Mgm101 Midterm

MGM101 Test #3 Short Answer Questions Organizations can use internal recruitment and external recruitment activities to find the best employees for a position. Describe these two approaches and provide one advantage for using each approach. (4 Marks) One mark for each correct description and an additional mark for providing an advantage: External – Candidates are sought from outside of the organization (not current employees) through methods such as want ads, head hunters (recruiters), job fairs, on-campus recruiting, etc…

Advantage – allows firms to acquire new perspectives, expertise, and capabilities that they do not currently possess. Internal – Recruits candidates from within the organization (current employees) though internal postings, newsletters and promoting employees through management recommendations. Advantage – Less expensive, ability already known, fosters loyalty and increases motivation (Shermerhorn page 287) Describe two initiatives that a company can take to help its employees to balance work with their lives? (2 Marks)

One mark each for proper description of any two appropriate initiatives including: Flexible working hours, work from home (telecommuting), vacations, paid leave, leaves of absence, job sharing, on-site daycare, elder care assistance, concierge services, etc… (Shermerhorn pages 294-295) Describe how work is organized in firms utilizing a divisional organizational structure. List and describe two advantages and two disadvantages of a divisional organizational structure. (5 Marks) One mark for proper description of how divisional structures organize work. One mark each for each advantage and disadvantage listed and described.

Divisional structures organize work by grouping people together working on the same, products, customers, processes or in the same geographic area. Advantages (choose two) – More flexibility responding to market changes, Improved coordination, clear responsibility for product or service delivery, expertise focused on specific customers products or regions, greater ease in changing size Disadvantages (choose two) – Redundancy of functions, reduced efficiencies or economies of scale, increased unhealthy internal rivalries, division objectives may replace organization’s (Shermerhorn pages 225-227)

A manufacturer continues to dump waste from their plant into the local river despite opposition from the local community. Residents complain that the waste is making the water unsafe for families and their children, and is killing water life and vegetation downstream. Plant managers state that they are doing nothing wrong and are meeting all legal and regulatory requirements. Are the manufacturer’s actions ethical? Discuss the reasoning for your opinion. Describe two steps the manufacturer can take to improve their business ethics? 4 Marks) One mark for stating whether actions are ethical or not and one mark for proper reasoning. One mark each for describing two steps for improving ethics: Actions are Unethical – Definition of ethical behaviour is broader than just its legality. Organizations have a broader responsibility to its stakeholders which include the surrounding communities and the environment. Government agencies are influenced by industry and do not always prioritize the interests of the public. How can any waste dumping be safe?

Actions are ethical – Government sets regulations to ensure that safety standards are being met and as long as the manufacturer is meeting those requirements, it must be safe and they must be acting ethically. There is no proof that their waste is harming anyone and besides, who should determine these standards if not the appropriate government agencies. Six-Steps to improve ethics: Top management adopt code of conduct, Senior leadership by example, Ethics embedded in training, Set up Ethics office, External stakeholder informed of code of ethics, Enforcement (Nickels page 146) S. W. O. T. “ is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Which of these two are related to an organization’s external environment? Which two are related to the internal attributes of an organization? (2 Marks) 0. 5 marks for each correct placement of SWOT in internal and external categories. External – OT, Opportunities and Threats Internal – SW, Strengths and Weaknesses (Shermerhorn pages 195-196) In the “RSA Animate – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us” video shown in class the narrator presented some surprising findings from the M.

I. T. and India experiments that tested the motivating ability of monetary incentives. What were these surprising findings and discuss how these finding contradict the underlying assumptions of the Classical Management Approaches (3 Marks) Two marks for describing the findings. One mark for explaining the contradiction Underlying assumption of classical approaches is that people are rational and are driven by economic concerns.

Study results show that for tasks that were largely mechanical in nature (simple and straight forward), that greater incentives led to higher performance but when the task involved even rudimentary cognitive skill (conceptual, creative thinking), larger rewards led to poorer performance suggesting that the economic incentives did not motivate employees to improve performance. This would not be considered rational according to proponents of the classical approaches. (Shermerhorn pages 45 and RSA Animate video http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=umhhPj7t8FE)