Question 1

In essence, reengineering changes organizations by ____.

Accepted Answer

By reducing the handoffs between different jobs or groups, reengineering decreases sequential interdependence. By making groups or individuals responsible for larger, more complete processes, reengineering increases reciprocal interdependence.

Question 2

Except for the core business activities that they can perform better, faster, and cheaper than others, ____ outsource all remaining business activities to outside companies, suppliers, specialists, or consultants.

Accepted Answer

The concept of modular organizations is based on the idea that a company should only focus on its core business activities and outsource all the remaining activities to outside suppliers or specialists. Therefore, option A is the best fit for the given statement. Hierarchical organizations have a traditional vertical structure, and boundaryless organizations and organizational networks have more flexibility in collaboration with outside parties. Virtual organizations are not necessarily focused on outsourcing activities.

Question 3

Leaders during any disaster need to give their employees a sense that everyone is participating in the relief effort. The Gap gave its employees the authority to transfer their paid time off to some 1,300 employees affected by Hurricane Katrina. The Gap used ____ to allow its employees to gain a feeling of intrinsic motivation.

Accepted Answer

Empowerment allows workers to gain feelings of intrinsic motivation because they are allowed to determine their own, individual response to a work situation.

Question 4

Zara clothing stores has developed a system that can order new fashions and deliver them to the store in only three weeks. It uses ____ to pass information to the next person in the line of development.

Accepted Answer

Sequential interdependence is work completed in succession.

Question 5

Yahoo!
Welcome to Yahoo! where you'll find a $100 million loss, plummeting advertising sales, a stock price that has fallen from an all-time high of $237 to less than $10 per share, and layoffs that cost 800 people-including the previous CEO-their jobs. At this once-phenomenally-successful company, so many basic things have gone wrong that the question is: Where do you start to fix it?
One key problem is the organizational structure: with just 3,200 employees, Yahoo! has forty-four different business units! Even General Electric, with 300,000 employees, has only 13. You think to yourself, "This is unmanageable. Too many people and no focus." Amazingly, despite having 44 business units, Yahoo! doesn't have a direct sales unit. No one, it turns out, is responsible for cultivating customers. Why not? Well, during the "go-go" days, customers were literally throwing themselves and their advertising dollars at the company. As one Yahoo! manager said, "The fish were jumping into the boat." Consequently, most orders took place via email. Yahoo! didn't have to establish relationships with customers because customers came to it. Unfortunately, this led to arrogance. Jeff Bell, a vice president at one of Yahoo!'s potential customers, DaimlerChrysler, said the message was, "Buy our stuff [meaning Yahoo!'s advertising], and shut up." Jeff Mallett, Yahoo!'s former president, said, "We ran Yahoo! to optimize market share. I make no apologies for that. If there was a company that didn't get it [Internet advertising], we moved on very quickly."
Another problem was the overly creative, freewheeling, spontaneous company culture in which everyone, including the CEO, worked in cubicles. The problem wasn't so much the cubicles, but what they came to represent: an overly informal culture with no controls. At Yahoo!, employees played soccer in a large open space outside the company boardroom, even while the board was meeting. Furthermore, no one had an overall perspective of what was best for the entire company. Consequently, said one Yahoo! vice president, "[Unit] managers would beg, borrow, and steal from the network [meaning the overall company] to help their own properties." Plus, if you had an idea, you pursued it without having to get anyone's feedback or approval. Yahoo!'s chief operating officer said, "Yahoo!'s original mission was to grow as fast as you can and put things out there and see what works." The more serious problem, he said, was that "nobody knew what would work."
The most amazing aspect of this culture was that, as one manager explained, "There was a fair amount of resistance toward the strategy of monetizing our businesses." In other words, the culture at Yahoo! was so informal, so unfocused, and so freewheeling that no one really worried about whether the company could charge for the services it provided and make a profit. "There was a fear," said this manager, "that if all of our efforts were put into profit making, we'd starve research and development and lose our innovation."
-Refer to Yahoo!. One of the causes of the precipitous drop in the value of Yahoo's stock was the company's inability to subdivide work and workers into separate organizational units responsible for completing particular tasks. For example, Yahoo has no sales unit to cultivate and call on advertising customers. Yahoo caused itself trouble when it decided to not engage in ____.

Accepted Answer

This is the definition of departmentalization.

Question 6

A park, recreation, and open space (PROS) cooperative is a recognized association of park, recreation, open space, and related entities united voluntarily. PROS cooperatives conserve the diversity of valued resources and recreation opportunities for the benefit these afford individuals, communities, the economy, and the environment. A PROS cooperative is an example of a ____ organization.

Accepted Answer

A virtual organization is a network in which many companies share skills, costs, capabilities, markets, and customers with each other.

Question 7

Describe what is meant by organizational structure and organizational process and how are these concepts related to each other? How are they different from each other?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Describe what is meant by organizational structure...

Question 8

Explain what is meant by the term departmentalization. List the five traditional approaches to departmentalization.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Explain what is meant by the term...

Question 9

A(n) ____ organization is part of a network in which many companies share skills, costs, capabilities, markets, and customers with each other.

Accepted Answer

The answer of A(n) ____ organization is part of a...

Question 10

The composition of a ____ organization is always changing.

Accepted Answer

The answer of The composition of a ____ organization is...

Question 11

Yahoo!
Welcome to Yahoo! where you'll find a $100 million loss, plummeting advertising sales, a stock price that has fallen from an all-time high of $237 to less than $10 per share, and layoffs that cost 800 people-including the previous CEO-their jobs. At this once-phenomenally-successful company, so many basic things have gone wrong that the question is: Where do you start to fix it?
One key problem is the organizational structure: with just 3,200 employees, Yahoo! has forty-four different business units! Even General Electric, with 300,000 employees, has only 13. You think to yourself, "This is unmanageable. Too many people and no focus." Amazingly, despite having 44 business units, Yahoo! doesn't have a direct sales unit. No one, it turns out, is responsible for cultivating customers. Why not? Well, during the "go-go" days, customers were literally throwing themselves and their advertising dollars at the company. As one Yahoo! manager said, "The fish were jumping into the boat." Consequently, most orders took place via email. Yahoo! didn't have to establish relationships with customers because customers came to it. Unfortunately, this led to arrogance. Jeff Bell, a vice president at one of Yahoo!'s potential customers, DaimlerChrysler, said the message was, "Buy our stuff [meaning Yahoo!'s advertising], and shut up." Jeff Mallett, Yahoo!'s former president, said, "We ran Yahoo! to optimize market share. I make no apologies for that. If there was a company that didn't get it [Internet advertising], we moved on very quickly."
Another problem was the overly creative, freewheeling, spontaneous company culture in which everyone, including the CEO, worked in cubicles. The problem wasn't so much the cubicles, but what they came to represent: an overly informal culture with no controls. At Yahoo!, employees played soccer in a large open space outside the company boardroom, even while the board was meeting. Furthermore, no one had an overall perspective of what was best for the entire company. Consequently, said one Yahoo! vice president, "[Unit] managers would beg, borrow, and steal from the network [meaning the overall company] to help their own properties." Plus, if you had an idea, you pursued it without having to get anyone's feedback or approval. Yahoo!'s chief operating officer said, "Yahoo!'s original mission was to grow as fast as you can and put things out there and see what works." The more serious problem, he said, was that "nobody knew what would work."
The most amazing aspect of this culture was that, as one manager explained, "There was a fair amount of resistance toward the strategy of monetizing our businesses." In other words, the culture at Yahoo! was so informal, so unfocused, and so freewheeling that no one really worried about whether the company could charge for the services it provided and make a profit. "There was a fear," said this manager, "that if all of our efforts were put into profit making, we'd starve research and development and lose our innovation."
-Refer to Yahoo!. One of the causes of the precipitous drop in the value of Yahoo's stock was that too many unrelated decisions were being made by unrelated people in the company without any regard for what was best for the entire company. One way to solve this problem would be to use more ____.

Accepted Answer

Centralization of authority is defined as the location of a significant amount of authority at the upper levels of the organization. If authority at Yahoo were concentrated in this manner, decision making should be more consistent (i.e., same top managers making key decisions).

