries are improving, but evaluation shows that participants were already more likely to succeed than nonparticipants. What decision error is most evident?