Organization Flashcards
Systems management philosophy that states that every organization is hindered by constraints that come from its internal policies.
Theory of constraints (TOC)
Annualized formula that tracks number of separations and total number of workforce employees per month.
Turnover
Group of workers who coordinate their activities to achieve common goals (e.g., better wages, hours, and working conditions; job security; training) in their relationship with an employer or group of employers; also called trade union.
Trade union
Act of deliberately accessing another computer without permission.
Hacking
Measurement approach that provides an overall picture of an organization’s performance as measured against goals in finance, customers, internal business processes, and learning and growth.
Balanced scorecard
Broadcast-style communications that enable authors to publish articles, opinions, product or service reviews, etc., on a web page.
Blogs
High-volume, high-velocity, and high-variety information assets that require innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making.
Big data
Umbrella term used to describe a number of problem-solving and grievance resolution approaches.
Alternative dispute resolution (ADR)
Procedure in which disputes are submitted to one or more impartial persons for final determination.
Arbitration
Error that occurs when an appraiser rates all employees within a narrow range, regardless of differences in actual performance.
Central tendency error
Simple visual tools used to collect and analyze data.
Check sheets
Form of corporate governance that requires a typical management board and a supervisory board and that allows management and employees to participate in strategic decision making.
Codetermination
Presentation to management that establishes that a specific problem exists and argues that the proposed solution is the best way to solve the problem in terms of time, cost efficiency, and probability of success.
Business case
HR structural alternative established as an independent department that provides services within a focused area to internal clients.
Center of excellence (COE)
Line of authority within an organization.
Chain of command
Style of computing in which scalable IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service using Internet technologies.
Cloud computing
Tools that convert metrics to be used for decision support by adding context or further sub classifying comparison groups.
Analytics
Common-law principle stating that employers have the right to hire, fire, demote, and promote whomever they choose for any reason unless there is a law or contract to the contrary and employees have the right to quit a job at any time.
At-will employment
Occurs when an appraiser’s values, beliefs, or prejudices distort performance ratings.
Bias
Use of electronic communications and transaction processing when buying (or contracting for/tendering) supplies and services.
e-procurement
Business management software, usually a suite of integrated applications, that a company can use to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business activities.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
Refers to the extent to which rules, policies, and procedures govern the behavior of employees in an organization.
Formalization
HR structural alternative in which headquarters HR specialists craft policies and HR generalists located within divisions or other locales implement the policies, adapt them as needed, and interact with employees.
Functional HR
Conversion of data into a format that protects or hides its natural presentation or intended meaning.
Encryption
Process that involves a systematic survey and interpretation of relevant data to identify external opportunities and threats and to assess how these factors affect the organization currently and how they are likely to affect the organization in the future.
Environmental scanning
Type of analysis in which factors that can influence an outcome in either a negative or positive manner are listed and then assigned weights to indicate their relative strengths.
Force-field analysis
Provides an orderly way to resolve differences of opinion in regard to a union contract.
Grievance procedure
Organizational structure in which geographic regions define the organizational chart.
Geographic structure
Diagram that maps out a list of factors that are thought to affect a problem or a desired outcome.
Cause-and-effect diagram
Arrangement in which an enterprise and a vendor share different tasks within a larger complex, often strategic responsibility.
Cosourcing
Error that occurs when an employee’s rating is based on how his or her performance compares to that of another employee rather than objective standards.
Contrast error
Process for assessing an organization’s strategic capabilities in comparison to threats and opportunities identified during environmental scanning.
SWOT analysis
Belief that employers and employees can act together for their common good.
Unitarianism
Strategic, integrated management system for achieving customer satisfaction that involves all managers and employees and utilizes quantitative methods to continuously improve an organization’s processes.
Total quality management (TQM)
Use of statistics to determine whether relationships exist between two variables.
Trend and ratio analyses
Violation of rights under labor-relations statutes.
