Exam 15: Organizational Structure and Design

An organization with a tall hierarchy results in managers having a ________ span of control:

Departmentalization that creates self-contained divisions that are each responsible for a specific group of products creates what is called a:

In a ________, each participating company only contributes its core competencies.

The alliance where the organizations have the loosest relationship is a:

Table 15.3 You are studying a medium-sized service company. You find that Joe, a customer service representative, has been doing his job for five years. He takes about 200 customer calls a day and helps customers with their product questions. Bridgette, the CEO, has been with the company about three years and is in the process of making its structure more organic and flexible. Between Bridgette and Joe is Fred, who conveys management's decisions and policies to Joe and helps Bridgette stay in touch with the several hundred 'Joes' who work in customer service. Sally is the corporate attorney and works with Bridgette on corporate legal matters. -Refer to Table 15.3. Sally represents the ________ in Mintzberg's model.

An organizational chart:

Which of the following is characteristic of a mechanistic organization?

In the downsizing process, restructuring hits ________ of organizational hierarchies especially hard.

In a classic study, it was found that decentralization:

When task uncertainty is high, the appropriate coordinating mechanism is to govern by rule.

Table 15.2 For a management class, a group of students is considering how to structure a proposed company. Their original idea was a design that would give complete responsibility for the development and marketing of a product to one unit. Tax considerations are a concern as well, and they want a structure that would help the accountants track them better through specific cost centers. They decide not to use this design because of the duplication of effort and the probability that it would be difficult to attract and retain talented employees. In their second design they want to stress the opportunity for employees to specialize, gain economies of scale, and conserve resources by eliminating duplication of effort. They reject that design because it is too cumbersome and slow to respond to the changes in the marketplace. Then one member of the group, Jack, suggests that they eliminate chains of command and spans of control and go to empowered teams. He argues that this will increase creativity and responsibility among employees. A fellow student argues that it won't work in the real world because managers won't give up that much authority. "Ok," a third student, Jane, offers, "let's try this idea but build around a hub. The hub will be the core business and the spokes will be groups of specialists that can be added to or subtracted from as the market changes." They settle on a structure with two lines of authority, one by task specialization and the other by product line. This gives them economies of scale and flexibility but some stress over reporting authority. Nevertheless, it gives them the best of what they want. -Refer to Table 15.2. Their final design is an example of a:

________ are composed of a continually evolving network of companies that are linked together to share skills, costs, and access to markets.

Neoclassical theory argues that:

The decentralization of control in organizations:

Those specialists responsible for standardizing various aspects of the organization's activities are part of Mintzberg's:

The element of an organization where the basic work is performed is known as the ________ in Mintzberg's framework.

Vice president of marketing is an example of a line position.

Table 15.5 INVEX, Inc. is a small manufacturer of low technology consumer goods. They want to enter the Asian market but don't know how. They form a strategic alliance with Asia Today, a marketing firm specializing in marketing U.S. goods of all kinds in Asia. INVEX, Inc. also has a relationship with another company, Small Things R' Good, a manufacturer of low technology consumer goods. They provide components to each other and INVEX will bring that company into the alliance with Asia Today. -Refer to Table 15.5. INVEX is in what type of strategic alliance with Asia Today?

The relationship between Ford Motor Company and an auto parts supplier with which it does business on a regular basis is called a ________.

Table 15.2 For a management class, a group of students is considering how to structure a proposed company. Their original idea was a design that would give complete responsibility for the development and marketing of a product to one unit. Tax considerations are a concern as well, and they want a structure that would help the accountants track them better through specific cost centers. They decide not to use this design because of the duplication of effort and the probability that it would be difficult to attract and retain talented employees. In their second design they want to stress the opportunity for employees to specialize, gain economies of scale, and conserve resources by eliminating duplication of effort. They reject that design because it is too cumbersome and slow to respond to the changes in the marketplace. Then one member of the group, Jack, suggests that they eliminate chains of command and spans of control and go to empowered teams. He argues that this will increase creativity and responsibility among employees. A fellow student argues that it won't work in the real world because managers won't give up that much authority. "Ok," a third student, Jane, offers, "let's try this idea but build around a hub. The hub will be the core business and the spokes will be groups of specialists that can be added to or subtracted from as the market changes." They settle on a structure with two lines of authority, one by task specialization and the other by product line. This gives them economies of scale and flexibility but some stress over reporting authority. Nevertheless, it gives them the best of what they want. -Refer to Table 15.2. The group's second design is for a: