The manager of R&D for a drug company said that only five percent of the company’s new products ever achieve market success. She also said the industry average is 10 percent and wondered how her organization might increase its success rate. If you were acting as a consultant, what advice would you give her about designing organization structure to improve market success?
> This exercise will help you better understand the concept of ethics and what it means to you. It probably will not happen right away, but soon enough in your duties as an organization manager, you will be confronted with a situation that will test the st
> ABC World News ran a special series called “Made in America.” In the opening program, correspondents David Muir and Sharyn Alfonsi removed all foreign-made products from a family’s Dallas, Texas, home
> 1. Divide into groups of three. Half the groups, on one side of the room, are “1s” and the other half are “2s.” 2. The 1s are Pharmacology; the 2s are Radiology. Read only your own role, not the other one. 3. Any students not in a negotiating group can b
> Below, list four organizations you somehow rely on in your daily life for some resource. Examples might be a restaurant, a clothing store, a university, your family, the post office, your wireless provider, an airline, a pizzeria that delivers, and your
> Can an organization be efficient without being effective? Can an inefficient organization still be an effective one? Explain your answers.
> A handful of companies on the Fortune 500 list are more than 100 years old, which is rare. What organizational characteristics do you think might explain 100-year longevity?
> Describe some ways in which the digitalization of business has influenced or affected an organization with which you are familiar, such as your college or university, a local retailer or restaurant, a volunteer organization, a club to which you belong, o
> What is one contingency factor that might help explain the poor performance of GE when Jeffrey Immelt was CEO? Explain.
> What is the difference between a task force and a team? Between liaison role and integrating role? Which of these provides the greatest amount of horizontal coordination?
> What are the primary differences in structure between a traditional, mechanistic organization designed for efficiency and a more flexible organic organization designed for learning?
> Large corporations tend to use different structures in different parts of the organization. Why would that be so?
> When is a functional structure preferable to a divisional structure?
> Describe the virtual network structure. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using this structure compared to performing all activities in-house within an organization?
> To what extent does the true structure of an organization appear on the organization chart? Explain.
> What are the similarities and differences between assessing effectiveness on the basis of competing values versus the strategic constituents approach? Explain.
> What are the advantages and disadvantages of the resource-based approach versus the goal approach for measuring organizational effectiveness?
> Suppose you have been asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the police department in a medium-sized community. Where would you begin, and how would you proceed? What effectiveness approach would you prefer?
> Do you believe mission statements and official goal statements provide an organization with genuine legitimacy in the external environment? When a company such as CVS (discussed in the chapter) makes a decision to stop selling cigarettes because that act
> Discuss the similarities and differences in the strategies described in Porter’s competitive strategies and Miles and Snow’s typology.
> What is the difference between a goal and a strategy as defined in the text? Identify both a goal and a strategy for a campus or community organization with which you are involved.
> What is a goal for the class for which you are reading this text? Who established this goal? Discuss how the goal affects your direction and motivation.
> How might a company’s goals for employee development be related to its goals for innovation and change? To goals for productivity? Can you discuss how these types of goals might conflict in an organization?
> A noted organization theorist once said, “Organizational effectiveness can be whatever top management defines it to be.” Discuss.
> How might the top management of an organization use SWOT analysis or scenario planning to set goals and strategy? Explain.
> Early management theorists believed that organizations should strive to be logical and rational, with a place for everything and everything in its place. Discuss the pros and cons of this approach for organizations today.
> What are some differences one might expect for measuring effectiveness expectations for a nonprofit organization versus a for-profit business? Do you think nonprofit managers have to pay more attention to stakeholders than do business managers? Discuss.
> What does it mean to say an organization is an open system? How is the stakeholder approach related to the concept of open systems?
> What are the primary differences between an organic and a mechanistic organization design? Which type of organization do you think would be easier to manage? Discuss.
> What does contingency mean? What are the implications of contingency theory for managers?
