Chapter 8 - Management Structures & Organization - Complete

1.) There is a profound organizational crisis such as a major economic setback 2.) There are new leaders in the top levels of management which has sometimes been the reason for replacing corporate executives 3.) The organizations culture is not well established because the organization is either small or newly formed 4.) The organizations culture is relatively weak (i.e. it is not fully embraced by everyone)

Culture change for a company may be made more easily under the following conditions: (4)

1.) A social event such as a party or dance often used to celebrate successful team performance 2.) Facilitated games or disclosure exercises in which team members are requested to reveal some aspects of their personal lives and share in team problem solving of puzzles or quizzes 3.) A wilderness exercise where team members work together in a project such as rock climbing or white water rafting 4.) Work-related group activities such as goal setting, development of role descriptions and work distribution, and technical or process trouble shooting.

Team building includes four types of activities often used in combination. They are?

Advantages: - It can be highly effective in providing the required support resources promptly when needed. - They encourage a certain degree of cross training which increases the performance potential of every team member - Work involving equipment design or complex problem solving usually benefits from having team members with diverse technical qualifications, experience, and interest

What are the advantages of cross-functional work teams?

1.) Supportive Environment: 2.) Skills and role clarity 3.) Superordinate goals 4.) Team rewards

A successful team-based structure has 4 necessary characteristics:

- Refers to a classical structure with activities organized into projects. - For each project, individuals are drawn from across the organization as needed and reorganized into a reporting relationship that is most beneficial to the project. - Each project and each matrix is temporary, but may exist for years. b.) Employees report to two or more supervisors simultaneously, so there is a potential for conflicting expectations.

Briefly describe the Matrix Organization Structure. b.) What is the disadvantage of this structure?

1.) Power Culture: - Based around powerful central individuals with authority and communication radiating out from them. This structure is typical of a small family or entrepreneurial business. 2.) Role Culture: - Based on functional roles that each individual fills with clear boundaries between them. Communication is mainly downward from the top and governed by strict rules. This is typical of a bureaucracy. 3.) Task Culture: - Based on work divided into projects, like a matrix organization, strongly emphasizing results and flexibility. 4.) Person Culture: - Based on individuals needs rather than organizational needs. This structure is typical of organizations such as families and social clubs; as well, individual departments within an organization may work this way. However, this is a relatively rare phenomenon in business organizations.

Charles B. Handy developed a model wherby organizational cultures can be evaluated based on how communications are managed within the organization. He identified 4 types of cultures: (Name and describe)

- Refers to a classical structure with activities organized into projects. For each project, individuals are drawn from across the organization as needed and reorganized into a reporting relationship most beneficial to the project. - This structure provides the multiple skills the project requires. Each project and each matrix is temporary but may still exist for years. - Each employee is simultaneously part of the normal, permanent reporting structure, as well as belonging to one or more matrix structures depending on the projects to which he or she is assigned. - This system gives a company a great deal of flexibility to meet changing needs and is well suited to companies in fields where market demand is continuously changing and diverse technical skills are needed to address each change. - A disadvantage is that employees report to two or more supervisors simultaneously, so there is a potential for conflicting expectations.

Describe a matrix organizational structure and state its advantages and disadvantages.

1.) Supportive Environment: - Teams will be most successful when management works to develop an organizational culture specifically supportive of teamwork and team structures. 2.) Skills and Role clarity: - Each member of each team must have the skills and training to perform the necessary tasks. - Also needed is a clear understanding of the members role as it relates to all others within the team, as well as the role of the team as it relates to the rest of the organization. 3.) Superordinate Goals: - Goals and objectives need to be team-based and preferably team-set, so that the team can collectively work toward them. 4.) Team rewards: - Performance based rewards for a team are essential to developing a team identity. - Rewards may be financial, increased responsibility for the team to administer its own affairs, or include organizational recognition.

Describe the 4 characteristics of a successful team-based organizational structure.

