Management Chapter 12

Flextime (or flexible work hours)

a scheduling system in which employees are required to work a specific number of hours a week but are free to vary those hours within certain limits.

Task force (or ad hoc committee)

a temporary committee or team formed to tackle a specific short-term problem affecting several departments.

Telecommuniting

a work arrangement in which employees work at home and are linked to the workplace by computer

Cross-functional team

a work team composed of individuals from various functional specialties.

Compressed workweek

a workweek where employees work longer hours per day but fewer days per week

Strategic Partnerships

collaborative relationships between two or more organizations in which they combine their resources and capabilities for some business purpose.

Communities of practice

groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in that area by interacting on an ongoing basis.

Keeping Employees connected

mobile computing and communication technology have given organizations and employees ways to stay connected and to be more productive -e-mail, calendars, wireless networks, corporate databases, video conferences and web cams.

Open innovation

opening up the search for new ideas beyond the organization's boundaries and allowing innovations to easily transfer inward and outward.

Contingent workers

temporary, freelance, or contract workers whose employment is contingent upon demand for their services.

Job sharing

the practice of having two or more people split a full-time job.

Benefits of collaborative work

- Increased communication and coordination -Greater innovative output -Enhanced ability to address complex problems -Sharing of information and best practices

Internal collaboration

-Cross-functional team - Task force (or ad hoc committee)

Benefits of open innovation

-Gives customers what they want- a voice -Allows organizations to respond to complex problems -Nutures internal and external -Brings focus back to marketplace -Provides way to cope with rising costs and uncertainities of product development

Drawbacks of open innovation

-High demands of managing the process -Extensive support needed -Cultural challenges -Greater need for flexibility -Crucial changes required in how knowledge is controlled and shared

Advantages of Boundaryless Structure

-Highly flexible and responsive -Utilitizes talent wherever it's found.

Disadvantages of Boundaryless Structure

-Lack of control -Communication difficulties

External Collaboration

-Open innovation -Strategic partnerships

Drawbacks of Collaborative Work

-Potential interpersonal conflict -DIfferent views and competing goals -Logistics of coordinating

Disadvantages of learning structure

-Reluctance on part of employeees to share knowledge for fear of losing their power -Large numbers of experienced employees on the verge of retiring

Managing global structural issues

-When designing or changing structure, managers may need to think about the cultural implications of certain design elements -Formalization may be more important in less economically developed countries and less important in more economically developed countries where employees may have higher levels of professional education and skills

Advantages of Learning Structure

Sharing of knowledge throughout organization -Sustainable source of competitive advantage

Virtual organization

an organization that consists of a small core of full-time employees and outside specialists temporarily hired as needed to work on projects.

Learning Organization

an organization that has developed the capacity to continuously learn, adapt, and change

Network Organization

an organization that uses its own employees to do some work activities and networks of outside suppliers to provide other needed product components or work processes.

Boundaryless Organization

an organization whose design is not defined by, or limited to, the horizontal, vertical, or external boundaries imposed by a predefined structure

Project Structure

an organizational structure in which employees continuously work on projects

Team Structure

an organizational structure in which the entire organization is made up of work teams Advantages: Employees more involved/empowered, reduced barriers Disadvantages: no clear chain of command, pressure on teams to perform

Matrix Structure

an organizational structure that assigns specialists from different functional departments to work on one or more projects Adv: Fluid and flexible design that can respond to environmental changes. -Faster decision making Disadvantages: Complexity of assigning people to projects. -Task and personality conflicts.