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Exam 1: Section 1: Management

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Question 41

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Leon Dodd is a member of a self­managed team at Standard Aero Alliance, Inc. (SAAI) . His team's top priorities are understanding customer requirements and expectations. It would appear that SAAI is:

A) using employee benchmarking
B) allowing its employees to assume various decisional roles
C) letting its teams handle all planning functions
D) using its employees to create a competitive advantage
E) relying more on conceptual skills than human skills

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Question 42

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Bernd Pischetsrieder, chief executive of Volkswagen, announced restructuring plans for the company. VW is Europe's largest carmaker and needed to make itself profitable once again. To do so, VW cut thousands of jobs in the ensuing years through natural attrition, early retirement, and buying workers out of their contracts. The carmaker also considered whether its component parts factories in Brunswick, Kassel, and Wolfsburg were helping VW accomplish its organizational goal. Pischetsrieder blamed much of the company's problems on restructuring that was done in 1993. He insisted that the company is missing a whole generation of managers because its former CEO eliminated a whole layer of management. Now, 45 percent of managers were expected to go into retirement in the following three or four years. -Refer to Volkswagen. In making his announcement about restructuring, Pischetsrieder assumed the __________role.

A) figurehead
B) spokesperson
C) liaison
D) disseminator
E) monitor

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Question 43

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From the start, Amazon.com has been in a hurry to be a success. According to company founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Jeff Bezos, "Our initial strategy was very focused and very unidimensional. It was GBF: Get big fast. We put that on our shirts at the company picnic." With billions to spend from its initial stock offering (Amazon's stock quickly rose to over $100 per share) , Amazon spent $400 million to build eight high-tech warehouses across the country. Why spend that much for warehouses? In theory, each was capable of shipping 60 million items per year, and Amazon needed to control the entire buying transaction, beginning with online ordering, proceeding to quick warehouse handling and boxing, and ending with timely shipping and delivery. And, believing that their growth would parallel its own, Amazon then spent $350 million to buy large shares of two Internet retailers, Kozmo.com and Pets.com. Kozmo.com promised the ability to deliver thousands of items from gourmet foods to CDs and movies to customers' homes in 11 major cities within one hour after an order was placed. Pets.com was supposed to grow because Americans spend over $30 billion a year on their pets, but the pet industry was still comprised largely of small family-owned stores and was not yet dominated by a "big box" retailer like Home Depot. Unfortunately, Amazon grew so fast that it soon lost control of the basics. Despite the billions it had raised, Amazon burned money so quickly that it had to issue bonds to raise another $2.2 billion to keep the company running. Still, it had only enough business and cash to run six of those new warehouses. Consequently, the company took a $400 million loss to close two of the warehouses and lay off 1,500 people. Furthermore, the six remaining warehouses were poorly run. Defective products which should have been returned to manufacturers sat on the shelves wasting space. Mystery orders, like a truckload of unordered kitchen knives, kept showing up. Instead of declining the deliveries, workers put whole truckloads of unordered items on the shelves. Amazon's frustrated chief of operations said, "We kept it all-we just kept it. We put it on the shelf and said, 'I don't know.' " In fact, Amazon had so much unsold inventory in its warehouses that CEO Bezos sent out an email with a point-blank message, "Get the crap out." Finally, Amazon's $350 million investment in Kozmo.com and Pets.com evaporated when both filed for bankruptcy. Amazon's problem was not its sales, which were growing exponentially, but poor management. As a result, its stock, once valued at over $100 per share, dropped to a low of $6. As for profits, founder Bezos cautioned patience, saying, "Look at USA Today; it took 11 years to become profitable." However, Amazon has lost over $3 billion since its inception. Although the company has finally earned its first profits, that profit amounted to only $5 million on $1.12 billion in sales in its fourth quarter (October to December) , and Amazon still lost $45 million for the year. Furthermore, it still has long-term debt of $2.2 billion to pay off at the rate of $120 million per year. Results like these would have cost any other CEO his or her job. If Amazon is ultimately to survive and be profitable, what does it need to do to become a more efficiently run company? -Refer to Amazon.com. Which traditional management function will be key to make sure Amazon is never again burdened with thousands of dollars worth of unsold inventory?

Spiegel announced to the media that it was nearing the completion of its corporate restructuring and was one step closer to emerging from Chapter 11 status after filing its proposed joint plan of reorganization. According to Mintzberg, which managerial role would have been adopted in order to make this announcement to the media?

The motivation to manage tends to be higher among managers at higher levels in the organization than it is among managers at lower levels in the organization.

A first-line manager for a large electric generator manufacturer would:

Compare and contrast the relative importance of the four characteristics that companies look for in managers as they rise through the management hierarchy. That is, describe the similarities and differences in these characteristics among lower, middle, and upper-level managers and explain the reasons for the differences.

Companies look for a total of four sets of skills in individuals to identify potential managers. These desired skills are technical skills, human skills, conceptual skills, and motivation to manage.

Team leaders typically:

When Millard Fuller, who founded the world-renowned Christian housing ministry Habitat for Humanity International with his wife, ended his service as president his role was limited to that of a figurehead. After this change, what functions did Fuller most likely do until he retired?

According to Mintzberg, which role would a manager assume if she were trying to convince union members to accept a 25-cent-per-hour reduction in pay in order to keep the manufacturing plant open?

Briefly explain how and why companies can create competitive advantage through people.

After six months as a manager, new managers typically believe their job is:

Among the four kinds of management jobs, list the one that is the most recent addition to organizations and describe the basic responsibilities of that management job.

A manager striving to improve organizational _______________ is accomplishing tasks that help achieve organizational objectives.

A manager engaged in the management function of _____________taking corrective action when needed.

One of the primary reasons for the slow response to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina was an antiquated government system that was bogged down in bureaucratic red tape. In other words, the failure of assistance to arrive in a timely fashion was due to a lack of:

In the decisional role of ________managers adapt themselves, their subordinates, and their units to incremental change.

Companies that plan have larger profits and faster growth than companies that don't.

The chairs of the accounting, marketing, and communications departments at a typical university are assuming the roles of _________because they supervise nonmanagerial employees.