> What is the difference between formalization and specialization? Do you think an organization high on one dimension would also be high on the other? Discuss.
> Some researchers argue that the concept of exchange underlying the principle of reciprocity (trading some- thing of value to another for what you want) is the basis of all influence. Do you agree? Discuss. To what extent do you feel obligated to return a
> The engineering college at a major university brings in three times as many government research dollars as does the rest of the university combined. Engineering appears wealthy and has many professors on full-time research status. Yet, when internal rese
> A financial analyst at Merrill Lynch tried for several months to expose the risks of investments in sub- prime mortgages, but he couldn’t get anyone to pay attention to his claims. How would you evaluate this employee’s power? What might he have done
> State University X receives 90 percent of its financial resources from the state and, because tuition is cheap, is overcrowded with students. The admissions office is overwhelmed with applications, and the university is trying to pass regulations to limi
> Discuss ways in which a department at a health insurance company might help the organization cope with the increased power of large hospital systems such as Carilion by obtaining prior information, prevention, or absorption.
> What is the difference between power and authority? Is it possible for a person to have formal authority but no real power? Discuss.
> In a rapidly changing organization, are decisions more likely to be made using the rational or political model of organization? Discuss.
> Starbucks and Barnes & Noble entered into a partner- ship that places a Starbucks in each B&N bookstore. What organizational and environmental factors might determine which organization will have more power in the relationship?
> Give an example from your personal experience of how differences in tasks, personal background, and training lead to conflict among groups. How might task inter- dependence have influenced that conflict?
> Can you think of a decision you have made in your personal, school, or work life that reflects a stronger desire to avoid a loss than to make a gain? How about a time when you stayed with an idea or project for too long, perhaps even escalating your comm
> Why would managers in high-velocity environments worry more about the present than the future? Would an individual manager working in this type of environment be more likely to succeed with a rational approach or an intuitive approach? Discuss.
> How would you make a decision to select a building site for a new waste-treatment plant in the Philippines? Where would you start with this complex decision, and what steps would you take? Explain which decision model in the chapter best describes your a
> An organization theorist once told her class, “Organizations never make big decisions. They make small decisions that eventually add up to a big decision.” Explain the logic behind this statement.
> What are the three major phases in Mintzberg’s incremental decision model? Why might an organization recycle through one or more phases of the model?
> The Carnegie model emphasizes the need for a political coalition in the decision-making process. When and why are coalitions necessary?
> If managers frequently use experience and intuition to make complex, nonprogrammed decisions, how do they apply evidence-based management, which seems to suggest that managers should rely on facts and data?
> A professional economist once told his class, “An individual decision maker should process all relevant information and select the economically rational alter- native.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
> Why do you think decision mistakes are usually accepted in organizations but penalized in college courses and exams that are designed to train managers?
> When you are faced with choosing between several valid options, how do you typically make your decision? How do you think managers typically choose between several options? What are the similarities between your decision process and what you think manage
> How do the underlying values of organization development compare to the values underlying other types of change? Why do the values underlying OD make it particularly useful in shifting to a high-performance culture as described in Chapter 11 (Exhibit 11.
> Of the five elements in Exhibit 12.3 required for successful change, which element do you think managers are most likely to overlook? Discuss.
> A noted organization theorist said, “Pressure for change originates in the environment; pressure for stability originates within the organization.” Do you agree? Discuss.
> Change requires more coordination than does the performance of normal organizational tasks. Any time you change something, you discover its connections to other parts of the organization, which have to be changed as well.” Discuss whether you agree or di
> Do you think factory employees would typically be more resistant to changes in production methods, changes in structure, or changes in culture? Why? What steps could managers take to overcome this resistance?
> What does it mean to say managers should organize for both exploration and exploitation?
> Describe the dual-core approach. How does the process of management innovation normally differ from technology change? Discuss.
