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Instructor Resource Kettl, Politics of the Administrative Process 7e SAGE Publishing, 2018
Chapter 7: Administrative Reform Test Bank Multiple Choice 1. The recent approaches to public management reform question the bureaucratic orthodoxy based on ______. a. downsizing b. authority and hierarchy c. continuous improvement d. reengineering Ans: B 2. Delegation of authority on the basis of expertise and democratic accountability through hierarchical control are the principles found in ______. a. traditional public administration b. continuous improvement c. reengineering d. downsizing Ans: A 3. According to the text, federal reform efforts have borrowed strategies and ideas from all of the following EXCEPT ______. a. private companies b. state governments c. local governments d. nonprofit organizations Ans: D 4. According to the text, the fundamental precepts of reengineering contradict the fundamental precepts of ______. a. both downsizing and continuous improvement b. only continuous improvement c. only downsizing d. neither downsizing nor continuous improvement Ans: A 5. Shrinking government is the goal of which type of reform? a. e-government b. downsizing c. reengineering d. continuous improvement Ans: B 6. What is the most important component of reengineering? a. process
Instructor Resource Kettl, Politics of the Administrative Process 7e SAGE Publishing, 2018
b. plans c. budgets d. policy Ans: A 7. Reinventing government and the Taxpayer Bill of Rights are examples of which type of reform? a. e-government b. continuous improvement c. downsizing d. reengineering Ans: C 8. Reengineering focuses on improving organizations from the ______. a. outside-in b. bottom-up c. top-down d. inside-out Ans: C 9. Total quality management is most associated with which type of reform? a. reengineering b. continuous improvement c. downsizing d. e-government Ans: B 10. Although all governments across the globe are reforming public administration, the most noteworthy and successful transformations have occurred in ______. a. the United Nations b. developing nations c. developed nations d. communist nations Ans: C 11. According to the text, government reform efforts across the globe ______. a. tend to mix and match downsizing, reengineering, and continuous improvement techniques with little regard for their inherent contradictions b. tend to mix and match downsizing, reengineering, and continuous improvement techniques with great regard for their inherent contradictions c. employ only a single approach to reform at one time d. employ downsizing techniques only after trying continuous improvement techniques Ans: A 12. The fundamental building block of reengineering is ______. a. total quality management
Instructor Resource Kettl, Politics of the Administrative Process 7e SAGE Publishing, 2018
b. shrinking government c. process d. interpersonal relationships Ans: C 13. The three approaches to administrative reform that government officials are using at the present time are all of the following EXCEPT ______. a. downsizing b. reengineering c. continuous improvement d. convergence Ans: D 14. The fundamental goal of downsizing is to ______. a. shrink government b. shrink state, not federal government c. shrink federal, not state government d. build interpersonal relationships Ans: A 15. Process, product, organization, leadership, and commitment are the tenets of ______. a. reengineering b. total quality management c. downsizing d. e-government Ans: B 16. Process is the fundamental building block of ______. a. e-government b. continuous improvement c. downsizing d. reengineering Ans: D 17. Which movement drove Gore’s reinventing government efforts more than any other effort? a. reengineering b. downsizing c. continuous improvement d. e-government Ans: C 18. The central method used in the continuous improvement approach is ______. a. process b. cooperation
Instructor Resource Kettl, Politics of the Administrative Process 7e SAGE Publishing, 2018
c. size d. top-down Ans: B 19. Which movement began at the state level in the mid-1970s? a. e-government b. continuous improvement c. reengineering d. downsizing Ans: D 20. Reinventing government was a term taken from the best-selling book by ______. a. Osborne and Gaebler b. Kettl and Fesler c. Gore and Frederickson d. Hammer and Champy Ans: A 21. Which scholar first argued that citizens are not customers, but owners? a. Gaebler b. Osborne c. Frederickson d. Hammer Ans: C 22. What is reinventing government? a. the George W. Bush administration’s strategy for producing “a government that works better and costs less” b. the Clinton administration’s strategy for producing “a government that works better and costs less” c. the Clinton administration's strategy for producing “a government that increases private sector participation” d. the George W. Bush administration’s strategy for producing “a government that increases private sector participation” Ans: B 23. Countries all around the world are mobilizing toward administrative reform and three such countries mentioned by the chapter are ______. a. Canada, New Zealand, and Japan b. Italy, Brazil, and Austria c. Sweden, China, and Colombia d. Denmark, Chile, and Malaysia Ans: A 24. Continuous improvement is most closely associated with ______. a. a top-down approach
