Exam 8: Structuring Organizations for Todays Challenges

An advantage of a line-and-staff organization is that it provides people that advise and assist line managers as they perform their jobs.

Bull's-eye, a regional discount retailer, carefully watches and compares its operation with the operations of its closest rivals. This firm does:

Some firms use a combination of departmentalization techniques.

While staff personnel have the authority to make policy decisions, line personnel have the authority to advise and make suggestions.

Departmentalization by function groups employees based on similar skills, expertise, or resource use.

Rome Corporation is organized into departments such as finance, production, marketing, data processing, and accounting. Rome has chosen to departmentalize by function.

Cross-functional teams work best when the "voice of the customer" is brought into organizations.

Some companies have created hybrid versions of departmentalization, where they combine two or more traditional ways of departmentalizing.

In large businesses, a line organization provides firms the ability to respond quickly to a changing environment.

The Nutmeg Soccer Club outsourced its accounting work. This suggests that management at Nutmeg does not believe that accounting is one of the firm's core competencies.

Young people today are often called because they have never known life without the Internet.

A line organization in a large business often suffers from excessively slow lines of communication.

The process of rating an organization's practices, processes, and products against the best of the world is known as:

Bureaucratic organizations are not very responsive to customers.

Heather works as a sales representative for the Westerly Company. She really enjoys working for Westerly, because the company treats her and other sales representatives as highly valued employees. Sales reps at Westerly are given freedom and flexibility in their relationships with customers. While there are only a few layers of management at Westerly, Heather has found that these managers try their best to support and assist her efforts. Based on Heather's experience, it appears that Westerly is a(n):

Competitive benchmarking rates an organization's products and operations against the industry average.

Span of control refers to the number of different markets a business can serve efficiently.

Departments are functional units within the business such as sales, accounting, finance, and marketing.

One advantage of a bureaucratic organization is that:

Improvements in information technology have permitted companies to increase their span of control.