Exam 13: Designing Organizational Structures

A wholesale grocery business operates in one city and provides one service-stocking retailers with fresh produce.The company wants to ensure that employees develop expertise in their skill specialization and that these specializations are used efficiently.What form of departmentalization would be most appropriate here?

Simple structures usually rely on which of the following to coordinate work activities?

Organizations that follow a cost leadership strategy should apply an organic organizational structure.

One problem with the team-based organizational structure is that employees may experience more stress due to ambiguity of their roles.

In organizational structures,integrator roles serve mainly as:

The matrix structure can increase conflict among managers who share power equally.

An entrepreneur employs 20 people in a simple structure.However,the company will likely employ over 200 people in production,sales,engineering and administration within a few years due to the growing success of the company's new products.The entrepreneur likes the simple structure and wants to avoid other forms of departmentalization.Explain to the entrepreneur why his company would be more effective through other forms of departmentalization as it grows larger.

Companies with divisionalized structures are increasingly adopting the geographically-based structure.

Network structures come close to the perfect example of a mechanistic organizational structure.

What must senior executives,functional managers,and project leaders do to make a matrix structure more effective?

Organizations can move towards a team-based structure by flattening the hierarchy,reducing formalization,and making extensive use of self-directed work teams.

Which organizational structure has the ability to reshape itself quickly to fit immediate client needs?

Organizations tend to become less formalized as they age and grow in number of employees.

A wider span of control is possible where:

Organizations tend to form two clusters based on their span of control,centralization,and formalization.The two clusters represented by these organizational design features are called:

Team-based organizational structures are usually found within the manufacturing or service operations of larger divisionalized structures.

In a typical network structure,several satellite organizations are bee-hived around a core firm.

Tall hierarchies tend to encourage employee empowerment and engagement because they focus power around employees rather than managers.

Generally,a narrow span of control is necessary where employees perform highly interdependent work with others.

A mechanistic structure is decentralized,has a narrow span of control and little formalization.