Question 12

Yahoo!
Welcome to Yahoo! where you'll find a $100 million loss, plummeting advertising sales, a stock price that has fallen from an all-time high of $237 to less than $10 per share, and layoffs that cost 800 people-including the previous CEO-their jobs. At this once-phenomenally-successful company, so many basic things have gone wrong that the question is: Where do you start to fix it?
One key problem is the organizational structure: with just 3,200 employees, Yahoo! has forty-four different business units! Even General Electric, with 300,000 employees, has only 13. You think to yourself, "This is unmanageable. Too many people and no focus." Amazingly, despite having 44 business units, Yahoo! doesn't have a direct sales unit. No one, it turns out, is responsible for cultivating customers. Why not? Well, during the "go-go" days, customers were literally throwing themselves and their advertising dollars at the company. As one Yahoo! manager said, "The fish were jumping into the boat." Consequently, most orders took place via email. Yahoo! didn't have to establish relationships with customers because customers came to it. Unfortunately, this led to arrogance. Jeff Bell, a vice president at one of Yahoo!'s potential customers, DaimlerChrysler, said the message was, "Buy our stuff [meaning Yahoo!'s advertising], and shut up." Jeff Mallett, Yahoo!'s former president, said, "We ran Yahoo! to optimize market share. I make no apologies for that. If there was a company that didn't get it [Internet advertising], we moved on very quickly."
Another problem was the overly creative, freewheeling, spontaneous company culture in which everyone, including the CEO, worked in cubicles. The problem wasn't so much the cubicles, but what they came to represent: an overly informal culture with no controls. At Yahoo!, employees played soccer in a large open space outside the company boardroom, even while the board was meeting. Furthermore, no one had an overall perspective of what was best for the entire company. Consequently, said one Yahoo! vice president, "[Unit] managers would beg, borrow, and steal from the network [meaning the overall company] to help their own properties." Plus, if you had an idea, you pursued it without having to get anyone's feedback or approval. Yahoo!'s chief operating officer said, "Yahoo!'s original mission was to grow as fast as you can and put things out there and see what works." The more serious problem, he said, was that "nobody knew what would work."
The most amazing aspect of this culture was that, as one manager explained, "There was a fair amount of resistance toward the strategy of monetizing our businesses." In other words, the culture at Yahoo! was so informal, so unfocused, and so freewheeling that no one really worried about whether the company could charge for the services it provided and make a profit. "There was a fear," said this manager, "that if all of our efforts were put into profit making, we'd starve research and development and lose our innovation."
-Refer to Yahoo!. What is one of the advantages of Yahoo's new organizational structure?

Accepted Answer

One of the advantages of product departmentalization cited in the text is the ease with which top managers can access work-unit performance.

Question 13

A military expert describes how the military forces were organized for Operation Desert Storm as pooled interdependence. This means that each branch of the military that took part in the operation ____.

Accepted Answer

Pooled interdependence means that the task was completed by each branch acting independently.

Question 14

Roughly 70 percent of all reengineering projects fail because ____.

Accepted Answer

According to research, the primary reason why reengineering projects fail is due to how the process affects people in the workplace, including resistance to change, lack of communication or involvement in the process, and job loss or role changes.

Question 15

Novo Nordisk is a European manufacturer of pharmaceuticals. An employee , Rikke NedergaardBischoff, who is a clinical-development scientist, contends that Novo upholds the standards expected of public institutions without the stifling bureaucracy. She says, "There's a great deal of empowerment at Novo Nordisk." Novo Nordisk provides NedergaardBischoff with ____.

Accepted Answer

Intrinsic motivation, or empowerment, means permanently passing decision-making authority and responsibility from managers to workers.

Question 16

Yahoo!
Welcome to Yahoo! where you'll find a $100 million loss, plummeting advertising sales, a stock price that has fallen from an all-time high of $237 to less than $10 per share, and layoffs that cost 800 people-including the previous CEO-their jobs. At this once-phenomenally-successful company, so many basic things have gone wrong that the question is: Where do you start to fix it?
One key problem is the organizational structure: with just 3,200 employees, Yahoo! has forty-four different business units! Even General Electric, with 300,000 employees, has only 13. You think to yourself, "This is unmanageable. Too many people and no focus." Amazingly, despite having 44 business units, Yahoo! doesn't have a direct sales unit. No one, it turns out, is responsible for cultivating customers. Why not? Well, during the "go-go" days, customers were literally throwing themselves and their advertising dollars at the company. As one Yahoo! manager said, "The fish were jumping into the boat." Consequently, most orders took place via email. Yahoo! didn't have to establish relationships with customers because customers came to it. Unfortunately, this led to arrogance. Jeff Bell, a vice president at one of Yahoo!'s potential customers, DaimlerChrysler, said the message was, "Buy our stuff [meaning Yahoo!'s advertising], and shut up." Jeff Mallett, Yahoo!'s former president, said, "We ran Yahoo! to optimize market share. I make no apologies for that. If there was a company that didn't get it [Internet advertising], we moved on very quickly."
Another problem was the overly creative, freewheeling, spontaneous company culture in which everyone, including the CEO, worked in cubicles. The problem wasn't so much the cubicles, but what they came to represent: an overly informal culture with no controls. At Yahoo!, employees played soccer in a large open space outside the company boardroom, even while the board was meeting. Furthermore, no one had an overall perspective of what was best for the entire company. Consequently, said one Yahoo! vice president, "[Unit] managers would beg, borrow, and steal from the network [meaning the overall company] to help their own properties." Plus, if you had an idea, you pursued it without having to get anyone's feedback or approval. Yahoo!'s chief operating officer said, "Yahoo!'s original mission was to grow as fast as you can and put things out there and see what works." The more serious problem, he said, was that "nobody knew what would work."
The most amazing aspect of this culture was that, as one manager explained, "There was a fair amount of resistance toward the strategy of monetizing our businesses." In other words, the culture at Yahoo! was so informal, so unfocused, and so freewheeling that no one really worried about whether the company could charge for the services it provided and make a profit. "There was a fear," said this manager, "that if all of our efforts were put into profit making, we'd starve research and development and lose our innovation."
-Refer to Yahoo!. Before restructuring, Yahoo! was described as having an overly creative, freewheeling culture, a highly decentralized decision-making structure in which managers did only what was best for their units rather than what was best for the entire company and exhibited resistance to actually making a profit by placing too much value on innovation to the exclusion of profit. What kind of an organization did the company have?

