Exam 7: Organizing the Business Enterprise

Scott's management style is one where he gets his subordinates heavily involved in department activities. After assigning specific tasks he follows up with them to be sure that they are completing the assigned activities. What is the name for the duty that Scott believes his subordinates owe him?

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. If the senior manager's prediction is accurate, which of the following is inferable?

Which of the following items would tend to support narrower spans of control?

How should a manager react when he or she discovers the existence of an informal organization and grapevine within the context of the formal organization?

Managers of staff departments do not have authority over the people that work in their department.

After jobs are departmentalized, then they should be specialized.

Which of the following is correct with respect to organizational structure?

A machine shop has arranged all of the drill presses in one area, all the lathes in another, all the surface grinders in still another, etc. Because of the differences in equipment and operator skills, the machine shop has chosen departmentalization by

Grouping jobs into logical units is called

At Appleson Publishing, products are produced by a team representing different functional groups, none of which have supervisory authority over any of the others. Represented departments include design, production, and marketing. Design department members are skilled at identifying customer requirements and creating product specifications. Their success is measured by return on product investment, which takes into account both the money earned by a product and the money spent on that product. Production department members are skilled at project execution. They are responsible for creating products according to the Design department members' specification. The Production department is considered successful when it completes projects according to schedule and project spending does not exceed the project's budget. Marketing department members are responsible for building profitable relationships with target market segments. They are skilled at communicating a product's value and persuading customers to make purchases. Marketing department members' success is measured by the revenue that the products take in. Which of the following questions would most likely lead to a conflict between design department members and production department members?

There are advantages and disadvantages associated with decentralization.

Explain what a functional structure is. What are its advantages and disadvantages?

All things considered, functional departmentalization is the optimum organizational structure for most organizations.

Which of the following clarify structure and show employees where they fit into a firm's operations?

In a firm that does marketing research for other firms, which of the following would be line positions?

ComputerLand's structure is set up so that each location is responsible for its own costs and profits. Each location is

Firms that have departments such as production, marketing, finance, human resources, etc. are using ________ departmentalization.

In both the divisional and international structures, departments are quite autonomous and are free to run as they see fit.

Discuss the three-step process used to establish the decision-making hierarchy.

Each company has the same basic organizational elements and thus the same basic structure.