1
Q
What is organisational structure?
A
The vertical and horizontal configuration of departments, authority and jobs within a company
2
Q
What is organisational process?
A
The collection of activities that transform inputs into outputs that customers value
3
Q
What is Departmentalisation?
A
Subdividing work and workers into separate organisational units responsible for completing particular tasks
4
Q
What are the types of departmentalisation?
A
- Functional
- Product
- Customer
- Geographic
- Matrix
5
Q
What is functional departmentalisation?
A
Organises work and workers into separate units responsible for particular business functions or areas of expertise
6
Q
What are the pros/cons of functional departmentalisation?
A
- Allows work to be done by specialists
- Lowers costs by reducing duplication
- Communication & coordination of workers with similar experience or training is less problematic
- Cross department coordination can be difficult
- As companies grow may lead to slower decision making and produce workers with narrow experience
7
Q
What is product departmentalisation?
A
Organises work and workers into separate units responsible for producing particular products or services
8
Q
What are the pros/cons of product departmentalisation?
A
- Allows workers to specialise
- Managers and workers develop a broad set of experiences and expertise
- Easy for top managers to asses work-unto performance
- Decision making is faster because managers and workers are responsible for the entire product line rather for separate functional departments
- Duplication is caused
- Challenge of coordinating across the different product departments
9
Q
What is customer departmentalisation?
A
Organises work and workers into separate units responsible for particular kinds of customer
10
Q
What are the pros/cons of customer departmentalisation?
A
- Focuses the organisation on customer needs rather than on products or business functions
- Allows specialisation and adaptation to customer needs and problems
- Leads to duplication
- Challenge of coordinating across the different product departments
- Emphasis on meeting customers needs may lead workers to make decisions that please customers but hurt the business
11
Q
What is geographic departmentalisation?
A
Organises work and workers into separate units responsible for doing business in particular geographic locations
12
Q
What are the pros/cons of geographic departmentalisation?
A
- Helps companies respond to the demands of different markets
- Can reduce costs by locating unique organisational resources closer to customers
- Leads to duplication of resources
- Difficult to coordinate
13
Q
What is matrix departmentalisation?
A
A hybrid structure in which two or more forms are used - Employees report to two bosses
14
Q
What is the most common form of matrix departmentalisation?
A
Functional and product
15
Q
What are the two types of matrix departmentalisation?
A
- Simple Matrix
* Complex Matrix
16
Q
What is a simple matrix?
A
Managers in different parts of the matrix negotiate conflicts and resources
17
Q
What is a complex matrix?
A
Managers in different parts of the mantric report to matrix managers who help them sort out conflicts and problems
18
Q
What are the pros/cons of matrix departmentalisation?
A
- Lead to much more cross-functional interactoin
- Allows companies to efficiently manage large complex tasks like R&D, marketing or complex global business
- Avoids duplication
- Pool of resources for all tasks is large
- Require significant coordination between managers
- Requires high management ability
19
Q
What is authority?
A
The right to give commands, take action and make decisions to achieve organisational objectives
20
Q
What is the chain of command?
A
The vertical line of authority that clarifies who reports to whom throughout the organisation
21
Q
What is the unity of command?
A
- Workers should report to just one boss
- To prevent conflicting commands/confusion
22
Q
What is the difference between line/staff authority?
A
- Line authority - The right to command immediate subordinate in the chain of command
- Staff authority - The right to advice, but not command, others who are not subordinates in the chain of command
23
Q
What is the difference between a line/staff function?
A
- Line function - An activity that contributes directly to creating or selling the company’s products
- Staff function - Does not contribute directly to creating or selling the company’s products, HR, legal, accounting
24
Q
What is delegation of authority and what does it entail?
A
- The assignment of direct authority and responsibility to a
subordinate to complete a task for which the manager is normally responsible - Manager transfers full responsibility and authority and receives accountability
25
What is centralisation of authority?
The location of most authority at the upper levels of the organisation
26
What is decentralisation?
- The location of a significant amount of authority in the lower levels of the organisation
- Workers closest to the problems are authorised to make decisions necessary to solve the problem
27
What is the benefit of decentralisation?
Develops employee capabilities throughout the company and leads to faster decision making and more satisfied customers and employees
28
What is standardisation and how does it relate to the degree of centralisation?
- Solving problems by consistently applying the same rules, procedures and processes
- Standardisation is important - stay centralised, unimportant - decentralise
29
What is job design?
The number, kind and variety of tasks that individual workers perform in doing their jobs
30
What is job specialisation and when is it useful?
- Occurs when a job is composed of a small part of a larger task or process
- Simple, easy-to learn steps, low variety and high repetition
31
What are the pros/cons of job specialisation?
- Very economical
- Experienced employees can be replaced with new ones and lose little productivity
- Wages can remain low as no need to attract highly experienced, educate or trained workers
- Quickly become boring - low job satisfaction, high absenteeism and employee turnover
32
What is job rotation?
Periodically moving workers form one specialised job to another to give them more variety and the opportunity to use different skills
33
What is the benefit of job rotation?
Makes jobs less boring and more satisfying
34
What is job enlargement?
Increasing the number of different tasks that a worker performs within one particular job
35
What are the pros/cons of job enlargement?
- Increased variety
| - More stress
36
What is job enrichment?
Increasing the number of tasks in a particular job and giving workers the authority and control to make meaningful decisions about their work
37
What is the jobs characteristic model?
An approach to job redesign that seeks to formulate jobs in ways that motivate workers and lead to positive work outcomes
38
What is internal motivation and what must true for it to occur?
