Management & Organizational Business

A.Organizational structures have changed greatly in the last 50 years. Whereas most organizations were once rigid and centralized, most organizations are now taking advantage of flexible and decentralized structures. 1) How have these new structures affected employee/manager relationships? 2) What impact have they had on organizational strategies? Provide examples to support your point of view.

B.Organizations often find that they need to develop new skills and abilities in order to expand their operations internationally. Consider the differences between operating in one country and operating in many countries. Write an essay describing the skills and abilities that an organization would need to develop in order to compete in the global marketplace. Explain why those skills and abilities are especially important in an international setting. Provide examples to support your point of view

C.Imagine that you are a member of management at a successful high-end adult clothing and accessories retailer that is considering launching an exclusive line of high-end children’s clothing. This is a new venture for your company, which has until now been focused completely on the adult market. Before committing resources to fully developing a plan for the proposed children’s clothing line, you have called for research that will help you better understand your potential customers as well as the competitive environment.

In an essay:

Describe the issues that the research should explore. What would you want to know about potential customers and the competitive environment?
Explain why this information would be needed before you develop a plan for the proposed line of high-end children’s clothing. How would this information be used to make better decisions?

D.Yagan Systems provides a variety of information technology related services including Web hosting, data backup, and Web security consulting. The following is part of a business plan being discussed by the managers at Yagan:

“The package of benefits we offer to our employees needs to be generous enough to attract and keep excellent employees, but our current package of benefits goes too far and should be scaled back. Our current policies were determined when the national economy was doing well and we were losing employees to firms that offered better benefits. Now, however, the national unemployment rate is much higher, and so these generous policies are no longer necessary. Consider also the fact that Yagan offers more paid vacation days than many firms in many other industries. In addition, very few employees who have joined Yagan Systems have ever indicated that the benefits we offer were the most important factor in their decision. Clearly, then, they must have joined for other reasons. If we reduce the expenditure on our benefits packages, we can devote more resources to other priorities, such as employee training. With an increased training budget, we will be able to train our employees to perform higher-value tasks, thereby increasing their productivity.”

How persuasive is this argument? In an essay, evaluate the evidence it presents and explain how well this evidence supports the writer’s view that 1) the current benefits package should be scaled back and 2) the money saved should be used to increase the training budget. Identify any questionable assumptions and describe what changes or additional information would make the business plan more logically sound.

E.As the world is shrinking and businesses are more commonly working on an international level, understanding the differences among countries is becoming key in successful business. Assume you are an executive in a large corporation that just acquired a business in Brazil. Develop a strategy for managing the social, cultural, economic, legal, and political differences you will encounter when operating this new business.

F.Departmentalization is the logical grouping of business units to operate efficiently. An organization can split its departments in many ways. Consider a company that develops software. The company develops office suite software, social media software, and video game software and currently uses functional departmentalization as a basis for its organization structure. How might this organizational structure change if the software company operated globally? How might it change if the software company developed software for different industries?

G.Imagine that you are part of the management team at Home Plus, a regional discount big-box retailer who competes with Wal-Mart and Target. Home Plus currently focuses on offering a broad range of discount consumer goods, from small home furnishings and clothing to packaged goods and kitchenware. In addition to the discount lines, Home Plus carries some higher end clothes, shoes, and bedding. Some members of management believe that the best way to improve the company’s competitive positioning is to concentrate more of its energies on the higher-end product lines. They have proposed that Home Plus double the number of luxury products it carries and halve the number of discount consumer packaged goods.

In an essay, explain why you would agree or disagree with the proposed change in strategy. Be sure to discuss both the proposal’s advantages and its disadvantages.