Management short answer
Differentiate between diversity and affirmative action. Explain why affirmative action tends to be more controversial than diversity.
Affirmative action is purposeful steps taken to create employment opportunities for minorities and women where as diversity has a broader focus and includes graphic, cultural, and personal differences. Affirmative action can be controversial due to others claiming that it offers preferential treatment to minorities and women at the expense of other employees. Also affirmative action may not benefit employees or the organization where as diversity seeks to benefit employees and the organization by creating a workplace where no one is advantaged or disadvantaged.
Describe what is meant by organizational structure and organizational process. How are these concepts related to each other? How are they different from each other?
An organizational structure is the vertical and horizontal configurations of departments, authority, and jobs within a company. Organizational process is the collection of activities that transform inputs into outputs that customers value. These concepts are related because they both have a focus on improving the efficiency of the business, they differ in that the organizational structure is focused on who does what where as organizational process if focused on making the best product possible.
Why (in three ways) does fostering diversity in companies make good business sense?
Cost savings, attracting and retaining talent, and driving business growth.
What are creative work environments? What does a manager need to do to develop and manage creative work environments?
Creative work environments are an environment in which workers perceive that creative thoughts and ideas are valued and welcome. A creative work environment needs 3 kinds of encouragement organizational, supervisory, and work group.
Define cross training. Briefly explain how cross training can lead to increased job satisfaction.
Cross training is when team members are taught how to do all or most of the jobs performed by other team members. It allows team members to broaden their skills and increase their capabilities while also making their work more varied and interesting.
Provide one example of a common error made by managers when they lead change at each of the three steps of the change process.
During the unfreezing stage managers can make the mistake of not establishing a sense of urgency, during the change phase managers can lack a vision for change, during the refreezing stage managers can declare victory too soon.
List the Big Five Personality Dimensions. How does an understanding of these dimensions benefit managers?
Extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience. To understand these dimension a manager must get to know their employees better which results in better social integration and a better understanding of their employees personalitys. It also helps a manager to match certain personality traits with the best fitting position.
Identify three things that managers can do to minimize the problems inherent in terminating employees.
Firing should not be the first option, employees should be given the chance to change their behavior, if problems continue the employee should again be spoken to and given ways to improve and explained the consequences if change is not made, and lastly employees should only be fired for good reason related to poor job performance.
Compare and contrast the concepts of global consistency and local adaptation as policies for entering foreign markets.
Global consistency means that a multinational company with offices, manufacturing plants, and distribution facilities in different countries uses the same rules, guidelines, policies and procedures to run all of their facilities. Local adaptation means a company modifies its standard operating procedures to adapt to differences in foreign customers, governments, and regulatory agencies.
List and briefly describe the stages that teams pass through as they develop and grow.
In the forming stage is the stage in which team members meet for the first team make first impressions and get an idea of what the team is like. In the storming stage is when conflicts may arise and when team members are attempting to establish themselves for a position. The norming stage is when team members are settled into roles and they know what to expect out of the team. In the performing stage the team is fully functioning and efficient, team members now feel like they are one whole team and are usually very loyal to the team.
How do the mechanistic and organic approaches to organizational design differ? Under what circumstances is each appropriate for use by a company?
Mechanic organizations are composed of specialized jobs and responsibilities; precisely defined, unchanging roles; and a rigid chain of command based on centralized authority and vertical communication this structure works best in stable unchanging work environments. Organic Organizations are composed of broadly defined jobs and responsibilities; and decentralized authority and horizontal communication based on task knowledge. This structure works best in dynamic changing environments.
What is organizational plurality? Define the paradigm for managing diversity with which is it associated.
Organizational plurality is a work environment where all members are empowered to contribute in a way that maximizes benefits to the organization, customers, and themselves. The indiviudallity of each member is is respected by not segmenting or polarizing certain people. The learning and effectiveness diversity paradigm.
What is a performance appraisal? How does it influence organizational success? Explain why it presents a particular challenge to managers.
Performance appraisal is the process of assessing how well employees are doing their jobs. It has been shown that many employees dislike performance appraisals and believe the one at their employers to be faulty, there is also research to say if anything it hurts a companies performance. Performance appraisals are a challenge because most managers dislike doing the performance reviews and find it results in defensive employees who feel they have not been treated fairly.
Identify the two basic types of political risk facing organizations when conducting global business. Which one is more common?
Political uncertainty is associated with the risk of major changes in political regimes that can result from war, revolution, death of political leaders, social unrest, or other influential events. Policy uncertainty is the risk associated with changing laws and policies that affect the way foreign companies can do business, this is the most common form of political risk.
What are project teams? List some advantages associated with their usage.
Project teams are created to complete specific, one-time projects or tasks within a limited time. Advantages of project teams are drawing employees from different functional areas can reduce or eliminate communication barriers, they are also are very flexible.
Identify the methods that can be used to manage resistance to change. Which one should be used only as a last resort?
Resistance to change can be managed through methods of education, communication, participation, negotiation, top-management support, and coercion. Coercion should only be used as a last resort because of the intense negative reactions that can result from it.
Briefly identify the EEOC's definition of sexual harassment. Also identify and describe the two kinds of sexual harassment that can be specified from a legal perspective.
Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination in which unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature occurs. The 2 types of sexual harassment are quid pro quo and hostile work environment. Quid pro quo occurs when employment outcomes depends on whether an individual submits to being sexually harassed. Hostile work environment occurs when unwelcome sexually related behavior creates a hostile work environment.
List and briefly describe the three methods of compensating employees for team participation and accomplishments.
Skill-based pay programs pay employees for learning additional skills and knowledge. Gainsharing shares the financial value of performance gains, nonfinancial rewards can be something like vacations or a physical gift and can be very effective when paired with management recognition.
Define standardization. How is it relevant to the degree of organizational centralization?
Standardization is solving problems by consistently applying the same rules, procedures, and processes. It is relevant to centralization because one person making the decisions will result in a very standardized business.
Define national culture. List the five consistent cultural dimensions across countries.
The set of shared values and beliefs that affects the perceptions, decisions and behavior of people from a particular country. The five cultural dimensions are power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and short-term versus long-term orientation.
Identify and briefly describe the three steps involved in the process of managing organizational change as defined by Kurt Lewin.
The three steps involved are unfreezing, change intervention, and refreezing; unfreezing is getting people affected by the change to believe change is needed, change intervention workers and managers change their behavior and work practices, refreezing is supporting and reinforcing the new changes so that they stick.
Identify two common problems that occur during the performance appraisal process. Recommend one approach for avoiding each of these problems.
Two common problems that occur are central tendency and halo, These can be avoided through objective performance measures and rater training.
Explain what managers can do to manage conflict in teams effectively.
Work with more rather than less information, develop multiple alternatives to enrich debate, establish common goals, and inject humor into the workplace.
The job characteristics model (JCM) specifies three critical psychological traits that must occur for work to be internally motivating. What are they?
Workers must experience the work as meaningful, experience responsibility for work outcomes, and they must have knowledge of results.
Briefly describe a regional trade agreement and a worldwide trade agreement.
defined as reciprocal trade agreements between two or more partners. They include free trade agreements and customs unions such as NAFTA. WTA are things such as the WTO
