Business Foundations Chapter 7

Javier and Jamal work for different companies that have low levels of sociability among employees. The corporate cultures of their companies are most likely

fragmented and mercenary

AQZ, Inc., a new computer services company, has grown rapidly and desires to departmentalize to simplify supervision and facilitate coordination. It will most likely departmentalize by

function

William, a manager for a large company, overheard employees gossiping about him during lunch. He immediately sent e-mails to all employees with newly enacted rules against rumors, gossip, and discussions about the company's financial situation, management, and other company matters. William is

going to fail in his attempt to eliminate the company grapevine

Makenzie, manager of a car plant in Ohio, has received word through the grapevine that employees believe the plant is closing. Makenzie should

immediately take action to correct the inaccurate grapevine information to minimize damage.

Southwest Airlines is known for its unique hiring style, its company Christmas party held in a hangar at Love Field in Houston, Texas, flight attendants that give announcements with humor, and job-swap days during which employees have the opportunity to do a different job for the day. These activities are part of the corporate culture which is generally defined as

inner rites, rituals, heroes, and values of a firm.

In farming, one employee may plow the field, another may plant the seed, and another may set up the irrigation system. This is an example of

job specialization.

One of the disadvantages of a line structure for an organization is

managers are responsible for a wide range of activities and, therefore, must have vast knowledge about all of these activities.

What size organization is best at utilizing a line-and-staff structure?

medium and large

The president of UVW Inc. wrote in the company's quarterly report that the company had five layers in its organizational structure. When he wrote this he was writing about the company's

organizational height.

Carefree Do-Nothing Enterprises is considering redesigning its bright pink-and-yellow offices and changing its name to give it a more business-like appearance and serious feeling. Because there are numerous problems and costs associated with instituting such changes, what group should the management appoint to study the issues and report back to them?

task force

Wilma, a certified public accountant with ABC Company, and George, a securities expert with the company, have been appointed to a(n) ___ to investigate the pending merger of their company with DEF Company.

task force

The purpose of an organizational chart is to reveal

the company's organizational structure.

Fuji, a plant manager with UVW Inc., evaluated the plant's operations after the absence of a key employee almost halted production because no one knew how to do his job. Fuji recommended to top management that there was a need for some specialization because

the more specialized the job, the easier it is to train new employees when an employee quits or is absent.

One of the reasons for job specialization is

the organization is too large for one person to do everything.

Carl is an employee at ABC Inc. where he is supervised by Greg, the office manager. The company has fifteen employees. Greg gives the employees their work, provides their employee reviews every quarter, and addresses their personal issues as they relate to the business. Without being asked to, Carl organizes parties and events, arranges help for other employees who have health problems and sends flowers to the ill employees on behalf of the office. When he asks people to help, they do so willingly. What is Carl's position in the organization?

He is the leader of the informal organization in this business.

Damien recently obtained copies of his company's floor plans and directory. After examining the two together, he noticed that all of the upper management offices were on the top floor of the business, the accounting staff occupied the floor below the upper management, the legal personnel were on the floor below accounting and the sales department was on the ground floor. How is Damien's business departmentalized?

This business is departmentalized by function.

Clarence is a runner for a sports ticketing business in Las Vegas. His duties normally include picking up sports merchandise from the warehouse and delivering it to the stores in addition to receiving ticket orders and delivering the tickets to customers at the hotels on The Strip. Clarence was given permission by the office manager to sign credit-card receipts when making purchases. Clarence has been given the ___ to use the business credit card.

authority

Anderson and Diego are engineers and, along with the other employees, have a high degree of autonomy, flexibility, and equality at work. They have very few friends at work but enjoy their work nonetheless because it gives them the opportunity to design new and unique structures; however, the general feeling is that they work "at" the company but not "for" it. What kind of company culture does this company have?

Fragmented

GM is a very large company, therefore, like most large organizations it most likely uses

a combination of departmentalization bases.

Janice is the manager of a store who has delegated authority to a subordinate. She has given the subordinate all of the following except

a line position

Magic Music Stores Inc. wants to know what sheet music it should order for the coming year. It forms a short-term committee to investigate. This committee is called a(n) ___ committee.

ad hoc

The matrix structure has many advantages, but the most obvious one is

added flexibility.

A business grapevine is

an informal communications network.

Billy Sports Investments needs to make risky decisions on a daily basis. Because of this, its managers are likely to

centralize decision making.

A sales manager at Big Books has a very wide span of control. This is probably because the

manager and his or her subordinates are very competent.

The degree of ___ will determine the degree of centralization of an organization.

delegation of authority

, in the book, The Wealth of Nations, emphasized the power of specialization.