1.) Member Identity: - The degree to which employees identify themselves primarily as members of the organization 2.) Group Emphasis: - The degree to which the organization is structured for group activities. 3.) People Focus: - The degree to which employees needs are considered in organizational decision making. 4.) Unit Integration: - The degree to which work groups, or units, work together or independently 5.) Control: - The degree to which rules and supervision are used to control the work 6.) Risk Tolerance: - The degree of innovation allowed and encouraged 7.) Reward Criteria: - Whether pay and rewards are based on performance or on other criteria 8.) Conflict Tolerance: - The amount of openness in conflict resolution 9.) Means-end Orientation: - Whether results or methods are most important 10.) Open-system focus: - The degree of attentiveness to the environment outside the organization

List (and briefly describe) the 10 characteristics that an organizations culture can be defined by.

1.) Clear Goals: 2.) Relevant Skills 3.) Mutual Trust 4.) Unified Commitment 5.) Good Communication 6.) Negotiating Skills 7.) Appropriate Leadership 8.) Internal Support 9.) External Support

List 9 characteristics of successful work teams.

1.) Member identity 2.) Group emphasis 3.) People focus 4.) Unit integration 5.) Control 6.) Risk tolerance 7.) Reward criteria 8.) Conflict tolerance 9.) Means-end orientation 10.) Open-system focus

List the 10 characteristics that can define an organizations culture.

1.) Scalar 2.) Functional 3.) Tall/Flat 4.) Matrix

List the 4 typical organizational structures.

1.) Morale 2.) Quality of work 2.) Responsibility and self discipline that employees demonstrate towards their work

There are a number of advantages to the use of work teams. Employees who are part of a work team tend to think of themselves in terms of their team and develop pride in the teams accomplishments and work. Typical results show increases in: (3)

Disadvantages: - Team building can become more of a challenge because of the different backgrounds of the team members. - If the teams work consists primarily of relatively simple tasks, then cross-functional teams may not produce a benefit. - It can be difficult to allocate resources effectively because the various occupational functions needed for a team are not likely to be needed in comparable proportions.

What are the disadvantages of cross-functional work teams?

1.) Need more training than supervised teams because of the added supervisory tasks and responsibilities they take on. 2.) Added responsibilities are time consuming, so they require more team members and more team resources to be made available. 3.) Individuals who have difficulty adapting to a team environment often find a self-directed team to be even more difficult with which to work. 4.) For reasons that are not clear, self-directed teams tend to produce more absenteeism and higher turnover of staff than supervised teams do.

What are the limitations of self-directed work teams? (4)

1.) Open, honest, and complete two-way communication 2.) Supportive and encouraging leadership 3.) Showing respect to team members 4.) Fairness when bestowing recognition and evaluating performance 5.) Consistency and predictability; including keeping promises 6.) Modelling the skills and behaviours that team members require

What can a manager do to increase mutual trust within a work team? (6)

Advantage: - Very simple to share resources such as trained staff, parts, and tools between plants as needed. Disadvantage: - Difficult for employees and managers to become knowledgeable about all the locations, so the benefits are partly lost by having each function develop its own staff and management for each location.

What is an advantage/disadvantage of a functional organizational structure?

Tall: - Many levels and a complex reporting relationship. - Advantages of a tall structure are the accessibility of the supervisor to his or her subordinates, the high degree of support that can be provided to them and the amount of control and coordination that the supervisor can have over day to day activities. Flat: - Increase the span of management to reduce the number of levels. - Flat structures have a major advantage because their reporting relationships are much shorter and less complex resulting in faster and easier communication between levels. - Disadvantage is supervisors have more people reporting to them, so there is less time to spend with each employee.

What is the difference between Tall and Flat organizational structure.

a.) The emphasis is placed on the different functions needed to maintain the business. The classical approach is to have a management structure for each plant. b.) An operations department and a mechanical department. A purely functional structure would have only one operations department and only one mechanical maintenance department, headed by managers who are responsible for their particular function at all of the plants.

a.) Briefly describe the "Functional" organizational structure. b.) Give an example.

a.) It just means that duties, authority, and responsibility are scaled into distinct levels. b.) 1.) Head of Department (Top) 2.) Supervisors (Middle) 3.) Employees (Bottom)

a.) Briefly describe the "Scalar" organizational structure. b.) What are the 3 levels in a Scalar organizational structure?