The Acme Corporation has found that improvements in its information technology infrastructure allow its employees to make more decisions that are both sound and well-informed than was previously feasible. Consequently, the corporation plans to improve employee productivity by introducing new managerial techniques that delegate much of the decision-making to lower levels of the organizational hierarchy. Managers will simply set clear standards and guidelines and then allow employee teams to undertake tasks without centralized control.
Which of the following, if true, would most strongly support a prediction that the Acme Corporation's plan will achieve its goal?
A) The corporation will be able to cut its managerial staff only if the managers’ sole function is to set clear standards and guidelines for employees.
B) After Acme’s information technology infrastructure was improved, very few of Acme’s managers continued to believe that only managers should make most decisions.
C) Most of the tasks currently performed by the corporation's employees require few if any significant decisions to be made.
D) When employees can make decisions themselves, rather than submitting the same matters for decision to managers, there is more time available for directly productive activities.
E) Some other companies that have better employee productivity than does the Acme Corporation also plan to use the new managerial techniques.
A This suggests a condition-limitation of managers' responsibilities-that would have to be fulfilled to make layoffs of managerial staff possible, but it does not provide evidence that the plan would improve employee productivity overall.
B If most of the managers agree that they should give up some decision-making authority, they may not resist the plan's implementation, but this does not provide evidence that the plan would improve productivity.
C If the employees do not need to make decisions to do their jobs well, then delegating decisions to them is less likely to improve their productivity.
D Correct. This explains how the plan, by reducing the time employees have to spend dealing with managers, could improve employee productivity.
E Since the other companies are not using the new managerial techniques yet, the higher employee productivity at those companies does not suggest that the techniques improve productivity.
Hi, I chose (B). Could anyone explain why it is wrong, please.
We need to strengthen the prediction that the plan will succeed. To do that we need to focus on what the plan is.
The plan is to improve employee productivity by delegating decision making to lower levels of the hierarchy.
To strengthen it, we need to provide a reason that would lead to increased productivity when decision making is delegated. Option (D) gives us that reason:
D) When employees can make decisions themselves, rather than submitting the same matters for decision to managers, there is more time available for directly productive activities.
The employees have more time to be directly productive (instead of waiting for management decision every time and hence sitting on it) when decision making is delegated to them. Hence we have greater faith in our plan now. It certainly seems more possible to succeed. We might actually increase employee productivity.