Untitled Flashcards Set

Chapter 1: Management

·        Describe what management is.

o   Getting work done through others efficiently and effectively

·        Explain the four functions of management.

o   Planning – determining goals and a means for achieving them

o   Leading – Inspiring and motivating workers to work hard to achieve those goals

o   Controlling – Monitoring progress toward goal achievement and taking corrective action when needed

o   Organizing – Deciding where decisions will be made, who will do what jobs and tasks, and who will work for whom

·        What are the top mistakes managers make in their jobs?

o   Abrasive and intimidating

o   Cold or Arrogant

o   Betraying Trust

o   Overly Ambitious

o   Unable to delegate; build a team, and staff effectively

·        Explain how and why companies can create a competitive advantage through people.

o   Companies can have workforces that are smarter, better trained, more motivated, more committed, and treated equally. This can result in greater sales revenue, profits, stock market performance, and employee and customer satisfaction rates

Chapter 2: History of Management

·        Explain the history of scientific management.

o   Scientific management involves studying and testing different work methods to identify the best, most efficient way to complete a job

o   Fredrick Taylor’s Scientific Management

§  Study each element of work to determine the best way to do it

§  Scientifically select, train, teach, and develop works to reach their full potential

§  Cooperate with employees to ensure that the principles are implemented

§  Divide the work and responsibility equally between management and workers

·        Discuss the history of bureaucratic and administrative management.

o   Bureaucracy – The Exercise of control based on knowledge, expertise, or experience

§  Qualification based hiring

§  Merit-based promotion/hiring

§  Managers make decisions vs owners

§  Jobs happen with hierarchy

§  System to voice concerns

§  Tasks and responsibilities have clear assignments

§  Every decision is recorded in writing

Chapter 3: Organizational Environments and Cultures

·        Understand how changing environments affect organizations.

o   Environmental change – The rate at which a company’s general and specific environments change

o   Environmental complexity – The number and the Intensity of external factors in the environment that affect organizations

o   Resource Scarcity – The abundance or shortage of critical organizational resources in an organization’s external environment

·        Describe the four components of the general environment.

o   Technology

o   Economy

o   Sociocultural trends

o   Political/Legal trends

·        Explain the five components of the specific environment.

o   Competition

o   Customers

o   Advocacy Groups

o   Suppliers

o   Industry regulations

·        Explain Environmental Scanning

o   Searching the environment for important events or issues that might affect and organization

·        Explain how organizational cultures are created and how they can help companies be successful.

o   Organizational cultures are created by the companies’ founders and then sustained through repetition of organizational stories and organizational hero’s

o   Adaptable

o   Promote employee involvement

o   Clear strategic purpose and direction

o   Actively define and teach their values and beliefs

·        Organizational cultures exist on three levels

o   Surface Level – things you see and hear

o   Below the surface – values and beliefs are expressed

o   Deep below the surface – unconsciously held assumptions and beliefs exist

Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility

·        Identify common types of workplace deviance

o   Production deviance – Unethical behavior that hurts the quality and quantity of work produced

o   Property deviance – unethical behavior aimed at the organization’s property or products

o   Political deviance- using one’s influence to harm others in the company

o   Personal aggression – hostile or aggressive behavior towards others

·        Explain whether social responsibility helps or hurts the organization’s economic performance.

o   There is no trade-off between social responsibility and economic performance

o   Generally, a small positive relationship between the two

o   Does not guarantee profitability

·        Brainstorming best practices include what?

o   Establish a clear purpose

o   Encourage open discussion

o   Be ethical

·        Stakeholders’ vs Shareholders theory

o   Shareholder model – a view of social responsibility that holds an organization overriding goal should be profit maximization for the benefit of shareholders

o   Stakeholder model – A theory of corporate responsibility that holds that managements most important responsibility, long-term survival, is achieved by satisfying the interests of multiple corporate stakeholders

·        Corporate Social Responsibility: Explain to whom and for what organizations are socially responsible for

o   A business’s obligation to benefit society

o   Fulfilling their economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary responsibilities

o   Being profitable is the most basic social responsibility

·        What influences ethical decision-making?

o   Ethical intensity – large, certain, immediate consequences

o   Moral development of the manager

o   Ethical principles used to solve the problem

Chapter 5: Planning and Decision-making

·        Explain the steps for creating a sustainable competitive advantage and why having such an advantage is so important.

o   Specific

o   Measurable

o   Attainable

o   Realistic

o   Timely

§  Sets you apart from competitors

·        Discuss the benefits and pitfalls of planning

o   Pitfalls

§  Impedes change

§  Prevents or slows needed adaptation

§  Creates a false sense of certainty

§  Leads to detachment of planners

o   Benefits

§  Intensifies efforts

§  Leads to persistence

§  Provides direction

§  Encourages the development of task strategies

§  Works for both companies and individuals

·        What are the next steps after setting a goal?

o   Set goal

o   Develop commitment

o   Develop effective action plans

o   Track progress towards goal achievement

o   Maintain flexibility

·        Definition of a strategic plan, operational plan, tactical plan, single-use plan

o   Strategic plan – overall company plans that clarify how the company will serve customers and position itself against competitors over the next 2 to 5 years

o   Tactical plan – plans created and implemented by middle managers that direct behavior, efforts, and attention over the next 6 months to 2 years

o   Single-use plans - plans that cover unique, one-time-only events

·        The process of management by objectives involves what?

o   Discuss possible goals

o   Collectively select goals

o   Develop tactical plans

o   Meet regularly to review progress towards goal accomplishment

·        Difference between single-use plans and standing plans.

o   Standing plans are used repeatedly to handle frequently recurring events

·        Rational decision making – explain the steps and how to use the process.

o   1 – Define the problem

o   2 – Identify decision criteria

o   3 – Weigh the criteria

o   4 – generate alternative courses of action

o   5 – Evaluate each alternative against each criterion systematically

o   6 – compute the optimal decision

·        Explain the difference between maximizing and satisficing

o   Maximizing – Choosing the best alternative

o   Satisficing – Choosing a “good enough” alternative

·        Delphi technique, Devil’s advocate, when are they useful and why?

o   Delphi technique – Members of a panel of experts respond to questions and to each other until reaching an agreement on an issue

§  Complex problems

o   Devil’s advocate – An individual or a subgroup is assigned the role to be a critic

§  find flaws in a plan or decision

Chapter 6: Organizational Strategy

·        Competitive inertia

o   A reluctance to change strategies or competitive practices that have been successful in the past

·        Distinctive competence

o   What can a company make, do, or perform better than its competitors.

·        Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix and the differences between the classifications of Stars, Question Marks?, Cash Cows, and Dogs.

o   Question Marks – Small market share and High Growth

o   Stars – High Market Share and High growth

o   Dogs – Small market share and small growth

o   Cash Cows – Large market share and small growth

·        Porter’s five industry forces

o   Threat of new entrants

o   Bargaining Power of suppliers

o   Bargaining power of buyers

o   Threat of substitute products or services

o   Character of rivalry

·        Situational SWOT Analysis

o   Strengths – Internal

o   Weakness – Internal

o   Opportunities – External

o   Threats - External

·        Diversification

o   Reducing risk by buying a variety of items so that the failure of one stock or one business does not doom the entire portfolio

·        Strategic dissonance

o   A discrepancy between a company’s intended strategy and the strategic actions managers takes when implementing that strategy