LR Question 13 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: Consultant: The dramatic improvements in productivity achieved…
QUESTION TYPE: Paradox
PARADOX: The industrial revolution increased productivity by centralizing decision making. But recently, a bunch of already productive companies have increased their productivity by decreasing centralization.
ANALYSIS: The paradox is that centralization seems to both help and hurt productivity. We need to explain why certain companies improved productivity by decentralizing.
The industrial revolution was 200 years ago. It's possible that we've begun to reach the limits of centralization.
___________
- This is just a fact about most companies. This doesn't explain how some other companies managed to improve their productivity through decentralization.
- Great – those employees must be happy! But this doesn't explain why decentralization worked.
- Robots don't explain decentralization. Maybe robots require central control.
- The stimulus was very specific. It talked about already productive companies i.e. those that had already learned the lessons of the industrial revolution and centralized. We need to explain why some of those companies improved productivity by decentralizing.
In other words, who cares about the companies mentioned in this answer choice? They're not the companies that we're talking about. - CORRECT. This explains it. The companies in question are already productive. This answer says that those productive companies can
only become even more productive if they decentralize a bit and give employees influence.
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So, the way I looked at answer (e) being correct was …. I thought it spun around the concept of giving individuals influence, by showing that its contributions to management applications make it a process that is actually continuing to contribute to centralization after all. In this way, it is not as decentralizing a force as we thought, and it can resolve the conflict. Does this work?
I actually did not think about it in terms of firms reaching their productive capacity from centralization – when I read the explanation, it seemed like a great way to look at it, but seemed beyond the logical assumptions I would have made during the test.
Thanks for your help!
That reasoning does also support E: it shows the decentralization really has a centralization component as well. I’m not sure if it would have been sufficient on its own, but it certainly helps.