Maria felt perplexed. She had recently stepped into a new role as mid-level manager for a candy manufacturing organization. She had been excited for the task at hand. The manager she replaced had been at the organization for a long time and had recently retired. His group had the lowest turnover in the entire company. The problem was that their overall group-level performance was also lower than the numbers reported in the rest of the organization.

After a few months in her new position, Maria was starting to realize the scope of the challenge. The employees in the department had clear job descriptions. The job descriptions included some tasks that were easy to measure. For example, there were quantitative measures for the division regarding sales targets and quality expectations. However, the job descriptions also included some tasks that were more difficult to measure. For example, the employees in the department had statements like, Train new employees, Streamline processes, and Report quality issues. While these tasks were necessary to keep the department effective and efficient, it was difficult to hold any one employee accountable when these tasks were not completed.

Maria had already tried several things. She had made some superficial changes in the department, like changing a reward and recognition program. The changes resulted in better behavior at first, but the employees returned to their regular behavior after a few days.

Maria considered what she should do next to improve performance in the organization.

Maria realizes one of the departments supervisors has a Theory-X view of his employees. Which of the following is not likely true about the department lead?

A. Maintains closer supervision of employees

B. Promotes specialization amongst members of the group

C. Has limited concern for employee welfare

D. Assumes workers will seek out responsibility to satisfy social needs

E. All of the statements are likely true of the supervisor.

A, B and E are wrong. The answer is most likely to be C/D. Can anyone help?