Adam Smith

Godfrey is manager of a computer repair store where he is required to have a great deal of interaction between himself and his workers because new problems arise frequently. He is most likely to have

a narrow span of control.

Grouping tasks into manageable working units is

departmentalization

FriedoMac Inc. has a very centralized organization. This means that

decision making rests with a few top-level managers.

Mary Lou is manager of a department and is having difficulty getting her subordinates to perform the tasks she assigns to them in the manner she wants them performed. Normally, she just posts a list of the required tasks on the break-room bulletin board with the name of the person assigned the task next to it without an explanation of why it needs done or how to do it. Mary Lou could best improve delegation by

explaining the purpose of each task.

Mona's business does just one thing, does it the same way every time, and does it well. Mona can have a wide span of control because

few new problems are expected to arise.

A matrix structure is a combination of a functional structure and a ___ structure.

project

Barry's Business Solutions, an international company, has a(n) ____ committee comprised of managers from various departments in charge of evaluating the performance of the staff employees every year.

standing

_ is the division of organizational activities into individual tasks and assigning them to different people.

Specialization

Nancy owns a small business with her husband. She answers directly to her husband. Their one employee answers directly to her. What type of organizational structure does this business have?

This organization has a line structure.

Boeing Corp. created a committee to study the company's hiring, promoting, and compensation policies. The committee will review these areas for four months then report to the board of directors and, afterwards, be disbanded. This is a(n) ___ committee.

ad hoc

Public relations is a(n) ___ type job that does not fit directly into the chain of command.

advisory

When a line manager in an organization encounters issues and turns to a staff member with specialized expertise, the manager gives that individual ___ authority.

advisory

In a delegation, the person who ___ the delegation is accountable for the work.

assigns

A chain of command distinguishes between positions with direct ____ from those that are support positions.

authority

Melanie was given the responsibility of serving as manager during her boss' absence. To complete the delegation process, she should be given the ___ to carry out this responsibility.

authority

Doug and Grover are friends at work and frequently participate in volunteer activities outside of work with their work group. When Grover's wife was ill, the members of the work group babysat, brought the family food, and made sure they were taken care of but did not neglect their work in the office and still sought to meet or exceed company goals. Doug and Grover work in a ___ culture organization.

communal

Malinda, a sales representative; Thomas, an engineer; Andrew, an accountant; and Betsy, a human resource specialist, are placed in a group to devise new uses and marketing schemes for one of the company's existing products. Malinda is on a

cross-functional team.

Keith is considering changing the structure of his organization to a matrix system because it is more flexible, but he hesitates to do so because a disadvantage of this system is that

employees have to report to more than one supervisor, which can cause confusion about who is in charge of certain situations.

The four basic forms of organizational structure include all except

informal

A(n) ___ is a diagram that represents the positions and relationships within an organization.

organizational chart

Jeffrey has a duty to do a job or perform a task. This is called

responsibility.

A manager with 1,000 subordinates would have a

wide span of control

Kiana operates a pottery shop in Kansas City. After she has thoroughly trained her employees she lets all employees take orders, sell pottery, design pottery for custom orders, and commit the store to large orders for department stores. Why type of organization does Kiana have?

Decentralized

In which direction does authority flow in an organization with a matrix structure?

Down and across

___ is the separation of all organizational activities into distinct tasks and the assignment of different tasks to different people.

Job specialization

Jerry and Dave are friends at work and play golf together on Saturdays. Marilyn is Katherine's supervisor at work and while they may eat lunch together from time to time, it is understood that Katherine is answerable to Marilyn for her work performance. Jerry and Dave's relationship is part of the company's

informal organization.

Sheeree works for a company where employees do not become friends and have a high degree of autonomy and flexibility. She works in an organization with a(n) ___ culture.

mercenary

Randy, an office manager, is overwhelmed with the amount of work he has to do and is considering delegating work to others. Which of the following is a reason that would not prevent him from delegating?

He has few responsibilities and therefore little to delegate.

Joseph works for an organization that has a manager for every 12 employees. Juliette works for an organization that has a manager for every 150 employees. Celina works for an organization that has a manager for every 40 employees. What do you know about these organizations?

Juliette's company no doubt has very competent employees and a well-established set of standard operating procedures and few problems.

Thelma has delegated a task to a subordinate and is holding her accountable for the outcomes. Which of the following statements about accountability is false?

Managers delegate accountability.

Joshlyn, the manager of the sales department of the business where she works, is going on vacation for two weeks. During a staff meeting, she assigns her clients to different staff members to handle until she returns and gives them the power to answer the clients' questions and solve their problems. What has Joshlyn done?

She has distributed power in the organization by delegation.

Techno Inc. operates in a complex and uncertain environment, therefore, it is likely the company will

decentralize the organization.

