Exam 9: Organization Size, Life Cycle, and Decline

As organizations increase in size, the net effect for direct workers is that they decline as a percentage of total employees.

Which of the following is not a dimension of bureaucracy that Weber envisioned as desirable?

There are ten stages of life cycle development that an organization must generally go through in order to reach the final stage when rewards are personal and aimed at those who contribute to organizational success.

Describe Weber's dimensions of bureaucracy and bases of organizational authority.

What is the major goal of an organization during the entrepreneurial stage of the life cycle?

Discuss how an organization can help smooth the downsizing process and ease tensions for employees who leave and remain.

____ authority is based on devotion to the exemplary character or to the heroism of an individual person and the order defined by him or her.

Clan control is generally used by companies that are small and informal or have a strong culture.

Your rich uncle owns his own entrepreneurial business and is trying to decide how large it should become. He has asked you to tell him what is the optimum size for a business. Write your response to him.

Tyler Jones is the CEO of a medium-sized manufacturer of bedding and blankets. Tyler insists on making all decisions as to styles that are manufactured, the type of material that will be used in each, the sources from whom the company will purchase yard goods, thread, and buttons, and the shippers the company will use. Which of the following terms describes this company?

An e-commerce organization is in its sixth month of online operations selling academic regalia for graduation. The founders had long had their own personal web pages, and had stumbled upon an inexpensive source for the sewing of gowns. They invested all their savings and took out a loan in order to finance the inventory and equipment needed to go into business. By March of its first year of operations, an unexpectedly large number of orders reached the company. The founders devoted their full energies to getting the product where it needed to be in time for graduation. At odd hours of day and night, they could be found doing anything from the job of the information systems specialist they had recently hired, to the job of the mail clerks. As this company grows and takes on related product lines, what would you expect to happen as they go through the stages of development?

____ is the use of social characteristics, such as shared values, commitment, traditions, and beliefs to control behavior.

High formalization is most closely associated with which of the following?

____ percent of businesses that make it past the first year still fail within five years because they can't make the transition from the entrepreneurial stage.

Increased training can substitute for bureaucratic rules and procedures.

Small companies are standardized, often mechanistically run, and complex.

A primary reason identified for the organizational design success of United Parcel Service was:

Explain the patterns found in the study of personnel ratios for administrative, clerical, and professional support staff.

The following organization is in its collectivity stage: Employees at Ace identify with the company mission and goals, and they typically put in 55-hour workweeks. Ace is established in the marketplace, and is concentrating on getting more and more dealers to sign on. Ace does not have a written policies and procedures manual for its own employees.

In which stage the organization faces serious problems, and indicators of poor performance cannot be ignored?