Exam 7: Organizing the Business Enterprise

All-Canadian Burger is a nationwide fast food chain that competes with McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's. Management at All-Canadian Burger is debating whether to have a more centralized or a more decentralized organizational structure. Which of the following decisions would likely be made by a centralized authority?

Interstate Insurance is looking to upgrade the company's information technology. Information technology is used for a variety of purposes, so the company needs to prioritize its needs and find out in what areas the company needs to improve its information technology. Many at Interstate feel that the information systems at the company are not sufficiently tailor-made to each of the functions of the different departments. Which of the following issues is most relevant to deciding whether this should be a priority?

Which term is defined as a physical depiction of the company's structure showing employee titles and their relationship to one another?

Attempts to separate the work force into departments that are based on anything other than customers have been largely unsuccessful.

Describe the factors that affect a manager's span of control.

What is the relationship between specialization and departmentalization?

________ are groups of people who decide to interact among themselves.

Gerry, president of Erin Enterprises, knew he had to lay off 5% of his employees in order to stay profitable. Gerry wanted to ease the aggravation of telling his employees, so he used the ________ prior to his formal announcement.

Tarnopol Learning Services (TLS) offers tutoring to high school students, college students, and adults returning to school. TLS also bids on government-sponsored contracts. TLS's major product offerings include academic tutoring, standardized test preparation, and admissions consulting. Its operations spread over many geographic regions. Currently, the company is deciding whether it should change from its current approach of organizing by geographical area. A senior manager has predicted that if TLS is not profitable this year and fails to develop any new products, the company will switch to either a functional approach or a product approach. Which of the following, if true, would most strongly suggest that TLS should change its organizational structure to a functional-based approach?

Describe the structure typically found within a virtual organization. How is the structure typically found within a virtual organization different from the structure of a large corporation?

All of the following are either advantages or disadvantages of the functional structure except

What is an organization chart?

The span of control concept has become obsolete because of the development of high-tech methods of supervising subordinates.

The development of the decision-making hierarchy is a three-step process that involves

Many managers have trouble delegating tasks to others.

What would an organization use to show a new employee his/her position in the firm and its relationship to other positions?

What is the informal organization? What is the relationship between the formal and informal organization?

Organizational structure refers to

Businesses use profit centres because

What is the informal organization?