Vocab Test 3

Question 1

Power

Answer 1

People in organizations have varying degrees of power and authority. Whether or not people like to think about attaining power, they need to consider the matter, because only with some power can they pursue valuable goals and patterns of effectiveness.

Question 2

Authority

Answer 2

People need power and authority to participate in making decisions and carrying them out.

Question 3

Strategic contingencies

Answer 3

Strategic contingencies include circumstances that impose major uncertainties on an organization, and those who handle these uncertainties become important.

Question 4

Substitutability

Answer 4

substitutability of services is when others have few or no alternatives to dealing with the unit for important needs.

Question 5

Network centrality

Answer 5

Network centrality is the center of networks of information, personal loyalty, and resource flows.

Question 6

Uncertainty

Answer 6

The basic idea that organizations must adapt to conditions they face, through such responses as adopting more flexible structures as they contend with more environmental uncertainty, still serves as a central theme in organization theory.

Question 7

Empowerment

Answer 7

Empowerment is multidimensional. It can include such provisions as involvement in agency decisions, skill development, job autonomy, and encouragement of creativity and initiative. The effectiveness of these different provisions depends on the values and preferences of the employees.

Question 8

Rationality

Answer 8

Rationality is the quality or state of being rational – that is, being based on or agreeable to reason. Rationality implies the conformity of one’s beliefs with one’s reasons to believe, and of one’s actions with one’s reasons for action.

Question 9

Rational decision-making models

Answer 9

Rationality has various meanings and dimensions, but in the social sciences, a strictly rational decision-making process would involve the following components: 1. Decision-makers know all the relevant goals clearly. 2. Decision-makers clearly know the values used in assessing those goals and targeting levels of attainment for them, so they also know their preferences among the goals and can rank order them. 3. Decision makers examine all alternative means for achieving the goals. 4. Decision-makers choose the most efficient of the alternative means for maximizing the goals.

Question 10

Public choice

Answer 10

“Public choice” economists have developed a body of theory using approaches typical in economics to analyze how citizens and officials make political decisions. They argue, for example, that in political contexts, just as in economic ones, individuals rationally maximize utility.

Question 11

Intendedly rational bounded rationality

Answer 11

Managers strive for rationality— they are intendedly rational. But cognitive limits, uncertainties, and time limits cause them to decide under conditions of bounded rationality.

Question 12

SWOT analysis

Answer 12

Assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is called a SWOT analysis.

Question 13

Contingency approach to decision making

Answer 13

Contingency framework to express these variations. Decision-making contexts vary along two major dimensions: the degree to which the decision-makers agree on goals, and the degree to which they understand meansends or cause-effect relationships— that is, the degree to which they have well-developed technical knowledge about how to solve the problems and accomplish the tasks. When both goal agreement and technical knowledge are high, very rational procedures apply.

Question 14

Incremental decision making

Answer 14

Incrementalism in decision-making means concentrating on increments to existing circumstances, or relatively limited changes from existing conditions.

Question 15

Mixed scanning

Answer 15

That decision-makers strive, through “mixed scanning,” to recognize the points at which they concentrate on broader, longer-range alternatives and those at which they focus on more specific, incremental decisions that are a part of larger directions. Decision-makers need to mix both perspectives, taking the time to conduct broad considerations of many major issues and alternatives to prevent the shortsightedness of incrementalism.

Question 16

Logical incrementalism

Answer 16

logical incrementalism in which long-range strategic decisions set a framework for incremental steps aimed at carrying out the broader objectives. Focused mainly on business organizations, the approach involves careful consideration of long-range, general priorities.

Question 17

Garbage can model

Answer 17

The tendency to regard major organizational decisions as complex and dynamic rather than smoothly rational now dominates the management literature. It reaches its apex in the garbage can model. This metaphor comes from the observation that decisions are made in organizations when particular decision-making opportunities or requirements arise. Like garbage cans, these instances have a diverse array of material cast into them in a disorderly fashion.

Question 18

Loosely coupled

Answer 18

“loosely coupled” organizations such as universities and many government agencies. The members and units have loose control and communication with one another. It is often unclear who has the authority to decide what and for whom. In addition, people may loosely engage even with very important issues, because other matters preoccupy them. People come and go in the organization and in decision-making settings such as committees. Problems and potential solutions come and go as well as conditions change.

Question 19

Strategic management

Answer 19

A strategic management group (SMG) typically manages the process and must agree on who will be involved, how the strategic analysis will proceed, and what the group expects to achieve.