Week 1: Module 1 Flashcards
What is business
Any organized effort by individuals to creat eany products and services that society needs.
What are the 5 business activities
- Marketing
- Human resource management
- Accounting and Financing
- Operations
- Innovations
What are the layers of business in context
- Business
- Strategic
- Organizational
- Environmental
What happens on a strategic level
Strategy determines the direction of business activities.
It encompasses goals, determined by management, and the methods of achieving those goals.
Strategy shapes structre.
What does the organizational level look at?
The organizational level is about how people are grouped and operate to fullfill operations. Looks at:
1. Size
2. Ownership
3. Organizational/corporate culture
4. Structure
5. Goals
What are the factors of the environmental level?
- Economy
- Technology
- State
- Labour
- Cultural and institutional differences
What constitutes Weber’s bureaucratic management
Wber saw that traditional authority was based on relationships/kinship/tradition vulnerable to particularism/favoritism.
He argued for rational-legal authority based on rational decision-making
What are the elements of bureaucratic management?
- Formal rules
- Division of labour
- Hierarchy
- Systemic pay structure based on merit
- Authority of position
- Division personal and professional life
What is the critique on bureaucratic management?
- Organization becomes inflexible
- There is still room for covert particularism
- Can create corporate culture that consumes rules instead of goals.
What is the central principle of Taylor’s scientific management
The central principle is the homo economicus: the worker is a rational, self-interested human being motivated by money
what are the three pillars of scientific management?
- Efficiency through standardization and specialization
- Division of thinking (management) and doing (workers)
- Scientific analysis of worker selection and performance (time and motion studies)
What is the critique on scientific management?
- Shallow view on workers and their motivations
- Focuses on controlling behavior and individuals.
What are the most important findins in Mayo’s Hawthorne study?
- Attention improved productivity
- Workers are not only motivated by money and their morale and attitude can positively affect productivity
What do scientific, bureaucratic mangement and human relations theories have in common?
They are all internal models, looking at how to shape the organization.
What is the assumption of systems theory?
The assumption is that you gain a better understanding of a business by thinking of them as living organisms within their environment.
What are the four underlying principles of systems theory?
- permeability
- Holism
- Entropy
- Equifinality
What is permeability?
- Permeability is how much information can flow in and out of an organization. Differs per org.
- Company must be open to survive
- Dynamic context requires permeability
What is holism?
Consideration of the entity in its entirety. It’s an interlocking system with subelements.
What is entropy?
Organization will deteriorate if not attended to properly. Resources must be committed to maintaining balance in organization
what is equifinality?
There are more right ways, but not all are equally good.
What does contingency theory focus on and what are it’s two important findings?
Focuses on the place of organizations within their environment.
Bureaucracy is best for routine work
ORganic system is best for non-routine work.
What is the assumption of network theory?
The basic assumption is that organizations are networks, consisting of nodes (people) and connections.
Weak ties act as bridges
What does pyramid thinking focus on?
- vertical relations
- Bureaucracy
- Manager directs work
- Efficiency
What does network thinking focus on?
- Horizontal relations
- Trust
- Managers facilitate
- Prioritizes innovativeness
