Chapter 11 Worksheet part 1

Group :

Organizational Design

A process involving decisions about six key elements: 1-Specialization 2- Departmentalization 3- Chain of
command 4- Span of control 5- Centralization /Decentralization 6- Formalization

1- Specialization: The degree to which tasks in the organization are divided into separate jobs with each
step completed by a different person.

a- Why would the company want to increase specialization?

b- Why would you expect specialization to become counterproductive at a certain point?

2- Departmentalization: How jobs are grouped together. There are five common forms of
departmentalization and large companies usually use a combination of all.
A- Customer: Grouping jobs by type of customer
B-Geographical: Grouping jobs on the basis of territory or geography
C-Process: Grouping jobs on the basis of product flow (process)
D-Product: Grouping jobs by product line
E- Functional: Grouping jobs by functions performed

Match the type of departmentalization with the below 5 proposed organizational structures.

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3- Chain of Command: The continuous line of authority that extends from upper levels of an organization
to the lowest levels of the organization and clarifies who reports to whom. (Authority, Responsibility,
Unity of Command)

Choose one of the two words in the parenthesis in the below statements

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a) If a manager does not have the authority to fire an employee or to fill in his/her performance evaluation
this will affect (positively) or (negatively) the manager’s authority and will (weaken ) (strengthen) the chain
of command

b) A high sense of responsibility and work ethics that employees have will imply the need for (stricter) or
(looser) chain of command

c) The unity of command will (help) (confuse) employees with the regard to knowing who they are reporting
to and to whom to go if they have a problem

4- Span of Control: The number of employees who report to one manager.

5-

a-What does the above chart show as a result of increasing the span of control? Why would the
organization want to increase the span of control?

b- What type of employees would allow an organization to increase the span of control?

6- Centralization the degree to which decision making is concentrated at upper levels in the organization.
At an extreme, top managers make all the decisions and lower-level employees simply carry out those
orders. Decentralization Organizations in which decision-making is pushed down to the managers who
are closest to the action.

State one advantage and one disadvantage for centralization

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 7- Formalization The degree to which jobs within the organization are standardized and the extent to
which employee behavior is guided by rules and procedures.
From our discussions of the articles on Dish Network and the interview with Tim Cook, which one of the two
companies A- Apple or B- Dish Network you would describe with a high level of formality and rather
bureaucratic and which one you would describe as informal and organic?

High degree of formalization:

Low Degree of Formalization: