Exam 12: Organisational Structure and Design

The inspiration of the virtual organisation structural approach is the film industry.

Responsibility is the rights inherent in a managerial position.

Recently, there has been a distinct trend toward ________.

Recently, there has been a trend of organisations moving toward increased decentralisation.

When decisions tend to be made at lower levels in an organisation, the organisation is said to be decentralised.

The ________ is an organisational structure that assigns specialists from different functional departments to work on one or more projects being led by project managers.

Grouping jobs on the basis of product or customer flow is termed customer departmentalisation.

Food for Thought Howard owned Caselots, a store that sold food and non-food items in a warehouse environment.He employed 350 people and had them work in specialised areas.Some people only unloaded the pallets from the trucks or drove the pallets onto the floor, and still others unloaded the pallets in their specific area of responsibility.He had managers controlling each specific area.For example, the automotive manager was in charge of all functions (accounting, purchasing, sales, etc.)related to the automotive area.This arrangement had generally worked well, but recently, he noticed that employees seemed bored, and turnover and absenteeism had risen.In addition, he found that attempting to get special projects completed, such as creating their new 'First-Class Customer' card, had turned into a nightmare due to the lack of cooperation and misunderstanding between the groups. -Refer to Food for Thought (Scenario).If Howard regularly put together teams made up of specialists from different areas to tackle new projects, like the 'First-Class Customer' card project, these would be called ________.

You Can Bank on It Susan's employer, Mutual Insurance, like many others, had recently undergone some downsizing.The Board of Directors felt that their sagging stock price could be improved with some labour cost cutting.Along with other new challenges, a problem now existed with span of control and decision-making authority.In the past, her company's policy was that no manager should supervise more than six subordinates and only managers should make decisions for their individual units.But now, with the cuts in middle management, upper management had increased the span of control but still insisted on managerial-only decision making.The result was that managers spent all of their time putting out fires and subordinates felt they were getting answers too slowly and wanted to start having the authority to make decisions on their own.Clearly, something had to change. -Refer to You Can Bank on It (Scenario).ALL BUT ONE of the following are reasons why Mutual Insurance should change to a more decentralised form of decision making.Which is the odd one out?

Woodward's studies generally demonstrate that organisation ________ should adapt to their ________.

In recent restructuring of the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, where the lab scientists set priorities and allocate resources, the change has helped produce an entrepreneurial environment akin to a smaller biotechnology outfit.This is an example of what type of organisation?

Other things being equal, the wider or larger the span of control, the more ________ the organisational design.

You Can Bank on It Susan's employer, Mutual Insurance, like many others, had recently undergone downsizing.The Board of Directors felt that their sagging stock price could be improved with some labour cost cutting.Along with other new challenges, a problem now existed with span of control and decision-making authority.In the past, her company's policy was that no manager should supervise more than six subordinates and only managers should make decisions for their individual units.But now, with the cuts in middle management, upper management had increased the span of control but still insisted on managerial-only decision making.The result was that managers spent all of their time putting out fires and subordinates felt they were getting answers too slowly and wanted to start having the authority to make decisions on their own.Clearly, something had to change. -Refer to You Can Bank on It (Scenario).The contingency approach would consider all of the following variables EXCEPT the ________.

Standardisation refers to the degree to which jobs within the organisation are standardised and the extent to which employee behaviour is guided by rules and procedures.

According to the textbook, managers are using ________, which are groups of individuals who are experts in various specialties and who work together.

Joan Woodward's research was the first major attempt to view organisational structure from a ________ perspective.

Maryanne coordinates the activities of TeamCo's individual units and offers support services to the help the managers reach their performance goals.What type of organisational design does TeamCo use to manage their individual units?

Structure is related to the size of the organisation, in that larger organisations usually have more ________.

Paul Abdul Oil Corporation Paul Abdul Oil Corporation (PAOC)began as a relatively small oil company.However, through the years it has grown to become an international corporation. -Refer to Paul Abdul Oil Corporation (Scenario).Several years after the retirement of Mr Abdul, management at PAOC decided to sell off its oil exploration and drilling supply holdings and instead focus on the more profitable distribution end of the business.In conjunction with this decision, management decided to outsource most of its non-core functions, such as accounting, payroll and human resources.These moves are consistent with what type of contemporary organisational design?

In a short essay, explain the concept of a boundaryless organisation.