Exam 17: Introduction to Controlling

Basic corrective action is aimed at correcting more generalized problems as quickly as possible, leaving more detailed action for later.

Bahrul Kabeer's Control (Scenario) Bahrul Kabeer, Inc., is a statistical software company based in Kuwait. This publicly traded firm has grown in a systematic fashion over its 25 year existence and now claims more than 12,000 employees worldwide. As it has grown, the company has adopted a hierarchical structure, which emphasizes organizational authority. Management relies heavily on administrative rules, regulations, and policies in order to meet its goals. However, the company has struggled to meet projected revenues for each of the past 10 quarters. While it is true that world financial markets have been in a free-fall over the past three years, demand for the firm's products has typically been fairly recession-proof in the past. The board of directors is growing increasingly impatient with the management team. The firm's president, Samira is concerned that recent performance indicates that management has lost control of the workforce. She has hired Majid, an expert in control system design, to evaluate Bahrul Kabeer, Inc., and offer suggestions to improve the firm's performance. -Majid asks Samira how management measures organizational performance. Samira states that they rely mainly on statistical reports, but also draw inferences from qualitative oral and written reports. Majid responds that, for most organizations and managers, using a combination of approaches ________.

Concurrent control prevents anticipated problems since it takes place before the actual activity.

________ provides managers with quantitative standards against which to measure and compare resource allocation.

The Balanced Scorecard (Scenario) Upon completing his industrial engineering degree, Najib took a position as a manager with the Bilad Mint, a manufacturer of commemorative and collectible products. Bassel, Najib's boss and the VP of operations, has been asked by the organization's CEO to look into the balanced scorecard approach of performance management to see whether this would be appropriate for the organization. In turn, Bassel has asked Najib to look into balanced scorecard approaches and report back to him. -Before beginning the training session, Tarek informs both Yehia and Dana that ________ is a system used to provide management with needed information on a regular basis.

An example of feedback control is management by walking around.

A(n) ________ is defined as a system used to provide management with needed information on a regular basis.

Feedforward provides managers with meaningful information on how effective their planning efforts were.

In a short essay, define corporate governance and describe some of the current trends in this area.

The value of the control function lies in its relation to organizational structure.

Many managers are tempted to do things themselves and avoid ________.

Managers monitor electronic mail because ________.

When Yehia organizes and processes the raw, unanalyzed facts, he will have ________.

Which of following terms would be associated with data and not with information?

The laws in some countries can constrain organizational control by not allowing organizations to ________.

The Industry Leader (Scenario) Farid, the new CEO for Amana, is working hard to turn around the formerly successful real estate business. His goal is to make Amana a leader in the industry. Farid is currently at a meeting with senior officers and is informing them about measuring the company's performance. -Farid then explains that ________ is a measure of how appropriate organizational goals are and how well an organization is achieving those goals.

The differences seen in organizational control systems of global organizations are primarily in the ________.

What is the most desirable type of control that prevents anticipated problems?

If a manager investigates how and why performance has deviated beyond the acceptable range of variation, and then corrects the source of the deviation, she is using ________.

The Emirates Group reports that it has a diverse workforce comprised of over ________ nationalities.