Exam 8: Organization Structure

Sun Dynasty Foods was voted producer of the best egg rolls nationwide. It soon expanded and now manufactures and distributes a whole line of frozen foods, kitchen equipment, and specialty sauces, with a separate department for each. Sun Dynasty is characterized by the ________ approach to departmentalization.

Dante, an operations manager at Therma-Pro Insulation, has been put on a big project with a tight deadline. He distributes half the work to two other supervisors, taking care of the bigger aspects of the project himself. This is an example of

Global Beverage Corporation is planning a worldwide celebration on a particular day in July that marks the centennial of the company's founding. However, this has caused a problem in one of its overseas markets, where that day happens to coincide with a solemn national holiday. How should Global Beverage handle the situation?

Creating slack resources means that

An advantage of functional departmentalization is the fact that

An approach that involves feedback and discussions to figure out jointly how to approach problems and devise solutions that are agreeable to everyone is known as

The presence of rules and regulations governing how people in the organization interact is called

Anthony and Roberto are employed at the same company and often work on the same products. However, they are assigned to separate units, and they perform very specific, different jobs that contribute to the larger task. This is an example of

A wide span of control is optimal when subordinates have jobs that are

For years, Kathleen served as head of the research and development (R&D)department at Bannerman Pharmaceuticals in Chicago. She enjoyed enormous support from her team, who liked her personally and respected her professionally. Now she has retired, and her place has been taken by Jerome from Bannerman's Cleveland facility. Yet employees continue to sidestep Jerome and come directly to Kathleen for guidance, calling or emailing her at home with questions. What is her best course of action?

Bill meets with his supervisor, Nick, and says, "Nick, I have conflicting direction from several managers. Dave wants me in the field next week across town. Claire wants me in the field next week out of state. And I know that you would like me to work next week in the office." Nick says, "Bill, we will solve this problem through communications and prioritization. We work for a ________ organization and having dual or even more lines of command can be confusing."

Ideally, the people making the decisions at a company should be those who

Cece works in a matrix organization, and although she found it confusing at first, she has seen the inherent opportunities. Instead of a career path from biologist to biology head to science head to research head, Cece prefers a project career, with opportunities to leverage her firm's capabilities to solve customers' problems. Fortunately, one of the strengths of a matrix organization is

Explain the difference between line departments and staff departments.

One advantage of delegation is the fact that it

Global AgSystems operates worldwide and is organized into a(n)________ structure. Within this structure, each of the four division presidents and their respective employees are committed to the tractor, planter, combine, and silo businesses, respectively. Within these four divisions, task responsibilities are clear, and managers are more independent and accountable.

Mia, vice president of operations, was looking to make her company more efficient and asked Cesar to manage the reorganization of the order fulfillment center, even though he was less experienced than many of the managers in that department. Cesar found that the other managers were not cooperative in giving him access to their current procedures or ideas about new ones, and he felt powerless to compel them. Mia most likely made the mistake of

Departmentalization that groups units around products, customers, or geographic regions is a defining characteristic of a ________ organization.

Everyday Fashions Corp. is a clothing manufacturer. It has marketing, production, and finance departments, with a manager who heads each of the departments. Beatrice, the CEO, distributes the various organizational tasks to each manager by assigning authority and responsibility. Each manager has ten subordinates who are required to report to him or her. Each department works on its set of tasks in the organization. Beatrice is the top manager, followed by the department heads, and lastly the supervisors. All the managers are accountable to Beatrice alone. Each manager at Everyday Fashions Corp. has ten supervisors who are required to report to him or her. This is an example of

Corporations have boards of directors elected by the