> Examine the change curve illustrated in Exhibit 12.8 and the five techniques for overcoming resistance to change discussed at the end of the chapter. Describe at which point along the change curve managers could use each of the five techniques to success
> Why do you think crowdsourcing has become popular in recent years? What might be some disadvantages of taking a crowdsourcing approach? When might a company be better off taking a more limited approach to open innovation?
> Why do you think Learning and Growth Culture Goals are at the bottom of the Strategy Map in Exhibit 11.9? Discuss.
> What is the difference between a try block and a catch block?
> Assume that the variable myComboBox references an uneditable combo box, and selectionIndex is an int variable. Write code that assigns the index of the selected item in the myComboBox component to the selectionIndex variable.
> Write code that adds a scroll bar to the list you created in your answer to Algorithm Workbench 2.
> Write the code that creates a menu bar with one menu named File. The File menu should have the F key assigned as a mnemonic. The File menu should have three menu items: Open, Print, and Exit. Assign mnemonic keys of your choice to each of these items. Re
> Give an example of code that creates a read-only text field.
> Write a SELECT statement that will return the TradingSymbol column and the NumShares column only from the rows where SellingPrice is greater than PurchasePrice, and NumShares is greater than 100. The results should be sorted by the NumShares column, in a
> Write a SELECT statement that will return all of the columns from the rows where TradingSymbol starts with “SUâ€.
> Write a SELECT statement that will return the TradingSymbol column and the NumShares column from every row in table.
> Write a SELECT statement that will return all of the columns from every row in table.
> Write an SQL statement to create a table named Car. The Car table should have the Âcolumns to hold a car’s manufacturer, year model, and a 20-character vehicle ID number.
> Look at the following declaration. String sql = "SELECT * FROM Coffee WHERE Price . 10.00” ; Assume also that stmt references a valid Statement object. Write code that executes the SQL statement referenced by the sql variable.
> What will the following code output? String message = "Have a great day!” ; System.out.println(message.charAt(5)) ;
> Assume that the following declaration exists. final String DB_URL = "jdbc:derby:CoffeeDB” ; The string referenced by DB_URL is a database URL. Write a statement that uses this string to get a connection to the database.
> Briefly explain how the print and println methods are related to the System class and the out object.
> Why is it easier to write a program in a high-level language than in machine language?
> Describe what the phrase “self-documenting program†means.
> What is the difference between operating system software and application software?
> Is the following comment a single-line style comment or a multi-line style comment? /* This program was written by M. A. Codewriter */
> Both main memory and secondary storage are types of memory. Describe the difference between the two.
> Why should a group of RadioButtons belong to the same toggle group?
> What is an event listener?
> What is the purpose of the main application class in a JavaFX application?
> Write an SQL statement that does the following: For each row in the Stock table, if the TradingSymbol column is “XYZâ€, change it to “ABCâ€.
> What is FXML?
> What is a scene graph?
> Under what circumstances would you want to use an AudioClip object to play a sound file, rather than the Applet class’s play method?
> When is a component’s paint or paintComponent method called?
> Why would you ever need to use the older AWT library instead of Swing to develop an applet?
> Why are applets sometimes necessary in Web page development?
> When a user accesses a Web page on a remote server with his or her browser, and that Web page has an applet associated with it, is the applet executed by the server or by the user’s system?
> When a checked menu item shows a check mark next to it, what happens when the user clicks on it?
> What is a tool tip? What is its purpose?
> What is a mnemonic? How does the user use it?
> What SQL data types correspond with the following Java types? - int - float - string - double
> What is the difference between an uneditable combo box and an editable combo box? Which one is a combo box by default?
> Why would a JSlider component be ideal when you want the user to enter a number, but you want to make sure that the number is within a range?
> What selection mode should you select if you want the user to select a single item only in a list?
> What is a foreign key?
> What is the number of the first row in a table? What is the number of the first column in a table?
> What is a result set?
> When we speak of database organization, we speak of such things as rows, tables, and columns. Describe how the data in a database is organized into these conceptual units.
