Exam 9: Organisational Structure and Design

A learning organization has developed its__________ .

When managers standardize employee behavior through rules and procedures, the jobs are becoming more__________ .

Since Custom Leather produces individually customized couches, this could best be referred to as what kind of production?

A term for increased decentralization is employee empowerment, which is giving employees more authority to make decisions.

A matrix design creates a dual chain of demand.

Structures of organizations in the Arab world differ remarkably from those in other countries.

Custom Leather (Scenario) Lamia has been hired as a consultant for XYZ Consulting. Her first assignment is to work with one of XYZ's newest clients, Custom Leather, Inc., a manufacturer of high- end leather furniture. Custom Leather was founded over a decade ago with the idea that great looking, comfortable leather furniture could be custom made and delivered to customers in 30 days. Traditionally, retailers stock leather sofas to satisfy the desire to receive new furniture fast-limiting the choice of colors and style for the consumer. In stark contrast, Custom Leather offers 13 different styles in over 70 different colors-from rich, deep browns to bright, sunflower; sleek, silver grays and bright, ruby red-through a select group of retail outlets. Each piece is built to the customer's individual requirements and is shipped within 2- 3 weeks. However, the emergence of a new manufacturing technology has enabled a few, traditionally mass- production competitors to offer greater customization, minimizing some of Custom Leather's competitive advantage. As a result, Custom Leather is considering sweeping changes to current work processes and organizational structure. -Masoud is interested in learning more about the link between strategic decision making and organizational structure. Lamia suggested he read the research and writings of__________ , which were based on studies of U.S. firms in the late 1950s and early 1960s and remain the most seminal study in this area.

The concept of work specialization can be traced back a couple of centuries to Adam Smith's discussion of division of labor.

Organizational structure is the degree to which tasks in an organization are divided into separate jobs.

You Can Take That to the Bank (Scenario) Changes in banking regulations, a series of loan defaults by customers, and a decline in the real estate market have forced Eastern Bank, a large regional Gulf bank, to downsize in an effort to improve profitability and bolster its sagging stock price. Sawsan, a regional branch supervisor, has been tasked with preparing a management report concerning how these cuts are affecting bank operations and customer service. Sawsan believes that the most important problem that has emerged concerns the span of control and decision- making authority within the bank. In the past, bank policy was that no manager should supervise more than six subordinates and only managers could make decisions for their individual units. However, with many of the cuts coming in middle management, upper management has increased its span of control while still insisting on managerial- only decision making at the unit level. The result is that upper managers spend all of their time putting out fires and subordinates feel they are getting answers too slowly. As a result, lower level employees are requesting greater authority to make decisions on their own. However, they are not as experienced at making decisions as upper- level managers. Sawsan believes that structural changes must be made that reflect Eastern Bank's new situation. -Based upon the description of Eastern Bank's situation, which aspect of the current situation is inconsistent with Eastern Bank's decision to maintain a centralized form of decision making?

To minimize or eliminate boundaries, managers might use virtual or network structural designs.

Managers in contemporary organizations are finding that traditional hierarchical designs__________ for the environments they face.

What is a strength of a simple structure?

Concepts such as chain of command and authority are considerably less relevant today because of things like __________.

In describing the degree to which tasks in an organization are divided into separate jobs, managers use the term________ .

Large organizations, such as Aramco, tend to have more specialization and centralization compared to small organizations.

One study showed that __________may be more important in less economically developed countries and less important in more economically developed countries.

In what type of organizational structure is empowerment most crucial?

What factor influences the amount of centralization an organization uses?

In divisional structures, the parent corporation typically acts as an external overseer to coordinate and control the various divisions.