The Functions of Management and the Context of Management
Why is the Local Community a stakeholder?
The actions of firms affect many features of their local community, such as jobs, tax revenue, philanthropy, etc. For example, if a firm decides to outsource some of its activities to another country, there might be job loss and population loss, which would lead to lower demand for local goods and services, such as restaurants or schools.
Name two reasons a firm would expand internationally?
• New markets
• Availability of supplies
• Lower labor costs
• Access to financial capital
• Avoidance of tariffs and import quotas
What is the motivating question in strategy?
What makes one firm perform better than others?
What are the 3 levels of organizational culture?
Artifacts, Values, and Basic Assumptions.
What is holacracy?
A decentralized, self-managing structure with no traditional hierarchy. One of the new forms of structure.
Name two forces in the general environment that you think will affect how your career plays out.
General environment forces are International, Economic, Technological, Sociocultural, Demographic, Political-Legal, Environmental. Any of these can named and defined
Define “ethics”
The moral principles and values that govern behavior with respect to what is right or wrong
What is the difference between corporate strategy and business strategy?
Corporate strategy is about what businesses the firm will operate in, while business strategy is about making money in a particular business.
What distinguishes a Market culture in the Competing Values Framework?
A market culture is in the External Focus and Differentiation x Stability and Control quadrant of the framework. It is characterized by competitiveness and valuing profits and performance over employee satisfaction.
What does an organization chart tell you?
Who reports to whom, which gives you an idea about communication patterns
What is the difference between functional managers and general managers?
Functional managers are responsible for a particular functional areas, i.e., areas that specialize in a particular set of knowledge or expertise that are usually associated with occupations and common to virtually all firms. These include Marketing and Sales, Finance, Operations, HR, R&D, etc. General managers are responsible for multiple functions that both generate revenue and incur expenses, so they generally have P/L responsibility, i.e., they’re responsible for profits.
Where does Carroll see CSR in the pyramid of organizational responsibilities?
It’s at the top of the pyramid
Is SWOT analysis internal or external?
SWOT analysis is both internal and external. Strengths and Weaknesses are internal to the firm. It covers capabilities, resources, processes, and attributes that the firm controls and that make it relatively better or worse at competing. Opportunities and Threats are external, covering conditions that the firm can potentially exploit or that pose risks to its position.
How do new employees learn culture?
They learn through observing artifacts, and experience socialization and ongoing interactions with other employees to learn what the artifacts mean.
What is the primary purpose of organizational structure?
To implement strategy. Coordinate activities to get everyone marching in the same direction to achieve the organization’s goals
Why is management studied at multiple levels of analysis (individual, group, organizational) ?
Because outcomes are rarely caused by a single factor. Individual, group, and organizational dynamics interact to create an outcome. For example, a failure like United 173 involved individual judgment, group communication breakdown, and hierarchical culture.
Using a responsible management perspective, explain why a firm might be legally and financially healthy while still being unethically managed
A firm can be profitable and legally compliant while systematically extracting value from stakeholders who have limited power. E.g underpaying workers, coercive terms for suppliers etc. The Moral Rights approach would identify these practices as ethical failures regardless of their legality or profitability.
What is the difference between vertical integration and diversification as corporate strategies?
Vertical integration is the decision to expand along the value chain, either upstream (acquiring suppliers) or downstream (acquiring distributors or retail channels) within the same industry.
Diversification is the decision to enter businesses outside the firm's existing industry, either related or unrelated.
Are strong culture firms always better performers? What are the four dimensions of MBTI?
No. They are when their cultures have adaptability or learning as part of the values. But if not, they tend to be worse performers than average.
What are the main weaknesses of a functional (U-Form) structure?
Slow response time to environmental changes and poor interunit coordination. Slower decision-making and less innovation.
How do the skills you need change as you rise in an organization?
Though human skills, conceptual skills, and technical skills are all needed at all managerial levels, the mix changes as you rise in the hierarchy. Higher level managers need more human skills, i.e., the ability to work in cooperation with others to get things done. These include people skills like listening and leading, as well as communication skills. Technical skills are higher in the mix for lower level managers.
Explain the difference between a high context and low context national culture and how it can impede the negotiation of a cross-cultural contract.
Meaning needs to be explicitly stated in low context cultures, so there will be more emphasis in codifying things in the contract and less emphasis on relationship and trust building.
What are the five forces, and how are they used in analysis?
Power of buyers, power of suppliers, threat of new entry, threat of substitutes, intensity of rivalry. The five forces are used to analyze the attractiveness of an industry, i.e., how easy it is to make money in an industry. The stronger the forces, the less attractive the industry.
Why is culture so difficult to change?
Because it has multiple sources and is maintained through many actions and processes, many of which are not under the direct control of management
Organizational design and structure enable coordination. Why do organizations need other coordination mechanisms to get work done?
No structure is perfect. But at the end of the day, you need to coordinate activities to present coherent product or services to the market