Quiz 20 Fundamentals of organizational structure

Extremely flat

Which of the following terms or phrases best characterizes Zappos' organizational structure (Chapter Case 11)?

slow down decision-making

A high degree of formalization in an organization is most likely to _____.

socialization

Employees learn about an organization's culture through the process of _____.

Once the firm starts growing and attracting more customers she is likely to feel overloaded.

Opal, a recent fashion design school graduate, has received praise for her clothing designs from her peers and friends on social networking sites; this has inspired her to set up a store where she can design and sell apparel. After experiencing some success with sales, she recruits two employees to handle customers at the store. However, she handles other day-to-day affairs herself, while continuing to design clothes. Which of the following is likely to be a pitfall of this organizational structure established by Opal?

pursue a differentiation strategy at the business level.

Since an organic structure helps a firm build core competencies in areas such as R&D and marketing, this structure tends to be employed by firms that:

The firm's culture can turn from a core competency into a core rigidity.

What is most likely to happen if a firm relies too long on a competency without honing, refining, and upgrading as the firm and the environment change?

ambidextrous organization

Gannett Company (Strategy Highlight 11.2) integrated certain important functions of USA Today.com with USA Today, while keeping other functions independent. To support this integration, the president of USA Today shifted compensation incentives for both senior teams to accomplish joint goals rather than to focus solely on each business unit's performance. This scenario best exemplifies a(n) _____.

formalization

McDonald's uses detailed standard operating procedures throughout the world to ensure product quality. This implies that McDonald's has a high degree of _____.

Its communication lines are bottom-up and well defined.

Which of the following characteristics of McDonald's best supports the fact that it is a mechanistic organization?

Focus on economies of scale

Which of the following features helps match a cost leadership strategy to a functional structure?

Strategy implementation requires a fit with the constantly changing external environment

Why does strategy implementation often require changes within an organization?

global matrix

A firm that uses a structure that is organized along different business functions such as HR, R&D, Sales, and Marketing and also along different geographical areas such as different countries of the world is most likely using a _____ structure.

McDonald's use of standard operating procedures across the world

Which of the following real-world scenarios best exemplifies formalization?

Organizational structure must follow strategy in order for firms to achieve superior performance.

Which of the following statements is true of strategy in an organization?

They are considered before employees make any decisions.

Why are controls like budgets and operating procedures that McDonald's implements known as input controls?

It allows a high level of integration.

Why should managers using the M-form organizational structure to support a related-constrained diversification strategy ideally concentrate decision making at the top of the organization?

organic

An organization is characterized as having a flexible division of labor, distributed decision-making, and generalized knowledge of how to accomplish strategic goals valued. This organization is most likely _____ in nature.

Reduced employee satisfaction due to repetition of tasks

Which of the following is an unintended side-effect of a high degree of specialization in an organization?

To maintain competitive advantage, companies need to restructure as they grow and the competitive environment changes.

Which of the following is true of the process of organizing for competitive advantage?

Organizational culture

_____ describes the collectively shared values and norms of an organization's members.

Specialization

_____ describes the degree to which a task is divided into separate jobs.

How an organization accommodates strategy implementation through a flexible organizational structure

To maintain its core competency of providing a superior customer experience in the face of explosive growth, Zappos split the organization into 10 standalone units. Which of the following does this scenario best illustrate?

a low level of formalization

W.L. Gore & Associates (Strategy Highlight 11.1) is organized in such a way that it has no formal job titles, job descriptions, or chains of command. This implies that it has:

mechanistic

Walmart is an example of a(n) _____ organization.