Accepted Answer

An organic organization is characterized by broadly defined jobs and responsibility; loosely defined, frequently changing roles; and decentralized authority and horizontal communication based on task knowledge. This definition is consistent with the descriptions of Yahoo as "free wheeling" and "highly decentralized."

Question 17

Modular organizations ____.

Accepted Answer

Modular organizations outsource non-core business activities to focus on what they can do best, resulting in cost savings and increased efficiency. They do not necessarily operate independently from vendors and suppliers, nor do they always have a high level of control over business processes and output.

Question 18

In the automobile industry, three car manufacturers and a variety of suppliers and distributors have formed a network to create economies in production through outsourcing. It is intended for this ____ to cut as much as $3,000 from the costs of producing one car.

Accepted Answer

The answer of In the automobile industry, three car manufacturers...

Question 19

Which of the following is an approach to managing interorganizational processes?

Accepted Answer

Modular organizations are designed to manage interorganizational processes by breaking down complex processes into smaller, more manageable modules that can be outsourced to other organizations. This allows for greater flexibility and specialization in the management of interorganizational processes. Matrix organizations, flat organizations, hierarchical organizations, and tall organizations are not specifically designed for managing interorganizational processes.

Question 20

Yahoo!
Welcome to Yahoo! where you'll find a $100 million loss, plummeting advertising sales, a stock price that has fallen from an all-time high of $237 to less than $10 per share, and layoffs that cost 800 people-including the previous CEO-their jobs. At this once-phenomenally-successful company, so many basic things have gone wrong that the question is: Where do you start to fix it?
One key problem is the organizational structure: with just 3,200 employees, Yahoo! has forty-four different business units! Even General Electric, with 300,000 employees, has only 13. You think to yourself, "This is unmanageable. Too many people and no focus." Amazingly, despite having 44 business units, Yahoo! doesn't have a direct sales unit. No one, it turns out, is responsible for cultivating customers. Why not? Well, during the "go-go" days, customers were literally throwing themselves and their advertising dollars at the company. As one Yahoo! manager said, "The fish were jumping into the boat." Consequently, most orders took place via email. Yahoo! didn't have to establish relationships with customers because customers came to it. Unfortunately, this led to arrogance. Jeff Bell, a vice president at one of Yahoo!'s potential customers, DaimlerChrysler, said the message was, "Buy our stuff [meaning Yahoo!'s advertising], and shut up." Jeff Mallett, Yahoo!'s former president, said, "We ran Yahoo! to optimize market share. I make no apologies for that. If there was a company that didn't get it [Internet advertising], we moved on very quickly."
Another problem was the overly creative, freewheeling, spontaneous company culture in which everyone, including the CEO, worked in cubicles. The problem wasn't so much the cubicles, but what they came to represent: an overly informal culture with no controls. At Yahoo!, employees played soccer in a large open space outside the company boardroom, even while the board was meeting. Furthermore, no one had an overall perspective of what was best for the entire company. Consequently, said one Yahoo! vice president, "[Unit] managers would beg, borrow, and steal from the network [meaning the overall company] to help their own properties." Plus, if you had an idea, you pursued it without having to get anyone's feedback or approval. Yahoo!'s chief operating officer said, "Yahoo!'s original mission was to grow as fast as you can and put things out there and see what works." The more serious problem, he said, was that "nobody knew what would work."
The most amazing aspect of this culture was that, as one manager explained, "There was a fair amount of resistance toward the strategy of monetizing our businesses." In other words, the culture at Yahoo! was so informal, so unfocused, and so freewheeling that no one really worried about whether the company could charge for the services it provided and make a profit. "There was a fear," said this manager, "that if all of our efforts were put into profit making, we'd starve research and development and lose our innovation."
-Refer to Yahoo!. After restructuring, Yahoo's four new departments were consumer services, marketing services, business and enterprise services, and premium services. What type of organizational structure did Yahoo adopt during its restructuring?

Accepted Answer

Product departmentalization is defined as organizing work and workers into separate units responsible for producing particular services.

Quiz 9: Designing Adaptive Organizations