Exam 7: Creating a Flexible Organization

The employees at the Ford production facility in Michigan work on an assembly line where each employee performs a specific task.This method of assembly-line production is a good example of job specialization.

General Motors has separate divisions for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac.This is an example of departmentalization by _____.

What does it mean for a manager to have a wide span of control? Would you expect the span of control to be wide or narrow when subordinates are highly trained professionals? Support your answer.

Conflict between line and staff managers is

Committees and task forces represent ____ groups within an organization, whereas employee bowling teams and gatherings represent ____ groups.

All large firms maintain complete and detailed organization charts because it is important to maintain a clear line of authority.

The president of Digital Equipment Corporation discovered that his company was having a problem with counterproductive product groups who were working selfishly rather than cooperating with one another.To solve the problem, he combined the company's twelve U.S.product groups into three regional management centers.This solution is referred to as departmentalization by _____.

An arrangement that provides increasing authority at higher levels of management is known as

If you were a manager, how would you use the grapevine?

A firm organized on the basis of retail customers and wholesale customers utilizes the concept of departmentalization by _____.

A benefit of job specialization is that it

Identify and describe the five major steps of the organizing process.

A common characteristic of a centralized organization is

A committee was organized at Xerox to study the company's hiring, promotion, and compensation policies.The group will review corporate procedures in these areas for the next six months and disband thereafter.This type of committee is referred to as a(n) _____.

Probably the primary advantage of the cluster structure is its

Employees at a chemical factory are systematically moved every two weeks among three different departments in the organization.This is called _____.

When a worker does only a specific, highly specialized task very efficiently, this efficiency could eventually become inhibited by job monotony and boredom.This situation could be alleviated through _____.

A firm may be departmentalized by function, product, location, or customer.Explain how each method groups jobs into units.

Describe the bureaucratic management system.How effectively does the bureaucratic system respond to change? How is that response influenced by the structure of a bureaucracy?

One's duty to do a job or perform a task is called _____.