Unfair labor practice (ULP)
Organizational structure that divides an organization into “front” functions, which focus on customers or market groups, and “back” functions, which design and develop products and services.
Front-back structure
Data structure that stores organized information (numeric information as well as sound clips, pictures, and videos).
Database
HR structural alternative that allows businesses with different strategies in multiple units to apply HR expertise to each unit’s specific strategic needs.
Dedicated HR
Way an organization groups jobs to coordinate work.
Departmentalization
Necessary level of care and attention that is taken to investigate an action before it is taken.
Due diligence
Reporting mechanisms that aggregate and display metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs).
Dashboards
Variety of software applications that electronically manage stored data.
Database management system (DBMS)
Forecasting technique that progressively collects information from a group without physically assembling the contributors.
Delphi technique
Sale by a company of an asset that is not performing well, that is not core to the company’s business, or that is worth more as a separate entity.
Divestiture
Process by which management and union representatives negotiate the employment conditions for a particular bargaining unit for a designated period of time.
Collective bargaining
Form of corrective discipline that implements increasingly severe penalties for employees; also called progressive discipline.
Constructive discipline
Chart that illustrates variations from normal in a situation over time.
Control chart
Ratio of value created to cost of creating that value; allows management to determine the financial impact particular activities and programs have on an organization’s profitability.
Cost-benefit analysis
Process by which management and union representatives negotiate the employment conditions for a particular bargaining unit for a designated period of time.
Collective bargaining
Organizational structure that combines departmentalization by division and function to gain the benefits of both.
Matrix structure
Organization that owns or controls production or services facilities in one or more countries other than the home country.
Multinational enterprise (MNE)
Method of nonbinding dispute resolution involving a third party who helps disputing parties reach a mutually agreeable decision; also known as conciliation.
Mediation
Method of nonbinding dispute resolution involving a third party who tries to help disputing parties reach a mutually agreeable decision; also known as mediation.
Conciliation
Organizational structure in which departments are defined by the services they contribute to the organization’s overall mission, such as marketing and sales, operations, and HR.
Functional structure
Selective use of game design and game mechanics to drive employee engagement in non-gaming business scenarios.
Gamification
Growing interconnectedness and interdependency of countries, people, and companies.
Globalization
Umbrella term for specialized collaborative software applications.
Groupware
Process to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of HR programs and positions.
HR audit
Graphic representation of the distribution of a single type of measurement; data is represented by a series of rectangles of varying heights.
Histogram
Systematic tool for gathering, storing, maintaining, retrieving, and revising HR data; also known as a human resource management system (HRMS).
Human resource information system (HRIS)
Organizational structure that mixes elements of the functional, product, and geographic structures.
Hybrid structure
Series of standards, developed/published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), that define, establish, and maintain a quality assurance system for manufacturing and service industries.
ISO 9000 standards
Various forms of collective employee actions taken to protest work conditions or employer action.
Industrial actions
Use of technology to collect, process, and condense information with a goal of efficient management of information as an organizational resource.
Information management (IM)
Creations of the mind such as inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce; as much an asset as is physical property.
Intellectual property (IP)
Use of information from past and present to predict future conditions.
Judgmental forecasts
Quantifiable measures of performance used to gauge progress toward strategic objectives or agreed standards of performance.
Key performance indicators (KPIs)
Knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to effectively perform a job.
KSAs
Group of workers who coordinate their activities to achieve common goals (e.g., better wages, hours, and working conditions; job security; training) in their relationship with an employer or group of employers; also called trade union.
Labor unions
Temporary employment separations; employees may be recalled to work, or the separation may become permanent.
Layoffs
Errors that are the result of appraisers who don’t want to give low scores.
Leniency errors
Work groups that conduct the major business of an organization.
Line units
Occurs when management shuts down operations to prevent union employees from working.
Lockout
Process of collecting and tabulating data.
Measuring
Combination of two separate firms either by their joining together as relative equals (merger) or by one acquiring the other (acquisition).
