MGT 2660 Supervision: Middle Management Chapter 4

Which of the following is an ideal way for an organization to apply the span of control principle?

First-level managers should have the highest number of people directly reporting to them.

Which of the following violates the unity of command principle?

Functional authority

If there has been a strong history of growth in an organization, where mergers and acquisitions have occurred, then such an organization will most likely be:

decentralized.

All of the following are benefits of downsizing EXCEPT:

constant and close supervision on each level.

____________ is the organizational process of determining how activities are to be grouped.

Departmentalization

Downsizing has had a positive effect on corporate profit in over 90 percent of the firms attempting it.

False

If the top managers of an organization need to keep tight control, they will probably create a decentralized organization.

False

In a decentralized organization, the upper management makes most of the important decisions that concern all levels or units within the organization.

False

In an organization following the unity of command principle, the operating employees are themselves responsible for motivating the other employees and achieving effective results without any supervisors overseeing their work.

False

In line organizations, responsibility and authority are not clearly defined.

False

In the wagon wheel organizational structure, customers are on the outer rim and top management is at the center, the hub.

False

Line organization is the first stage of growth of an organization.

False

Reengineering is a shift back toward more traditional organizational design.

False

Staff personnel carry out the primary activities of the business, such as production and sales.

False

The right of staff personnel to advise, recommend, serve, and assist line departments is called line authority.

False

The staff personnel are always more important than the line personnel in an organization.

False

There is a trend in the United States toward increasing the number of levels of management and shifting toward more centralization.

False

____________ carry out the primary activities of a business such as producing or selling products and/or services.

Line personnel

___________departmentalization is a hybrid type of departmentalization in which personnel from several specialties are brought together to complete limited-life tasks.

Matrix

_____________use their expertise to assist others in the organization in various areas of business activities.

Staff personnel

Which of the following is true of line organizations?

The accountability of employees is maximized in such organizations.

A matrix organizational structure brings together personnel from several specializations to complete limited-life tasks.

True

Companies following a policy of a narrow span of control are often hampered in achieving effective results.

True

Functional authority violates the unity of command principle.

True

Functional departmentalization helps in centralizing an organization's expertise.

True

Ideally, the top managers in an organization should have the least number of people directly reporting to them.

True

In Likert's internal systems model, there are three broad categories of variables: causal, intervening, and end-results variables.

True

In the first stage of organizational growth, the owner/manager performs all the organizational activities.

True

Job assignments in a matrix departmentalization structure are temporary.

True

One benefit of downsizing is immediate, tremendous cost reductions.

True

Organizations that have grown by merging with other companies tend to be decentralized

True

Perhaps the greatest cost of downsizing are the social costs.

True

The concept of decentralization is closely related to the concept of delegation.

True

The functional approach to departmentalization creates efficiency through the principles of specialization.

True

The inverted pyramid structure is a very flat organization with few management levels.

True

The morale in organizations following the unity of command principle is higher than in those organizations which do not follow this principle.

True

The process of determining how activities are to be grouped is called departmentalization.

True

Wide spans of management save the company money.

True

The authority of most staff departments to serve and suggest ideas to line departments is called:

advisory authority.

Over the years, companies have tended to:

broaden their span of control at all levels.

In the wagon wheel organizational structure, the _____________form the hub of the wheel.

customers

The process of eliminating unnecessary levels of management, and thus reducing the number of staff personnel and supervisors, is:

downsizing

When a quality control specialist tells a production manager to adjust a machine to increase the quality of the product, he or she is using:

functional authority.

When an organization divides its sales personnel, accounting personnel, and operations personnel into different groups, it is using __________.

functional departmentalization

The unity of command principle:

gives the employee a single manager to turn to when a problem arises.

In a(n) _________organization form, "helping hands" symbolize that all other levels of the organization are there to help and support the sales personnel to better serve and satisfy the customer.

inverted pyramid

One disadvantage of product departmentalization is that:

it requires more personnel and material resources.

The temporary nature of assignments under _____________ departmentalization does not allow employees to feel they belong to one project team.

matrix

The number of people a given manager directly supervises is called the:

span of management.

The principle states that everyone in an organization should report to and be accountable to only one boss for performing a given activity.

unity of command