Module 11: Technology, Environment, and Organization Design
During the third stage of the organizational life-cycle, elaboration, the organization seeks out new product, location, or client opportunities and typically takes on a centralized functional structure.
False
Environmental diversity affects whether a firm can decentralize.
False
Every organization progresses through every developmental stage of the organizational life-cycle model.
False
Organizational productivity is another way to measure organizational effectiveness since they are the same thing.
False
Organizations in the inception stage typically take on bureaucratic forms of structure.
False
The predictability of mass production requires that mutual adjustment be used to coordinate work activities.
False
A boundary spanner is a member or unit of an organization that interacts with people or firms in the organization's environment.
True
A mediating technology provides services that link clients together.
True
An environment is considered dynamic when it changes over time in an unpredictable manner.
True
An organization that has advanced to the transformation stage of the organizational life-cycle, finds itself confronted by extremes of both change and complexity in its business situation.
True
An organization's environment encompasses everything outside the organization.
True
An organization's size affects its structure mainly by determining whether mutual adjustment, direct supervision, or standardization is most appropriate as the primary means of coordination.
True
An organization's technology includes the knowledge, procedures, and equipment used to transform unprocessed resources into finished goods or services.
True
At the inception stage of the organizational life-cycle, one person or a small group of people create an organization and identify the firm's initial purpose.
True
Because some of the most critical work performed by people in continuous-process production technologies is highly unpredictable, standardization is not feasible.
True
Company age and stage of development are life-cycle contingencies associated with organizational growth.
True
Decisions about "doing it yourself" in a modular structure versus "contracting it out" in a virtual structure boil down to a comparison of the costs of maintaining a unified structure versus the costs of writing acceptable contracts.
True
Entry into the stage of transformation is accompanied by the task of converting bureaucratic structures into either of two postbureaucratic alternatives, the modular structure or the virtual structure.
True
Environmental change affects the structure of an organization by influencing the predictability of the firm's work and, therefore, the method of coordination used to integrate work activities.
True
Environmental complexity influences structural effectiveness by affecting the amount of knowledge and information that people must process to understand the environment and cope with its demands.
True
Environmental complexity is the degree to which an organization's environment is complicated and therefore difficult to understand.
True
Environmental uncertainty undermines an organization's ability to manage current circumstances and plan for the future.
True
Firms using continuous-process production technologies are most effective when structured organically.
True
Flexible-cell production is characterized by a group of computer-controlled production machines that can be rapidly reconfigured to adapt the cell for different production tasks.
True
For managers of small organizations who must choose among alternative prebureaucratic structures, organization size influences structural choice through its effects on coordination.
True
For managers trying to decide which bureaucratic structure to implement, the trade-off between mechanistic efficiency and organic flexibility plays a major role in shaping structural choices.
True
Intensive technology consists of work processes whose configuration may change as employees receive feedback from their clients.
True
Managers of organizations in the stage of transformation confront the challenge of dealing with business conditions that require the resources of a large organization but the flexibility of a small one.
True
Mechanistic structures permit workers to complete routine, narrowly defined tasks in an efficient manner, but they lack flexibility.
True
Mutual adjustment plays a pivotal role in coordinating small-batch production, so small-batch firms with organic structures are significantly more likely to be successful than companies with mechanistic structures.
True
Organization design involves making well-considered choices among the various structural alternatives available to an organization.
True
Organizational efficiency means minimizing the raw materials and energy consumed by the production of goods and services.
True
Organizations that have progressed beyond the stage of inception and outgrown prebureaucratic structures must consider the adoption of more bureaucratic forms of structure.
True
Organizations that use long-linked technology coordinate by means of standardization.
True
Owing to their flexibility, organic structures lack the single-minded focus required to perform routine work in the most efficient manner.
True
Relative to prebureaucratic structures, bureaucratic structures are more mechanistic and, therefore, more standardized and often more centralized.
True
Standardization and mechanistic structuring enhance the effectiveness of firms using core technologies that are suited to more routine work—mass-production, mediating, and long-linked technologies.
True
The degree to which a particular type of structure will contribute to the effectiveness of an organization depends on contingency factors that impinge on the organization and shape its business.
True
The fact that many different kinds of structures exist suggests that no one type will be suitable for all organizations.
True
To deal with the crisis of a hostile environment, firms that are normally decentralized in response to environmental complexity may centralize decision making for a limited period of time.
True