- Motivation that comes from the job itself rather than from outside rewards
- Workers must experience work as meaningful
- Workers must experience responsibility for work outcomes
- Workers must have knowledge of results
39
In the job characteristics model, what promotes internal motivation?
* Skill variety
* Task identity
* Task significance
* Autonomy
* Feedback
40
In the job characteristics model, what is skill variety?
The number of difference activities performed in a job
41
In the job characteristics model, what is task identity?
The degree to which a job, from beginning to end, requires the completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work
42
In the job characteristics model, what is task significance?
The degree to which a job is perceived to have a substantial impact on other inside or outside the organisation
43
In the job characteristics model, what are the techniques to job redesign?
* Combining tasks
* Form natural work units
* Establish client relationships
* Vertical loading
* Opening feedback channels
44
In the job characteristics model, what does combining tasks achieve?
Increases skill variety and task identity (internal motivation drivers)
45
In the job characteristics model, what does forming natural work units achieve?
Increases task identity and task significance (internal motivation drivers)
46
In the job characteristics model, what does establishing client relationships achieve?
Increases skill variety, autonomy and feedback (internal motivation drivers)
47
In the job characteristics model, what is vertical loading and what does it achieve?
- Pushing some managerial authority down to workers
| - Increases autonomy (internal motivation driver)
48
In the job characteristics model, what does opening feedback channels achieve?
Increases feedback (internal motivation driver)
49
As it relates to organisational processes, what are the two types of organisations?
* Mechanistic organisations
| * Organic organisations
50
What are mechanistic organisations, when do they work best and what is their focus?
- Characterised by specialised jobs and responsibilities; precisely defined, unchanging roles and a rigid chain of command based on centralised authority and vertical communication
- Works best in stable unchaining environments
- Design focused on organisational structure
51
What are organic organisations, when do they work best and what is their focus?
- Characterised by broadly defined jobs and responsibilities; loosely defined, frequently changing roles and decentralised authority and horizontal communication based on task knowledhe
- Works best in dynamic changing environments
- Design focused on organisational processes
52
What are the two types of organisational processes?
* Intra-organisational process
| * Inter-organisation process
53
What are intra-organisational processes?
The collection of actives that take place within an organisation to transform inputs into outputs that customers value
54
How can intra-organisational processes be changed?
Reengineering
55
What is reengineering?
The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed
56
What does reengineering do?
Changes an organisations orientation from vertical to horizontal
57
What does reengineering change in an organisation?
- Instead of taking orders from upper management, lower and middle level managers and workers take order from the customer who is at the beginning and end of each process
- Instead of running independent functional departments, managers and workers in different departments take ownership of cross-functional processes
- Instead of simplifying work so that it becomes increasingly
specialised, reengineering complicates work by giving workers increased autonomy and responsibility
58
What are the three types of task interdependence?
* Pooled interdependence
* Sequential interdependence
* Reciprocal interdependence
59
What is pooled interdependence and how does reengineering affect it?
- Work completed by having each job or department independently contribute to the whole
- Decreased by reengineering by redesigning work so that formerly independent jobs or departments now work together to complete processes
60
What is sequential interdependence and how does reengineering affect it?
- Work completed in succession, with one group’s or job’s outputs becoming the inputs for the next group or job
- Decreased by reengineering by reducing the handoffs between different jobs or groups
61
What is reciprocal interdependence and how does reengineering affect it?
- Work completed by different jobs or groups working together in a back & forth manner
- Increased by reengineering by making groups or individuals responsible for larger, more complete processes in which several steps may be accomplished at the same time
62
What are the pros/cons of reengineering?
- Because it allows few workers to do the work formerly done by many, reengineering is simply a corporate code word for cost curing and worker layoffs.
- Claimed to hurt morale and performance
63
What is empowerment?
Feelings of intrinsic motivation, in which workers perceive their work to have impact and meaning, and perceive themselves to be competent and capable of self determination.
64
How can empowerment be achieved?
- Permanently passing decision making authority and responsibility from managers to workers
- Companies must give workers the information and resources needed to make and carry out good decisions and then reward them for taking individual initiative
65
What does empowering employees result in?
Produces empowered employees who take active rather than passive roles in their work
66
What is organisational authority characterised by?
* chain of command
* delegation of authority
* line versus staff authority
* degree of centralisation.
67
What are the simple methods to decrease frustration with specialised jobs?
Job rotation
Job enlargement
Job enrichment
68
What are the kinds of inter-organisational processes?
* Modular organisations
| * Virtual organisations
69
What are modular organisations?
An organisation that outsources non-core business activities to outside companies, suppliers, specialists or consultants
70
What are inter-organisational processes?
A collection of activities that take place among companies to transform inputs into outputs that customers value
71
What are virtual organisations?
- An organisation that is part of a network in which many companies share skills, costs, capabilities, markets and customers to collectively solve customer problems or provide specific products or services
- Shorter term relationships than modular, composition is always changing
72
What are the pros/cons of virtual organisations?
- Let companies share costs
- Fast & flexible from combined efforts
- Loss of control of quality
- Huge managerial skills required
73
What are the pros/cons of modular organisations?
- Can cost significantly less to run
- Need reliable partners
- Loss of control occurrs
- Tech & environment change may lead to outsourced activities becoming basis for competitive advantage
- Suppliers to whom work is outsourced can become competitors
MGMT1003
flashcards
Decks in class (14)
# Cards
-
Managers23
-
History of Management35
-
Organisational Environment14
-
Ethics & Social Responsibility49
-
Planning60
-
Organisational Strategy74
-
Innovation & Change39
-
Global Management46
-
Designing Adaptive Organisations73
-
Human Resource Management102
-
Motivation89
-
Leadership71
-
Control67
-
Consultancy7
