Discuss the following:
Consider the list of jobs below. In your opinion, what is the appropriate span of management for each?
1. Describe the factors you considered in reaching your conclusion.
a. A physician practices medicine in a privately-owned clinic, while also supervising a number of professional nurses and office staff
b. An owner/manager of an auto body shop deals with customers and directs several experienced mechanics and also trains and oversees the work of some unskilled laborers.
c. A manager in an international advertising agency directs a team of professional who are located in offices around the world
2. Describe the basic forms of organization design. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
Consider an organization (such as your workplace, a club or society, a sorority or fraternity, a church, and so on) of which you are a member. Describe some structural elements of that organization that reflect the bureaucratic model. Describe some elements that reflect the behavioral model. In your opinion, is that organization more bureaucratic or more behavioral in its structure? Why?
Case 1: If you were hired to advise Michael Jeffries on A & F’s current organizational design, what weaknesses and potential threats would you identify? What strengths and opportunities?
Case 2: What kind of organizational design do you think would be best suited to Jeffries’ managerial style?
Case 3: It seems that mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures are currently business as usual in the retailing sector. Following such an event, does it make more sense to retain the current organizational design for a while or to modify it right away? Why?
Case 4: What differences might you expect to see between the organizational designs of such traditional retailers as A & F and American Eagle and those at online retailers such as Amazon.com and eBay?