AEB 3133 Exam 2 (Modules 3 & 4) Spring 23

The process of determining which path, among several possibilities, to follow in attempting to reach a particular goal is known as

Planning.

The organizational plans most closely associated with middle management are called

Tactical plans.

Goals set for and by middle managers are called

Tactical.

A system 1 organization is most like

The ideal bureaucracy

The foundation of portfolio approaches is the concept of

The strategic business unit.

When a human resource committee determines what aspects of a job it wants to "pay for" and how much those factors should affect the pay decision, it is in the process of making a(n),

Wage-structure decision.

Which kind of position is more important to an organization, line or staff (managers)? Why? Could an organization function with only one of these kinds of positions? Why or why not?

You will probably argue that line positions are more important because they are specifically responsible for accomplishing the goals of the organization. However, arguments can be made that staff manager positions provide advice that literally keeps the firm from going under and are therefore equally important. Because line positions are specifically responsible for accomplishing the goals of the organization, it would be difficult to explain how an organization could survive without line positions. Many very small firms do survive without staff positions, but those firms may be getting advice from an external source, such as a lawyer, or line positions may be performing functions normally done by staff people. You may have both sides debate this issue.

For multinational companies, an especially appropriate basis of departmentalization is

Location

The form of organization design in which the principle of unity of command (everyone should have one and only one supervisor) is violated is the

Matrix

You determine that employee age, gender, race, and level of education may be correlated in some way to the amount of employee absenteeism. If you now generate an equation to predict absenteeism based on levels of these factors, you are using

Modeling.

All of the following are situational influences on organization design except

Type of departmentalization

When both change and complexity are high, which of the following is true?

Uncertainty is also high.

Jane owns a company that prepares and sends customized "goody" baskets to a firm's clients depending on their special requests. This is an example of ____ technology.

Unit

A specially designed technique used to select managerial employees is called

An assessment center.

Which of the following is the most conservative approach to business strategy?

Defending.

Identify several roadblocks to effective planning. Suggest ways around these roadblocks.

(1) The environment might be so complex and/or changing that managers fail to plan effectively. (4) Managers might not plan effectively because the plans are developed from poor or inappropriate goals. (3) Managers might resist change for a variety of reasons and avoid planning that might lead to change. (2) Effective planning might be constrained by labor contracts, government regulations, or scarce resources. (5) Lack of time and/or money can limit managers' ability to plan effectively. Several roadblocks are the environment, resistance to change, situational constraints, poor goal setting, and time and expense. Several ways around these roadblocks are starting at the top, recognizing the limits, communicating, participating, integrating, and developing contingency plans.

What are the six steps in the organizational goal-setting process?

A goal is a desired state or condition that an organization wants to achieve. The steps in the goal-setting process are (1) scan the environment for opportunities and threats; (2) assess organizational strengths and weaknesses; (3) establish general organizational goals; (4) establish unit goals; (5) establish subunit goals; and (6) monitor progress toward goal attainment and provide feedback as the cycle repeats.

A single-use plan for a large set of activities is called

A program.

Strategy formulation is

A set of processes involving the organizations' creating or developing strategies.

Briefly describe two Organizational Planning Techniques. Which technique is more important, in your opinion? Please explain.

All managers must spend some time planning for the future if their organizations are going to survive. Environmental scanning is an attempt to monitor the external factors that affect an organization so the manager can determine which objectives to pursue. Competitor intelligence is a specific form of environmental scanning that tracks competitors and what they are doing. Conceptual models allow managers to develop mental maps of related topics. These conceptual models assist managers in scanning the environment and in making decisions.

What are the major differences between tall and flat organizations? Why are these differences important?

A flat organization means that there are relatively few managerial levels and there is a wide span of management. A tall organization means that there are many levels of management and there is a narrow span of management. These differences are important because flat organizations tend to have greater communication among upper and lower levels of management, an increased capacity to respond to the environment, and lower total managerial costs.

Which of the following are basic components of strategy?

All of them Resource deployment Synergy Scope Distinctive competence All of them.

Which of the following is an example of a potential time and expense limitation to effective planning?

All of them.

If you want to know how an organization will attempt to compete in its chosen markets, you should look at its

Business strategy.

Organization charts

Can be thought of as a picture or map of an organization

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of system 4?

Communication primarily downward

In human resource management terminology, the hourly wages or salary an employee receives is referred to as

Compensation

_____ is an element in the organization's internal environment.

Corporate culture

Identify and describe the major parts of the delegation process.

Delegation is the process through which the manager assigns a portion of the task to subordinates. The major parts of the delegation process are responsibility, authority, and accountability. The manager assigns responsibility to a subordinate, grants the authority necessary to carry out the task, and creates accountability, an obligation to carry out the job.

Grouping jobs into logical sets is called

Departmentalization

The final and often the most difficult part of performance appraisal is

Feedback.

The systematic collection and recording of information about jobs in the organization is known as:

Job analysis

The process of determining the relative value of jobs within the organization is known as

Job evaluation.

Which of the following is NOT a factor that affects the wage level decision?

Job evaluation. Ability to pay. Job evaluation. Law of supply and demand. Industry averages. What other employers in the area are paying.

Systematically moving employees from one job to another is called

Job rotation

Which of the following combinations is the correct order in which mission, strategic plans, tactical plans, and operational plans should be developed according to the text?

Mission, strategic, tactical, and operational.

A manager who has only a few subordinates has a span of management that is

Narrow

The single-use plan which has the more narrow scope is

Project.

The process of attracting a pool of qualified applicants who are interested in working for a company is called:

Recruiting

The range of markets in which the firm wants to compete is termed

Scope.

What are the popular training and development techniques?

Some examples would include: Behavior modeling—used especially for supervisory training in human relations. Business simulation—used for management skills training. Lecture—used for large groups. Vestibule training—used for manual tasks. Role playing—used for small groups, especially appropriate for human relations training.

In the employment division of the human resources department some employees do interviewing, others do employment testing, and a third group checks references. This is an example of

Specialization

The degree to which the organization's overall task is broken down and divided into smaller component parts is called

Specialization

Define and discuss staffing and indicate its importance to organizations.

Staffing is the process of procuring and managing the human resources an organization needs to accomplish its goals. Staffing is vitally important to all organizations and is usually the shared responsibility of human resource specialists and line managers.

In SWOT analysis the organizational position is analyzed according to its

Strengths and weaknesses.

What are the three major contingency factors that affect organization design?

The three major contingencies that affect organization design are size and life cycle, technology, and the environment. Relative to larger organizations, smaller organizations tend to be less specialized, less standardized, and more centralized.

Which of the following is characteristic of quantitative planning methods?

They often force managers to look beyond their biases.

The traditional definition of staff positions includes

Advisory or supportive positions

Demonstrate your understanding of the SWOT analysis.

As part of environmental analysis, a manager must analyze its internal strengths and weaknesses [SWot] against basic environmental opportunities and threats [swOT] to the firm. Managers must understand these forces and use them as a framework to match environmental threats and opportunities with organizational strengths and weaknesses. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. -strengths are internal qualities that give a firm a competitive advantage. This could be a wide range of qualities one example of which would be to use the previous VOLVO example and say that one of their strengths is their historic safety ratings. -weaknesses are internal factors that may prevent a firm from excelling in the market. Poor management is just one of many examples of weaknesses within a firm. -opportunities are external factors that may develop organically in the environment. Favorable market trends would be an example of an opportunity. -threats are external factors that could come from the environment that will negatively impact a firm. A large economic depression could be a threat from the environment.

Essex Incorporated owns a pizza chain, an insurance company, a chain of convenience stores, and a hardware chain. Each business is run by a general manager, and the overall performance of each business is evaluated by the Essex corporate staff. As of late, financial performance has been less than desirable. Which form of organization design does Essex have?

Conglomerate (H-form).

The result of maximum delegation throughout the organization is

Decentralization

Which pair deals with distribution of authority?

Decentralization and delegation

What is meant by departmentalization? What are the common bases for departmentalization?

Departmentalization is grouping jobs into logical sets, the common bases for departmentalization include departmentalization by function, by product, and by location.

Volvo television ads frequently show the company's cars being subjected to crash tests, to impress consumers with how well-built the cars are and to create the impression that Volvos are among the safest cars on the market. What competitive business strategy does this represent?

Differentiation.

Explain the five critical environmental forces affecting a firm's decisions. Which of the five environmental forces are more likely to exist together than others? Why?

Environmental analysis is the specific study of the company's environment and how it affects the company. The five critical environmental forces are the threat of new entrants, the power of suppliers, competitive rivalry, the threat of substitute products, and the power of buyers. Students can answer the second question from specific market perspective. Competitors and and the threat of substitute products may often exist together, as restaurants. The threat of new entrants and competitors, where there is ease of entry into such businesses as barber shops and lawn maintenance.

Briefly describe the impact of organization size on organization design

First, smaller organizations tend to be less specialized than larger organizations. It is not uncommon that every employee in a small company has the ability to do a number of different jobs. Second, smaller organizations tend to be some what less standardized than large ones. smaller organizations generally have fewer rules for how things should be done and more flexibility in how employees can confront problems. Third, organizations tend to be more centralized when they are small. In larger organizations, decision making tends to become more and more decentralized. Most organizations begin small, grow and mature over a period of years, become stable as mature organizations, and then undergo change.

The process of developing assumptions and premises about the future for use in planning is called

Forecasting

As mentioned in the section of Quantitative Tools and Techniques, a variety of quantitative tools and techniques can assist managers in planning activities, including forecasting, linear programming, and break-even analysis. Could you briefly describe them? When one(s) would be used more often, in your observation?

Forecasting is the systematic development of predictions about the future. Linear programming and break-even analysis are other tools that managers can use in planning. These two tools focus on resource planning (linear programming) or costs (break-even analysis). In practice, linear programming is less used due to its limitation in data and information collection and poor prediction power.

Strategy implementation is concerned with

How the strategy is operationalized and executed.

The first step in staffing is:

Human resource planning.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of internal and external recruiting? Which do you feel is best in the long term?

Internal recruiting gives employees the chance to be promoted or transferred to other jobs within the organization. This chance for promotion is very motivating to most employees. Internal candidates are already known to the firm; by contrast, with external recruiting it is often difficult to gather information about the applicant's previous work experience. Internal recruiting by means of job posting is usually cheaper than external recruiting by means of advertising. Internally recruited employees usually have realistic expectations, unlike external applicants, whose unrealistic expectations may result in dissatisfaction and turnover. Students will probably believe that internal recruiting is best in the long term because of the advantages just mentioned. Employees like to know that they have a good chance of getting promoted if they perform well.

A John Deere assembly plant is an example of _____ technology.

Large-batch

Discuss the performance appraisal process and include a description of at least two specific performance appraisal techniques.

Objective measures and judgmental methods are the two major methods used in performance appraisal. Objective measures of performance appraisal are quantifiable indicators of how well the employee is doing, such as dollar amount of sales. Judgmental methods have someone, usually the employee's immediate supervisor, subjectively evaluate that person's performance via ranking or rating. Management by objectives (MBO), a popular vehicle for managing the goal-setting process, also serves as a useful method for evaluating the performance of those managers who set the goals to begin with.

The acronym SMART is used to refer to concepts regarding goal setting. To what do the letters refer?

One approach to developing goals is to make them SMART. S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. S for specific, significant, or stretching. M for measurable, meaningful, or motivational. A for agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, or even action-oriented. R for realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, or results-oriented. T for timely, time-based, time-targeted, tangible, trackable, or time-bound.

Define organization design.

Organization design refers to the overall configuration of positions and interrelationships among positions within an organization

Those aspects of the organization that let the organization compete effectively are called

Organizational strengths.

According to the text, goals serve four very important purposes. Each purpose is related very closely to one of the four functions of management. Which of the four functions of management is NOT specifically addressed by one of the purposes served by goals?

Organizing

Briefly define organizing and describe the process that is involved. Could you define the 5 organizing components mentioned in the class.