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A)
Performance parameters based on the relationship between two or more measures.
Metrics
Digitized instructional content delivered to wireless mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, tablet computers, notebooks, and digital readers).
Mobile learning
Decision-making tool in which a team determines critical characteristics of a successful decision; a matrix is used to score each alternative and compare results
Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)
Statistical method that can be used to project future demand; more than one variable is utilized.
Multiple linear regression
Group of individuals who meet face-to-face to forecast ideas and assumptions and prioritize issues.
Nominal group technique
Process of managing the way employees leave the organization.
Offboarding
Process of enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization and the well-being of its members through planned interventions.
Organizational development
Process of managing the way employees leave the organization.
Organizational exit
Buying services externally rather than producing them internally.
Outsourcing
Vertical bar graph on which bar height reflects frequency or impact of causes.
Pareto chart
Process of measuring employees’ adherence to performance standards and providing feedback.
Performance appraisal
Process of maintaining/improving employee job performance.
Performance management
Comparison of current performance against key performance indicators (KPIs).
Performance measures
Expectations of management translated into behaviors and results that employees can deliver.
Performance standards
Type of labor environment in which multiple forces are at work, each with its own agenda, and conflict is overcome through negotiation.
Pluralism
Occurs when an appraiser gives more weight to an employee’s earlier performance and discounts recent occurrences.
Primacy error
Diagram of the steps involved in a process.
Process-flow analysis
Organizational structure in which functional departments are grouped under major product divisions.
Product structure
Belief that management-labor conflict is an inherent characteristic of capitalism and can be resolved only with a change in the economic system.
Radicalism
Error that occurs when an appraiser gives more weight to recent occurrences and discounts an employee’s earlier performance during the appraisal period.
Recency error
Statistical method used to predict a variable from one or more predictor variables.
Regression analysis
“Snapshot” assessment of the availability of qualified backup for key positions.
Replacement planning
Act of reorganizing legal, ownership, operational, or other organizational structures.
Restructuring
Illustration that depicts possible relationships between two variables.
Scatter diagram
Part of a service contract where the service expectations are formally defined.
Service-level agreement (SLA)
HR structural alternative in which centers with specific areas of expertise develop HR policies in those areas; each unit can then select what it needs from a menu of these services.
Shared services HR model
Projection of future demand based on a past relationship; involves a single variable.
Simple linear regression
A set of techniques and tools for quality process improvement.
Six Sigma
Type of union activity that focuses on social topics such as antidiscrimination, environmental actions, and HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention.
Social movement unionism
Software that is owned, delivered, and managed remotely and delivered over the Internet to contracted customers on a pay-for-use basis or as a subscription based on use metrics.
Software as a service (SaaS)
Refers to the number of individuals who report to a supervisor.
Span of control
Work groups that assist line units by providing specialized services, such as HR.
Staff units
A plan of action for accomplishing an organization’s long-range goals.
Strategy
Error that occurs when an appraiser believes standards are too low and inflates the standards in an effort to make them meaningful.
Strictness
A talent management strategy to help identify and foster the development of high-potential employees.
Succession planning
Network that delivers products and services from raw materials to end customers through an engineered flow of information, physical distribution, and cash.
Supply chain
Umbrella term used to describe a variety of benefit-related initiatives to help employees effectively manage work, family, and personal life without extreme stress or negative impact.
Work/life balance (WLB)
Groups that represent employees, generally on a local or firm level; primary purpose is to receive from employers and to convey to employees information that might affect the workforce and the health of the enterprise.
Works councils
Systematic approach to anticipate human capital needs and data HR professionals can use to ensure that appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities will be available when needed to accomplish organizational goals and objectives.
Workforce analysis
All activities needed to ensure that the skills, knowledge, abilities, and performance of the workforce meet current and future organizational and individual needs.
Workforce management
Process of analyzing the organization’s workforce and determining steps required to prepare for future needs.
Workforce planning
