Deck 13: Organizational Structure and Design

Question 1

When members of the formal organization relate to each other and participate in activities not prescribed by the organizational blueprint, we speak of:

A)The informal organization
B)The liberal organization
C)The free organization
D)The self-organizing organization

Answer 1

The informal organization

Question 2

Which of the following is not an ideal feature of Weber's bureaucratic organization?

A)Flexibility in the organizational system of control and discipline
B)A hierarchy of offices or positions
C)A salary should be attached to each position
D)Written records are effectively the organization's memory

Answer 2

Flexibility in the organizational system of control and discipline

Question 3

The central issue in criticisms of Weber's ideal model of organization is:

A)Neglect of career paths
B)Neglect of human characteristics
C)Neglect of contracts
D)Neglect of standard operating procedures

Answer 3

Neglect of human characteristics

Question 4

Subordinates receiving instruction from one supervisor refers to:

A)Authority and responsibility
B)Chain of command
C)Centralization
D)Unity of command

Question 5

The. matrix structure of an organization integrates:

A)Product grouping and process grouping
B)Territorial grouping and customer grouping
C)Functional grouping and customer grouping
D)A project department that is superimposed on a functional grouping

Question 6

In the age of hyper-specialization a notable development is micro-specialization. This approach - e.g. Amazon's Topcoder - has appeal when a company faces a very stiff challenge, in this case to create a complex computer programme. What course of action is preferable?

A)Create a global network of many well-qualified individuals, each to write and test a sub-component of the overall computer code
B)Take no action because the manager with responsibility for the creation of the computer code using a global network would have enormous difficulty integrating the numerous individual results because of the complexity of the overall task
C)Take no action because micro-specialization is just like the traditional horizontal division of labour
D)None of these

Question 7

A recently established organization or start-up with relatively little specialization would be described by Mintzberg as:

A)Divisional form
B)Adhocracy
C)Simple structure
D)Basic structure

Question 8

A large, long-established organization operating in a stable and complex environ-ment would be described as a:

A)Machine bureaucracy
B)Professional bureaucracy
C)Adhocracy
D)Aristocracy

Question 9

The phenomenon that within an organization there are cells or subsystems, each of which positions itself with respect to its own relevant external environment, is called:

A)Systemization
B)Integration
C)Specialization
D)Differentiation

Question 10

Burns and Stalker investigated industrial companies in England and Scotland to establish how changes in the technological and market environments affected orga-nization structure and the management process. The authors categorized firms along the dimension of:

A)Formal-informal
B)Small batch production-large batch production
C)Mechanistic-organic
D)Routine-nonroutine production

Question 11

The manufacture of Boeing's Dreamliner 787 involved sophisticated planning and design, coupled with the use of cutting-edge production technology and the involve-ment of suppliers worldwide. What type of organization was necessary to complete this demanding project successfully?

A)Mechanistic system of organization
B)Organic system of organization
C)Complex formal organization that required both bureaucratic and organic features
D)None of these

Question 12

Lack of physical space, mobile work, and reliance on communications technology are characteristics of:

A)The virtual organization
B)The network organization
C)The modernist organization
D)The postmodernist organization

Question 13

The two types of outsourcing are:

A)Outsourcing of value-chain operations and outsourcing of support activities
B)Incremental outsourcing and radical outsourcing
C)Internal outsourcing and external outsourcing
D)Outsourcing of central activities and outsourcing of peripheral activities

Question 14

When reductions in head count are made in response to external events and short-term needs this is called:

A)Strategic downsizing
B)Delayering
C)Reactive downsizing
D)Reactive delayering

Question 15

When management uses teams as a central feature of structure, this is also referred to as:

A)Network organization
B)Horizontal organization
C)Virtual organization
D)Cooperative organization

Question 16

Among potential benefits of the virtual organization are:

A)Efficient coordination of activities
B)A reduction in costs
C)More flexible combination of activities and simplification of management
D)All of these

Question 17

Among the alleged limitations of the virtual organization, according to Child, are:

A)Difficulty in stimulating learning and innovation
B)Reduced capability to communicate and share "tacit" knowledge and vulnerability from dependence on partners
C)Security risks because of cyber-attacks, both nationally and internationally
D)All of these

Question 18

When the organization adapts its labour costs to its financial circumstances, this is called:

A)A contractual fringe
B)Numerical flexibility
C)Subcontracting
D)Financial flexibility

Question 19

Systems in which the output is directed at meeting the specific orders of customers rather than producing for stock are:

A)Employee stock option schemes
B)High-performance systems
C)Quick response production
D)Business process re-engineering

Question 20

When the organization is viewed as systematically taking inputs from the environ-ment and converting or transforming inputs to produce outputs, it is known as:

A)A process of transformation
B)Systematic inputting
C)A system of transformation
D)An open system

Question 21

When analysing organizations, the following subsystems must be considered:

A)Management, people, and structure
B)Structure, tasks, and people
C)Technology, management, tasks, structure, and people
D)Technology, structure, people, and tasks

Question 22

Those who put forward the "principles of organization" have been criticized gener-ally for:

A)Creating an organization in which people are allowed too much control over their work environment
B)Identifying common principles that relate to all types of organization
C)Placing too much emphasis on personality factors
D)Not taking sufficient account of personality factors

Question 23

The contingency theorists of organization focus attention on:

A)Situational factors that influence organizational design and performance
B)Contemporary developments in organizational design
C)Delayering
D)The relationship between the technical and social variables within the organizational system

Question 24

Who were disadvantaged in a psychological sense as a result of downsizing, accord-ing to Kets de Vries and Balazs?

A)The executioners (those responsible for the implementation of downsizing)
B)The victims (those who lost their jobs)
C)The survivors (those staying with the organization)
D)All of these