Organizing is the process of grouping activities and resources in a logical and appropriate fashion. -Organizations start out in one form and evolve into other forms as they grow, shrink, or otherwise change. -New circumstances, opportunities, and threats will always cause modifications and adjustments to the organization. Key organizing components and concepts -Designing jobs: specialization -Grouping jobs: departmentalization -Defining authority and responsibility: decentralization -Organizing for group effectiveness -Managing line and staff positions

Corporate culture is the shared experiences, stories, beliefs, norms, and actions that characterize an organization. In your opinion, what factors, besides those mentioned in this book, can influence corporate culture?

Other factors that can influence corporate culture include (1) the country in which the organization operates, (2) the race or gender of the majority of the employees, and (3) the type of business (manufacturing or service) the firm conducts.

Which of the following is a correct statement about uses of PERT and Grant chart:

PERT and Gantt are used primarily for project planning and scheduling.

Briefly describe the three basic components of organizational strategy.

Strategic planning is the broad planning of top management to guide the general direction of an organization. The four basic components of strategy are scope, resource deployment, competitive advantage, and synergy.

What are the major components to human resource planning?

The major components of human resource planning are job analysis, forecasting human resource supply and demand, and matching supply with demand. Job analysis is the systematic collection and recording of information about jobs in the organization resulting in job descriptions and job specifications. With this information forecasts of the demand for and supply of human resources are made.

Briefly describe the major contemporary organization design alternatives.

The major contemporary organization design alternatives are the function, conglomerate, divisional, and matrix designs. The functional design is based on functional departmentalization and is known as the U-Form because it uses a uniform approach to design. The conglomerate design uses the product form of departmentalization and takes advantage of specialization based on product knowledge. The divisional design combines a product approach with a strategic business unit (SBU) strategy. In the matrix design, product based form of departmentalization is superimposed on a functional departmentalization.

What are the three levels of strategy? Do all firms have all three levels? Why or why not?

The three levels of strategy are the corporate, business, and functional levels. Corporate strategy charts the course for the entire organization and the business strategy charts the course for each individual business within a company. Functional strategies correspond to each of the basic functional areas within the organization. Most large firms have all three levels. However, it depends on other factors, e.g., size, SBUs, product lines, etc. If a firm only has one business, then its corporate and business strategy would be the same strategy.

Identify and describe the three basic types of planning done by most organizations.

The three major kinds of plans are strategic, tactical, and operational. Strategic plans are the broad, long-term plans developed by top managers to guide the general directions of the organization. Tactical plans are designed to implement strategic plans and hence have moderate scopes and intermediate time frames. Operational plans have the narrowest focus and the shortest time frames and are executed by first-line managers.

Identify three grand strategies that organizations might choose to pursue. In your opinion, which strategy should your current company (provide name) choose. If you are not working, please answer which strategy should UF choose.

Three grand (or generic) strategies that organizations might choose to pursue include growth, retrenchment, and stability. Growth is adopted when the corporation wants to generate high levels of growth in one or more areas of operations. A retrenchment strategy is employed when managers want to shrink operations, cut back in some areas, or eliminate unprofitable operations altogether. A stability strategy is used when the organization wants to maintain its status quo. Students' answers may vary. Three grand strategies are growth, retrenchment, and stability. UF would probably want to choose stability since they are the number one university in the state of Florida and one of the best public universities in the entire country; maintaining this status would be paramount. Additionally, growth is another area that UF might want to pursue if they want to continue to rise in the ranks even further.

Ace Industries Ltd. has employees working three different shifts. Based on this data, we know that the firm is organized, at least in part, on the basis of

Time

The forecasting technique that assumes the past is a good predictor of the future is

Time series analysis.

One roadblock/barrier to effective goal setting is inappropriate goals. Could you give an example

To be effective, planning must start at the top of the organization. Top managers must set goals and strategies that lower-level managers will follow. However, inappropriate goals are often observed and not SMART. Any example in workplace and life is a good example. An example of a bad goal would be to make the a to manufacture more of a bad-selling product rather than your better-selling product. This is counterproductive and inappropriate since you will most likely waste money making a product that won't sell.

Strategic goals are set by

Top managers.

In breakeven analysis, at the breakeven point

Total costs equal total revenue.

The term that referees to a company's wages in comparison to those of other companies is

Wage level.