Fred is manager of Soft Rock Restaurant. He is called out of the restaurant to attend to restaurant matters at the bank. He tells Baxter, a worker at the restaurant, to oversee the operation while he is away and to be sure workers take their breaks. Fred has ____ duties to Baxter

delegated

A wide span of management implies that the height of the organization will be ____, whereas a narrow span of management implies that the height of the organization will be _____.

flat; tall

Give a Heart Company, a maker of mechanical heart valves, has its own bowling league formed by employees with teams drawn from different departments within the company. It also has ad hoc committees and task forces to accomplish the goals of the company. The ad hoc committees and task forces are ___ groups, whereas the bowling teams are ___groups within the organization.

formal; informal

eff and John work for competing aerospace companies. In both organizations the employees are quite intense, focused, and determined to win. They both work in companies with a(n) ___ culture.

mercenary

Gerry has only a few subordinates, therefore, he has a

narrow span of control.

Rafael is considering using a virtual organizational structure for his business. Another name for this structure is

network

Google strives to have a corporate culture based on trust and friendship among employees, a strong commitment to the company, and a relaxed and informal atmosphere. This is a ___ culture.

networked

Alyiah is helping Yahaira design a chart to show who supervises her and who their supervisors are. She wants the chart to show the entire line of supervisors from the president down to her position and those she supervises. She would also like to show the employees who are at an equal level with her in the organization. What would be the best device to use to make the process easier to understand?

organizational chart

Sam is doing a crossword puzzle and must find a word synonymous with authority. He should choose

power

Alexander Broich is at the top of the organizational chart for the international division of Cengage, Inc. His job title most likely is

president.

A large department store is departmentalized by Women's Clothing, Children's Clothing, Men's Clothing, Housewares, Hardware, Home Furnishings, and Electronics. This store is departmentalized by

product

Due to employees becoming bored and dissatisfied with their work when performing specialized tasks, employers may take any of the following steps to improve job satisfaction except

promotion.

Michael has 12 subordinates reporting directly to him. This is called his

span of control.

Terrance, the marketing director for Fillmore Environmental Waste Removal Service, supervises ten people. This represents his

span of management.

Increasing the ease of training new employees is one of the benefits of job

specialization.

Nancy often mentally drifts off while in the middle of performing the tasks she has been assigned to perform. Nancy may be suffering from boredom, which is one of the negative side effects of job

specialization.

Facilities maintenance is a(n) ___ type job, so it does not fit directly into the chain of command.

staff

The attorney for the City of Henderson would most likely occupy a(n)

staff position

Macy Black has been working in an air conditioning repair company for about a month. This morning she noticed that they only had one of their most popular selling filters remaining. She is unsure of whom to report to for approval to order more because she is unclear about the

chain of command.

Some of the things considered by management when developing the firm's organizational structure are

job design, departmentalization, delegation, span of management, and chain of command.

Many companies move employees systematically among departments in the organization to alleviate boredom and to provide employees with a better overall view of company goals and procedures. Intel does this to encourage creativity. Southwest Airlines has a program in which workers do another worker's task (except for flying) for the day to acquaint employees with the contributions made by each individual and department to the overall mission of Southwest Airlines. This practice of systematically moving employees is called

job rotation.

What is the oldest and simplest form of organizational structure?

line

Departmentalization is most often based on

location, product, function, and customer.

extbook Publishing has grouped its sales regions by Northeast Region, Northwest Region, Southeast Region, and Southwest Region, which is departmentalization by

location.

eramiah has operated an accounting office for about two years. He has noticed that one employee is much better at working with large businesses and evaluating the work that will be required by these businesses, another is better at small business data entry and tax returns, and another is better at auditing businesses and preparing the required paperwork for lenders. Jeramiah wants to make his business operate more efficiently and is considering changing the way jobs are assigned. In the past he has let the employees chose what they want to do each day. Considering the abilities of his employees, what would be the best way for him to streamline his business?

Utilize job specialization

Mr. Smyth will manage employees throughout the northeastern region of the United States. The employees will be of all major nationalities and all genders. In determining his span of control, you should consider which of the following span factors?

Whether the subordinates are physically located far from one another

Maria's Taco Shop, a locally owned and operated restaurant with just one location, is likely to have

a short chain of command.

The line of authority that extends from the highest to the lowest levels of the organization is the

chain of command.

Downtown Bank has a department to handle loans to individuals and a separate department to handle commercial loans. This bank has departmentalized by

customer.

Kenny's Market organizes its departments according to retail, wholesale, and online using the concept of departmentalization by

customer.

An office supply business is organized by Home/Personal Use, Small Business, Large Business, and Large Institutions. Within each of these divisions, it is organized by finance, marketing, and human resources. The office supply company is organized by ___ then by ___.

customer; function