Exam 8: Structuring Organizations for Todays Challenges

It is strategically not sensible for a firm to consider asking suppliers and customers to join a cross-functional self-managed team that is testing iterations of future products.

Top Dog Company is a medium-sized organization with well-defined lines of authority and every employee reports to only one boss. However, the managers at Top Dog complain about not having expert support staff to offer advice. Because of the inefficient long lines of communication, opportunities are slipping through the cracks. These characteristics suggest that Top Dog employs a matrix organization.

A recent business trend is the elimination of layers of management, creating flatter organizations and subsequently, a wider span of control.

Which of the following statements best describes the evolution of organization design?

As indicated in the Making Ethical Decisions box, "Would You Sacrifice Safety for Profit?" organizational decisions that affect profits in a negative way should be avoided at all cost.

Discuss Max Weber's views on organization theory.

Flat organizations have fewer managers.

Networking uses communication technology to link organizations, allowing them to work together on common objectives.

Technology, like the Internet, has opened up opportunities for firms to sell to new markets.

What is the main difference between a matrix-style organization model and a cross-functional team?

What is a matrix organization? What advantages and disadvantages are associated with this type of organization?

The process of creating individual departments to do specialized tasks is called departmentalization.

Fayol believed that managers should treat employees and peers with respect and justice.

Empowerment works only when employees are given the proper training and resources to respond.

In the Rock Solid manufacturing plant of the Stone Works Granite Company, a foreman closely supervises her workers. She reports to the shift supervisor who reports to the head of the production department, who then reports to the assistant plant manager, who reports to the plant manager. The plant manager, in turn, reports to a district manager, who then reports to a product group manager, who reports to an assistant vice president of operations, who keeps in close touch with an executive vice president. The layers of management indicate that Stone Works Granite Company is a tall organization.

In a line-and-staff organization, staff positions are temporary jobs to train new line managers.

Ainsley is a middle manager at a large, multinational corporation. She prefers to involve her subordinates in decision making and gives her workers a reasonable amount of flexibility in how they do their jobs. Ainsley's management approach illustrates the principles first popularized by Max Weber.

Younger people today are often called ________ because they have never known life without the Internet and cell phones.

Cross-functional self-managed teams work best when ________.

Mario recently earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry and has been asked to join a lab at a prestigious university. After a month on the job, he remarked to a graduate student at his former university that the spirit of help and cooperation at the lab was remarkable. He enjoyed going to work each day and sometimes exchanged calls with other lab partners in the evening with ideas to improve each other's experiments. Mario mentioned, "Now I understand why this lab is considered one of the best in the nation!" Mario is referring to