Intro to Business Exercise 4.1 1. Why do firms have organizational charts? Discuss.

To improve productivity and increase the efficiency of the communication in the business.

2. Kristoph and Joseph have both started their own architectural firms. However, they both came up with very different organizational charts. How is this possible? Explain.
This is because different people have different ways to manage their business depends on how the owner wants the business to be.

3. Ruth works for the accounting department of a multinational company. She has 2 superiors (of equal rank) to whom she reports to. Explain what problems she may experience in this reporting structure.
She might confuse who should she reports to. When instructions given from both superiors, she might confuse who should she listen to and which works should she do first.

4. The company that you have founded 5 years ago is currently suffering from poor performance due to intense rivalry and politicking from the various departments. What can you do to make them work together again as a team? Suggest 3 strategies.

Redesign the organizational charts of the company. Change the organizational structure of the company. Form various committees.

5. What is a functional structure? What type of business would adopt this organizational structure? Also, provide one advantage and one disadvantage of this structure. - In a functional structure, the business is divided into various departments,
which are headed by a manager ( eg. HR manager, finance manager, etc ). These managers, in turn, report to the general manager from the head office. This structure is suitable for business that produces one or few different types of products and services and only serves the local market. Advantage : All workers in the same department can communicate easily with one another to solve problems. Disadvantage : Workers may become territorial and are unable to work well with other departments.

6. What is a divisional structure? What type of business would adopt this organizational structure? Why is this organizational structure more costly to operate?
In a divisional structure, the business is divided into various divisions, headed by respective divisional managers. Each division is a smaller business itself which has its own functional structure and the divisional manager reports directly to the CEO. This O.S is suitable for businesses that sell multiple products or services and operate in multiple geographical markets. ( Apple, BMW ) This is because it required huge amount of resources as each division have their own departments.

7. What are committees? What are some of the reasons for setting up a committee?
A committee is a group, usually comprised of managers from different divisions and departments, whose purpose is to achieve a common business goal. 1. To overcome inter-group rivalry 2. To achieve a common business goal 3. To prevent power abuse, favoritism and stupid decisions occur.

8. There are many types of committees (for different purposes). The Introduction to Business class will have a committee (soon) in charge of a factory trip in the coming weeks. What type of committee would it fall under? Discuss.
Ad Hoc Committee. This is because the committee is set up to deal with specific events. Depending on the importance of the event, it could be comprised of high, middle or low-level managers. It is dissolved once the event has concluded/resolved.

9. What are the main disadvantages of committees, in general?

Nobody in the committee bears the ultimate responsibility for its decisions because the decision is agreed by everyone, members may behave less carefully than if they bore individual responsibility.

Intro to Business Exercise 5.0 (v2.0) 1. What are the 3 types of employee behaviour? Describe them and provide an example for each. - Performance Behaviours (Desirable) eg. A man is acting, the more he act, the more we know what he want to express. - Corporate Citizenship Behaviours (Desirable) eg. Being polite Counter-productive Behaviours (Undesirable) eg. Smoking 2. Joe, the manager of your department, is mentally disturbed. He enjoys bullying his male subordinates and is known to have sexually harassed all the female workers under his supervision. Discuss the impact of his behavior on the department and company if action is not taken against him. The output of the department will be low and workers will leave as soon as possible. The image of the company will be affected. 3. What are the Big 5 personalities? Are these personality traits trainable? Why or why not? How can a business ensure its employees have the big 5 personalities? - Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism - The personality is trainable because no one born to be that. - How the workers perform, relationship with the other members in the department, how is the output of the business. 4. What are attitudes? Are job attitudes changeable? If yes, how can businesses play a part in fostering good work-related attitudes? Attitude refers to an individuals like or dislike towards a person. The attitudes are changeable. When the workers have all positive attitudes, they will be highly productive, never avoid hard work/big responsibilities. 5. After having been fired from his job, Joe currently lives in the store room of his parents home. He is quite depressed with his situation for he has been unemployed for the past 6 months. To spend his time, he goes out with his drinking buddies every night. Referring to Maslows theory, what unmet needs does Joe have right now? Why do you say so? Social needs and Esteem Needs. He should have some friends at work and a job, a recognition from boss and coworkers. 6. Scarlett, a purchasing manager from your firm, has recently left for greener pasture (poached by headhunters). You are currently looking for her replacements. Where would you look first? Why? From the related department. Because the skills might be similar. 7. Wong Kah Man has recently accepted your job offer as the new purchasing manager (to replace Scarlett). However, both you and the employer have yet to decide on his salary package. How would you go about estimating his salary figure? Discuss. Depends on his experiences, performances and the job position.

8. Shiow Huey, your boss, complains that training employees cost money and time, and
not to mention that, while they are away from training, companys productivity goes down. Advice her what would happen if she chose not to train her employees. Whole groups performance goes down, bad company image Employees are not motivated, less customers Not skillful enough