BU398 Study Guide - Winter 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - International, Ford Focus, Accounting
BU398
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
BU398- WEEK 1
• Questions to think about:
o What is the first crisis that every start-up will face?
o Why did BlackBerry falter?
o Why did Uber ignore its internal culture for so long?
o How do you create a product that is likely to sell?
Chapter 1
• What are organizations?
o a Social Entity
o that is Goal Directed,
o and Deliberately Structured & Coordinated,
o … and Linked to the Environment
o Examples: Wal-Mart, Toronto Maple Leafs, The UN, etc.
• What is organization theory?
o a ay of thikig aout orgaizatios or Ideas about what organizations
are and how they work
o Org Theory is a loose collection of many different theories about
organizations.
▪ We will study theories about organizational
• effectiveness / culture / structure / technology / growth /
competition / ethics / strategy / control / adaptation /
bureaucracy / survival / change / relationships…
o These theories help us to:
▪ Identify
▪ Understand
▪ Describe
▪ Diagnose
▪ Manage and
▪ Design
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
o Organizations so that they can better achieve their goals.
• Systems Thinking
o Closed vs. Open Systems
o Closed: Environment is assumed to be stable → Focus on internal efficiency
o Open: Must interact with (and adapt to) environment
o How organizations take input from the external environment (money, ideas,
etc.) the reak that ito the orgaizatio, the there’s soe sort of
transformation process to then create a product or service offered back to
the environment
o Boundary spanning: those that work in the company that are interacting with
the external environment, getting the input that the organization needs
▪ Finance (getting loans), purchasing (making POs), HR (recruiting)
o Transformation process: those people that are actually making the products
o Boundary spanning: Sales people, people launching marketing campaigns,
trying to get the product or service in the hands of the users
• Mitzerg’s 5 Org. Parts
o Technical core
▪ Those making the products
o Technical support staff
▪ Not the IT departet, it’s the R&D Departet: scan the external
environment for research materials to make new products or improve
orgaizatio’s urret produts or series
o Administrative support staff
▪ IT department, maintenance staff, those working the kitchens
o Middle Management
▪ The glue that holds everything together; make sure strategy set by
top management is communicated to those working under them.
▪ Make sure the support staff is supporting the group they should be
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
In summary: organizations are: social entities, goal directed, deliberately structured & coordinated, and linked to the environment, theories are tools that we can use to understand and design organizations, org. Theory can make you a better organizational designer and decision maker. Ideally for every subsystem of the organization: 6 types of operative goals, performance, resources, market, employees. Innovation & change: productivity, research on goal-setting theory provides lots of evidence that goals affect motivation and performance, goals affect employee behaviour when, they are smart, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely, self-efficacy is high, employees have feedback. Informal vs official: respect: we treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. we do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. ruthlessness, callousness, and arrogance don"t belong here. Mission culture- focused more on the external, but not a lot changing in the environment. Everything geared around goals- clear purpose, everyone with operative goals, employees graded based on them- hypergoal focused (mountain equipment co-op)