Instructor Resource Kettl, Politics of the Administrative Process 7e SAGE Publishing, 2018
b. size c. total quality management d. competition Ans: C 25. The transparent performance strategy of government reform was championed by which presidential administration? a. Ronald Reagan b. George W. Bush c. Barack Obama d. Bill Clinton Ans: C 26. The Gramm-Rudman Act and the Grace Commission are both examples of which type of reform? a. downsizing b. continuous improvement c. e-government d. reengineering Ans: A 27. According to proponents of the downsizing of government, what effect would reduction of revenues have? a. more progressive policy b. conservation of resources c. increased efficiency d. better processes Ans: C 28. Reengineering advocates ______ reform, in direct contrast to continuous improvement, which insists ______ reforms are best to improve organizations. a. downsizing; upsizing b. bottom-up; top-down c. top-down; bottom-up d. outside-in; inside-out Ans: C 29. According to the author, reengineering approaches employ both ______ and ______ tactics. a. procedural; analytical b. incremental; procedural c. thoughtless; ineffective d. procedural; cheap Ans: A 30. Downsizing’s central focus is on ______.
Instructor Resource Kettl, Politics of the Administrative Process 7e SAGE Publishing, 2018
a. process b. transparency c. size d. cooperation Ans: C 31. Continuous improvement is focused on ______. a. process b. information c. blunt targets d. responsiveness Ans: D 32. Downsizing requires public managers to ______ with ______. a. do more; less b. implement programs; larger budgets c. help customers; little guidance d. sunset programs; cost savings Ans: A
True/False 1. The central ideas of public administration reform tend to come from the private sector. Ans: T 2. Many federal government reform efforts have sprung from state and local governments. Ans: T 3. The Private Sector Survey on Cost Control is a form of downsizing reform. Ans: T 4. The Balanced Budget and Emergency Control Act is a form of continuous improvement. Ans: F 5. The effects of downsizing on the quality and efficiency of government administration are very clear. Ans: F 6. According to Deming, costs decline as quality increases. Ans: T
Short Answer
Instructor Resource Kettl, Politics of the Administrative Process 7e SAGE Publishing, 2018
1. Briefly describe the downsizing movement. Ans: Answers will vary. The downsizing movement centers on cuts to wasteful or inefficient programs. The central idea is that managers should do more with less. 2. How does reengineering work? Ans: Answers will vary. Reengineering seeks to overhaul organizations from the ground up through innovative thinking about processes (the building block) and making vast improvements to these processes. 3. How do motivation reform strategies affect the relationship between management and subordinates? Ans: Answers will vary. Motivation strategies are built on positive relationships between management and staff; they include fostering a positive work environment and work incentives. 4. How was the Clinton–Gore effort to reinvent government supposed to cut costs? Ans: Answers will vary. Cost savings were supposed to occur through cutting the federal workforce by 12 percent over a five-year period of time. Positions belonging to unnecessary layers of the bureaucracy would be eliminated (252,000 identified positions). 5. How can reengineering be problematic? From your perspective, should this deter its use? Ans: Answers will vary. Because of its ambitious approach, this reform effort might “overpromise and underdeliver” because its focus in on making great (nonincremental leaps). In the end, if imaginative thinking prevents completion of the task (that has been thought of previously through orthodox means), then the approach could be considered problematic. 6. Fundamentally, how do reengineering and continuous improvement differ? Ans: Answers will vary. Reengineering insists on top-down solutions whereas continuous improvement depends on bottom-up approaches to improve organizations.
