Exam 19: Managing Quality and Performance

Continuous improvement is the implementation of a large number of small, incremental improvements in all areas of the organization on an ongoing basis.

The goal of open-book management is to get every employee thinking and acting like a business owner.

__________ involves monitoring and influencing employee behavior through extensive use of rules, policies, hierarchy of authority, written documentation, reward systems, and other formal mechanisms.

A feedback control model helps managers determine whether performance meets established standards. In an essay, describe how you would utilize the four-step process of feedback control when setting up a control system in a retail environment.

Heather belongs to a group of eight employees at work that meets every other Friday at 1 p.m. to discuss issues and problems in the workplace that affect the quality of their work. This group is an example of:

Which of the following refers to funding activities with borrowed money?

A(n) __________ lists forecasted and actual revenues of the organization.

A group of 6 to 12 volunteer employees who meet regularly to discuss and solve problems affecting the quality of their work refers to a quality circle.

What is the balanced scorecard? List and briefly describe the four major perspectives of the balanced scorecard.

Describe the difference between a balance sheet and an income statement.

__________ control is the process of setting targets for an organization's expenditures, monitoring results and comparing them to the budget, and making changes as needed.

All well-designed control systems involve the use of __________ to determine whether performance meets established standards.

Compare hierarchical control with decentralized control.

Outsourcing is defined as "the continuous process of measuring products, services, and practices against the toughest competitors or those companies recognized as industry leaders to identify areas for improvement."

List three techniques involved in the implementation of total quality management (TQM).

Open-book management is an aspect of decentralized control in many organizations. Write a short essay in which you assess the relationship between open-book management and employee commitment to goals. If you worked in an open-book environment, would you be concerned about the organization's financial situation? What would you want to know? How would this information affect you, and how would it influence your behavior on the job?

Liabilities are the firm's debts, including both current debt and long-term debt.

The balance sheet shows the firm's financial position with respect to expenses and credits at a specific point in time.

What is the first step in the feedback control system?

In organizations that use decentralized control, self-discipline and self-control keep workers performing their jobs up to standard. Which of the following does not contribute to internal standards that provide self-control?