15-1
Chapter 15 Organizational Structure Answer Key
True / False Questions
1.
The organization as a whole has no influence on employee attitudes and behavior.
2.
Organizational structure can have a significant impact on an organization’s financial
performance.
15-2
3.
As companies grow larger, their organizational charts get simpler.
4.
Henry Ford was a strong believer in work specialization.
5.
There are trade-offs when organizations make jobs highly specialized.
15-3
6.
High levels of specialization are more acceptable in smaller firms in which employees
must be more flexible in their job duties.
7.
Employees tend to be more satisfied with jobs that require them to perform a specialized
kind of activity.
15-4
8.
In a traditional organizational structure, every employee has one person to whom they
report.
9.
The chain of command helps the organization to attain order, control, and predictable
performance.
10.
A company’s chain of control determines how many employees report to each manager.
15-5
11.
Wide spans of control allow managers to be much more hands-on with employees.
12.
Organizational performance increases as span of control increases, but only up to a
certain point.
15-6
13.
Decentralized organizational structures tend to concentrate power and authority within a
relatively tight group of individuals in the firm.
14.
Once a company becomes large, it is impossible to retain a centralized structure. Large
companies must use decentralized structures.
15-7
15.
Organic organizations are efficient, rigid, predictable, and standardized organizations that
thrive in stable environments.
16.
Organic organizations encourage lateral communication.
17.
Organizations that do not proactively develop designs may be forced to change their
structure to become more effective.
15-8
18.
Dynamic environments allow organizations to focus on efficiency and require little change
over time.
19.
Companies that follow a low-cost producer strategy believe that people will pay more for a
product that is unique in some way.
15-9
20.
Companies that focus on a differentiation strategy are more likely to take a mechanistic
approach to organizational design.
21.
If technologies need to be changed often to suit consumer needs, the decisions should be
centralized.
15–10
22.
As companies become larger, they tend to use a combination of specialization,
formalization, and centralization to control their activities, thereby becoming more
mechanistic in nature.
23.
A simple structure makes perfect sense for a large organization, with one person as the
central decision-making person.
15–11
24.
Many small companies evolve into functionally based structures as they grow larger.
25.
Product structures group business units around different products that the company
produces.
26.
Companies that have a small number of customers with similar needs and tastes must
develop client structures to organize their business.
15–12
27.
Matrix structures try to take advantage of two types of structure at the same time.
28.
Although matrix structures have been around since the 1960s, the number of organizations
using them has declined because organizations prefer to work in groups rather than in
teams.
15–13
29.
Organizational restructuring has a moderate negative effect on organizational
commitment.
30.
Restructuring efforts typically enhance employees’ trust in the organization.
31.
The most common kind of restructuring in recent years has been a “flattening” of the
organization.
15–14
32.
Many restructuring efforts are designed to remove one or more organizational layers to
reduce costs.
33.
Many layoff survivors experience a great deal of guilt and remorse following a layoff.
15–15
34.
For a restructuring to be successful, mere changes in the lines on an organizational chart
are not sufficient; it demands a different way of working for the employees.
35.
To keep the stress level low and avoid multiple chains of command issues, managers
should adopt the matrix structure.
Multiple Choice Questions
15–16
36.
_____ formally dictates how jobs and tasks are divided and coordinated between
individuals and groups within the company.
37.
Which of the following shows every job in the organization and the formal reporting
relationships between those jobs?
15–17
38.
The degree to which tasks in an organization are divided into separate jobs refers to:
39.
Which of the following elements of an organizational structure is also referred to as a
company’s division of labor?
15–18
40.
Which of the following is
true
about work specialization?
41.
The degree to which a job requires a number of different activities involving a number of
different skills and talents is referred to as:
15–19
42.
Which element of the organizational structure signifies formal authority relationships?
43.
Melissa is describing her company’s organizational structure. Which of the following terms
and concepts would she
not
use in her description?
15–20
Topic: Organizational structure
44.
Span of control:
45.
The more people under the control of one manager, the _____.