[Solved] Sandra Holt, manager of Electronics Assembly, asked Hector

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Page:of 7 Automatic Zoom Actual Size Page Fit ... Page Width 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 200% 300% 400% LaTrobe University Faculty of Law and Management School of Management MGT1FOM: Foundations of Management Tutorial Review Questions: Answer Guide Topic 8: Organisational Structure 1. Sandra Holt, manager of Electronics Assembly, asked Hector Cruz, her senior technician, to handle things in the department whil e Sam worked on the budget. Sam needed peace and quiet for at least a w eek to complete his figures. After 10 days, Sandra discovered that Hector had hi red a senior secretary, not realising that Sandra had promised interviews to tw o other people. An evaluation of Sandra’s approach to delegation ca n be made by using the Manager’s shoptalk – How to delegate (see page 331). The guidelines to effective delegat ion provided there include: • Delegate the whole task. It appears that Sandra has only delegated some of t he activities involved in looking after the department by not telling Hector about the interviews she had promised. • Select the right person. We can only assume that Hector is the right person as he is Sandra’s senior technician. Hector is certainly not afraid of taking on more responsibility and making decisions. • Ensure that authority equals responsibility. Hector appears to have been given both authority and responsibility as he had no prob lem in completing the hiring process. • Give thorough instructions. Unfortunately, Sandra appears to have only told Hector part of the story. If Sandra wanted the othe r two people interviewed before the decision was made, she should have told Hector. • Maintain feedback. Open lines of communication do not appear to have b een maintained as Sandra did not find out about the hir ing until 10 days later. There is no information of how well Sam evaluated and reward ed Hector’s performance. 2. Many experts note that organisations have been maki ng greater use of teams in recent years. What factors might account for this t rend? In general, the trend toward teams and task forces is probably associated with greater environmental change, more sophisticated technologi es, and a corporate value for decentralisation. The contingency factors described in the chapter are environment, technology, size and life cycle. The organisational world seems to be more crowded and changing more rapidly. This means that the organisa tion will have to make internal changes in response to environmental demands. Inter nal changes require coordination across departments, which in turn require teams, ta sk forces, or other lateral devices. The same is true for more sophisticated technologie s. The implementation of these technologies and their interdependence between depa rtments lead to greater need for coordination. Small, flexible organisations created in new industries, such as the computer industry, make greater use of lateral rela tionships. Large, mature organisations tend to be brittle and stagnant, and are using lateral relations to break down barriers across departments. With the publicat ion of books such as Theory S and In Search of Excellence, a value of delegating resp onsibilities to the human resources within the organisation has emerged, further encour aging decentralisation and lateral relationships. There is growing recognition of the importance of synergy to enhanced organisational performance – where, for example, 6 people working together as a team accomplish far more than those same 6 people workin g individually. There is also growing recognition of how teamwork can improve the quality of organisational decision making. 3. Contrast centralisation with span of management. Wo uld you expect these characteristics to affect one another in organisati ons? Why? Span of management is the number of employees repor ting to a supervisor. An organisation can tend to be characterised as having either a large or small span of management. Centralisation means that decision auth ority is located near the top of the organisation. The two concepts can be related in or ganisations. For example, one way to [Show More]

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