Week 8 Flashcards
What are team structures?
Extensively mobilise both permanent and temporary teams to solve problems, complete special projects and accomplish day-to-day tasks
What are cross-functional teams?
Composed of members from different areas of work responsibility. the intention is to break down the functional chimneys or barriers inside the organisation and create more effective lateral relations for ongoing problem-solving and work performance
What are project teams?
Convene for a particular task or project and disband once it is completed. The intention here is to quickly convene people with the needed talents and focus their efforts intensely to solve a problem or take advantage of a special opportunity.
What is a network structure?
Operate with a central core that is linked through “networks” of relationships with outside contractors and suppliers of essential services
What is differentiation?
The degree of different that exists between the internal components of an organisation.
What are the four common sources of subsystems differentiation?
- Differences in time orientation - become characteristic of work units themselves. e.g. a manufacturing subsystem may have a shorter-term outlook than the research and development group.
- Differences in objectives - the different tasks designed to work units may affect it. e.g. cost-conscious product managers and volume-conscious marketing managers may have difficulty agreeing
- Differences in interpersonal - to the extent that patterns of communication, decision-making and social interaction vary, it may be harder for personnel from different subsystems to work together
- Differences in formal structure - someone who is used to flexible problem-solving in an organise setting may find it very frustrating to work with a manager from a mechanistic setting who is used to strict rules.
What is the upside-down pyramid?
Puts customers at the top; served by workers whose managers support them
What is centralisation?
The concentration of authority for most decisions at the top level of an organisation
What is decentralisation?
The dispersion of authority to make decisions throughout all level of the organisation
What is chain of command?
The line of authority that vertically links each position with successively higher levels of management.
The classical school of management suggested that the chain of command should operate according to the scalar principle; that is, there should be a clear and unbroken chain of command linking every person in the organisation with successively higher levels of authority up to and including the top manager.
What is the unity-of-command principle?
Each person in an organisation should report to one and only one supervisor. This notion of ‘one person-one boss’ is a foundation of the traditional pyramid form of organisation. It is intended to avoid the confusion potentially created when a person gets work directions from more than one source
What is span of control?
The number of people directly reporting to a manager. When span of control is ‘narrow’ only a few people are under a manager’s immediate supervision. A ‘wide’ span of control indicates that the manager supervises many people.
What is the span-of-control principle?
There is a limit to the number of people one manager can effectively supervise; care should be exercised to keep the span of control within manageable limits.
