STRUCTURE MATTERS
A visual device showing relationships, accountability, and reporting relationships in an organization.
What is an organization chart?
Decision-making authority is maintained at the top level of management.
What is centralized authority?
Employees in the chain of command who are responsible for achieving organizational goals.
Who are line personnel?
Finding the right information, keeping it accessible, and making it known throughout the firm.
What is knowledge management?
People or units inside the firm that receive services from other people or units.
Who are internal customers?
Geographic areas where governments encourage private investment through lower taxes or other support.
What are enterprise zones?
A system with one person at the top followed by a ranked sequence of managers.
What is a hierarchy?
Decision-making authority is delegated to lower-level managers familiar with local conditions.
What is decentralized authority?
Employees who advise and assist line personnel.
Who are staff personnel?
Establishing and maintaining contacts with key managers and using them to develop relationships.
What is networking?
Dealers and ultimate consumers who purchase products outside the organization.
Who are external customers?
Centers providing new businesses low-cost offices and basic business services.
What are incubators?
The line of authority that moves from the top of a hierarchy to the lowest level.
What is the chain of command?
A structure with many levels of management and a narrow span of control.
What is a tall organizational structure?
Employees from different departments who work together on a long-term basis.
What are cross-functional self-managed teams?
The present moment or actual time in which something occurs.
What is real time?
Widely shared values within an organization that provide unity and cooperation.
What is organizational or corporate culture?
The U.S. government agency that provides advice, training, financial advice, and loans to small businesses.
What is the Small Business Administration (SBA)?
The optimum number of subordinates a manager supervises or should supervise.
What is span of control?
A structure with few levels of management and a broad span of control.
What is a flat organizational structure?
The official structure detailing responsibility, authority, and position and shown on organization charts.
What is the formal organization?
Young people who grew up using the Internet and social networking.
Who are digital natives?
Functions an organization performs as well as or better than any other organization.
What are core competencies?
A program through which SBA-licensed private investment companies lend money to small businesses.
What is the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) Program?
An organization with many layers of managers who set rules and oversee decisions.
What is a bureaucracy?
Dividing organizational functions into separate units.
What is departmentalization?
Relationships and unofficial lines of authority that develop naturally among employees.
What is the informal organization?
Presenting company facts and figures clearly and openly to stakeholders.
What is transparency?
Comparing an organization's practices, processes, and products against the world's best.
What is benchmarking?
An SBA office whose volunteers from industry, trade associations, and education counsel small businesses.
What is SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives?