Exam 8: Structuring Organizations for Todays Challenges

Jackie works in the finance department, at the home office of a large retailer. Her main responsibility is to watch department expenditures and find ways to cut costs whenever possible. Tim, the marketing director for the same company shares information with Jackie only when necessary. He finds her inflexible, and not understanding of what it takes to roll-out a new product line. Jackie and Tim typify a disadvantage of departmentalization.

Top management at Topdown, Inc. wants to encourage communication between different departments and prevent employees from becoming narrow specialists. The best way to accomplish these goals is to departmentalize Topdown's organization by function.

Some business organizations still follow the 1940s organizational theory of Max Weber.

In a organization, specialists from different parts of the organization are brought together on a temporary basis to work on specific projects.

In a capitalist economy, organizations seldom reorganize due to changing markets.

Due to changes in technology and competition, managing has become a critical management skill.

The process of setting up individual departments to do specialized tasks is called job specialization.

Cross-functional self-managed teams are groups of employees empowered to work with suppliers and customers to develop new products and give great service.

Henri Fayol and Max Weber are best known for their contributions to:

Organizations that require consistent production standards to help create a high quality public image would tend to favor:

The process of creating individual departments to do specialized tasks is called departmentalization.

Ashley experienced frustration with her new job at Walnut Securities, until she befriended a secretary from another department. Over lunch in the cafeteria, her new friend shared with Ashley the way things really work at Walnut Securities. Ashley quickly learned that:

Milton Learning Centers is a private firm specializing in helping students with learning problems. Located around the country, each center employs a manager and several tutors and counselors. The counselors and tutors have a great deal of flexibility to design programs specifically for individual students. In fact, these first-line employees are considered to be the key people in the organization, and the manager's main function is to assist these employees in matters such as scheduling and securing necessary materials. This type of arrangement suggests that Milton is an inverted organization.

In today's fast-paced business environment, Weber's bureaucratic ideas work well. These principles permit business to respond quickly to customer changes.

Weber was a strong proponent of bureaucracy.

Including customers and suppliers on cross-functional teams violates the interests of stockholders.

Molly, a production line employee at Holiday Industries learned from a friend at her coffee break that one of the managers in accounting is about to be fired. She is eager to learn if other friends at Holiday know any more about the situation. This flow of information is an example of Holiday's grapevine.

are responsible for directly achieving organizational goals.

Which of the following describes the redesigning of an organization so that it can more effectively and efficiently serve its customers?

Staff personnel perform functions such as production and sales that contribute directly to the primary goals of the organization.