Essay 1. Where have the new methods and approaches to American governmental reform originated? What is your perception of the federal government looking to these sources? Why? Ans: Answers will vary. Many American governmental reforms have sprung from the private sector and from state and local governments. First, the most innovative administrative thinking has occurred in the private sector. Public managers anxious to save money and improve service delivery have often looked to corporate strategies and tactics. Second, American governmental reforms have tended to bubble up from the experiments of state and local governments, rather than moving from the federal government down.
Instructor Resource Kettl, Politics of the Administrative Process 7e SAGE Publishing, 2018
2. The downsizing movement is described by the text as the pursuit of certain symbols and certain assumptions about government. Discuss the origins, goals, and assumptions of downsizing paying particular attention to whether it is effective or not. Ans: Answers will vary. Downsizing purports that government is too big and should be reduced by setting arbitrary ceilings on taxes or personnel, making across-the-board cuts, or trimming the middle of the bureaucracy. Its methods are blunt targets, driven by the assumption that there is ample waste in government to accommodate the cuts. This movement started in the mid-1970s. According to the text, as often as downsizers declare government’s pathologies, they pursue remedies that make the pathologies worse. For example, in an effort to cut government spending and employees yet still provide the same services they often rely on government by proxy. The GAO has found that having fewer government employees means less oversight and over the years less oversight leads to higher costs. 3. Describe three major downsizing efforts in American government during the late twentieth century. Ans: Answers will vary. In 1992, Colorado passed a constitutional amendment called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) to limit tax increases. In 1984, the President’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (Grace Commission) produced 2,500 recommendations that its report said would save $425 billion over three years. In 1985, the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act (Gramm-Rudman) forced both Congress and the president to begin bringing the federal deficit under control. 4. Describe the origin, goals, and assumptions of the American governmental reform of continuous improvement. Do you feel that this strategy could be effective for public managers? Why or why not? Ans: Answers will vary. Continuous improvement seeks greater responsiveness to the needs of customers by launching an ongoing process to improve the quality of an organization’s products. Advocates of continuous improvement believe that workers know best how to solve an organization’s problems, so, unlike reengineering, continuous improvement builds from the bottom up. Since the late 1980s, this movement has been associated most strongly with total quality management. 5. Compare and contrast the three major reforms: downsizing, reengineering, and continuous improvements. Which is the strongest type of reform according to the text and why? Ans: Answers will vary. Downsizing is motivated by pressures from the outside, the citizenry, to constantly decrease government spending. The assumption is that government is wasting taxpayer dollars and as such government needs to be made smaller. Reengineering restructures organizational processes to increase administrative efficiency by modeling ideas on the private sector using a top-down approach. Continuous improvement tries to respond to the consumer of government by constantly trying to better the quality of the organization from the bottom up. It is less competition oriented like reengineering and it tries to foster cooperation among workers. The assumptions embedded in each movement clashes with the other two movements. And
Instructor Resource Kettl, Politics of the Administrative Process 7e SAGE Publishing, 2018
in the final analysis, the text says we do not know which one works best, and finding out is impossible because it is impossible to test any in a pure form. 6. Administrative reform is not a phenomenon exclusive to the United States, and in fact, the text mentions many countries undergoing different types of government reform. Select two of the countries mentioned in the text and briefly describe their reform strategies. Ans: Answers will vary. New Zealand is doing a type of reengineering approach that allows government officials to administer programs that cut across agency boundaries. New Zealand is also involved in reforming its performance management hand in hand with financial management in ways that are transforming the public sector. Like New Zealand, the United Kingdom is also reengineering to allow performance management and financial reforms to be renovated in such a way that costs are minimized. The United Kingdom is also promoting “joined-up government,” a tactic that improves service coordination.