Chapter 1 MGMT Test Questions – Flashcards
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Management
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Getting work done through others. In practice, this means that managers are not responsible for knowing minute details, but rather for enabling and equipping people in the company to their jobs as best as possible
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1) Planning 2) Organizing 3) Leading 4) Controlling
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List the 4 Functions of Management
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Planning
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One of the 4 Functions of Management: Determining organizational goals and a means for achieving them. Primarily concerned with the question - "What business are we in?"
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Organizing
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One of the 4 Functions of Management: Deciding where decisions will be made, who will do what jobs and tasks, and who will work for whom in the company
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Leading
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One of the 4 Functions of Management: Inspiring and motivating workers to work hard to achieve organizational goals. It is not just about telling people what to do or bossing them around. Instead, it is about energizing people so that they want to give their best efforts at work.
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Controlling
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One of the 4 Functions of Management: Monitoring progress toward goal achievement and taking corrective action when progress isn't being made. Managers must set standards to achieve goals, compare actual performance to those standards, and then make changes if/when performance does not meet those standards. Ex. Creating policies and procedures or rules and regulations
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1) Teams Leaders 2) First Line Managers 3) Middle Managers 4) Top Managers
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List the 4 types of Managers
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Top Managers
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One of the 4 types of Managers: Responsibilities include the overall direction of the organization, setting a context for change, creating employee buy-in, creating a positive organizational culture, and monitoring the business environment. Need to manage sales, profit, and manage expectations of wall street analysts, board of directors, and company owners. Ex. CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, CTO
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Middle Manager
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One of the 4 types of Managers: Responsible for setting objectives consistent with top management's goals and for planning and implementing subunit strategies for achieving those objectives. They plan and allocate resources to meet objectives, and are also responsible for coordinating various groups within the company (departments and divisions), and monitoring the performance of subunits. Ex. Plant manager, regional manager, divisional manager
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First-Line Manager
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One of the 4 types of Managers: Responsible for managing the performance of entry-level employees. Rather than supervising other managers, these people oversee the for of employees that are directly responsible for the company's goods or services. Thus, they are responsible for encouraging and monitoring the performance of employees, teaching new employees how to do their jobs, and making schedules and operating plans. Ex. Office manager, shift supervisor, department manager
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Team Leader
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One of the 4 types of Managers: Relatively new management position that developed because of widespread use of self-managing teams, which have no formal supervisor. Therefore, these people do not function like fist line managers. Instead, they are primarily responsible for facilitating team activities towards accomplishing a goal. They help their team members plan and schedule work, learn to solve problems, and work effectively with each other. They also help manage the relationship among team members, and relationships with groups outside of the team. They are not ultimately responsible for the team's performance - the team is.
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1) Interpersonal Roles 2) Informational Roles 3) Decisional Roles
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List Mintzberg's Managerial Roles
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Interpersonal Roles
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One of Mintzberg's Managerial Roles: Management jobs are people-intensibe, and this role of a manager involves dealing with and relating to other people. • Figurehead: Managers perform ceremonial duties like greeting company visitors, speaking at the opening of a new facility, or representing the company at a community luncheon • Leader: Motivate and encourage works to accomplish organizational objectives • Liaison: Deal with people outside of their units
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Informational Roles
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One of Mintzberg's Managerial Roles: Managers spent 40 percent of their time giving and getting information. In this regard, management can be viewed as gathering information by scanning the business environment and listening to others in face-to-face conversations, processing that information, and then sharing it with people both inside and outside the company. • Monitor: Managers scan their environment for information and receive unsolicited information • Disseminator: Share information with subordinates and others in the company • Spokesperson: Share information with people outside of the company
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Decisional Roles
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One of Mintzberg's Managerial Roles: Obtaining and sharing information with people inside and outside the company is useful to managers because it helps them make good decisions. • Entrepreneur: Managers adapt themselves, their subordinates, and their units to change • Disturbance Handler: Managers respond to pressures and problems so severe that they demand immediate attention and action. • Resource Allocator: Managers decide who will get what resources and how many resources they will get • Negotiator: Managers negotiate schedules, projects, goals, outcomes, resources, and employee raises
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1) Technical skills 2) Human Skills 3) Conceptual Skills 4) Motivation to Manage
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List the 4 Management skills that companies look for
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Technical Skills
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Specialized procedures, techniques, and knowledge required to get the job done
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Human Skills
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The ability to work well with others. Managers with this skill work effectively within groups, encourage others to express their thoughts and feelings, are sensitive to others' needs and viewpoints, and are good listeners and communicators. Equally important at all levels of management.
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Conceptual Skills
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The ability to see the organization as a whole, to understand how the different parts of the company affect each other, and to recognize how the company fits into or is affected by its external environment such as the local community, social and economic forces, customers, and competition. Good managers have to be able to recognize, understand, and reconcile multiple complex problems and perspectives.
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Motivation to Mange
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Motivation to manage is an assessment of how motivated employees are to interact with superiors, participate in competitive situations, behave assertively toward others, tell others what to do, reward good behavior and punish poor behavior, perform actions that are highly visible to others, and handle and organize administrative tasks. Managers typically have a stronger motivation to manage than their subordinates, and managers at higher levels usually have a stronger motivation to manage than managers at lower levels. Furthermore, managers with a stronger motivation to manage are promoted faster, are rated as better managers by their employees, and earn more money than managers with a weak motivation to manage.
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1) Employment Security 2) Selective Hiring 3) Self-Managed Teams and Decentralization 4) High Wages Contingent on Organizational Performance 5) Training and Skill Development 6) Reduction of Status Differences 7) Sharing Information
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List the ways that people can give companies a competitive advantage
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Employment Security
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The ultimate form of commitment companies can make to their workers. Employees can innovate and increase company productivity without fearing job loss. One way to increase competitive advantage through people
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Selective Hiring
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If employees are the basis for a company's competitive advantage and those employees have employment security, then the company needs to aggressively recruit and selectively screen applicants in order to hire the most talented employees available. One way to increase competitive advantage through people
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Self-Managed Teams and Decrentralization
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These are responsible for their own hiring, purchasing, job assignments, and production. They can often produce enormous increases in productivity through increased employee commitment and creativity. This allows employees who are closest to (and most knowledgeable about) problems, production, and customers to make timely decisions. It increases employee satisfaction and commitment One way to increase competitive advantage through people
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Reduction of Status Differences
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A company should treat everyone, no matter what the job, as equal. There are no reserved parking spaces. Everyone eats in the same cafeteria and has similar benefits. The result: improved communication as employees focus on problems and solutions rather than on how they are less valued than managers.
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Environmental Uncertainty
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How well (or not well) managers can understand or predict the external changes and trees affecting their businesses. Lowest when environmental change and complexity are at low levels and resource scarcity is small (i.e., resources are plentiful) Highest when environmental change and complexity are extensive and resource scarcity is a problem. In these environments, managers may not be confident that they can understand, predict, and handle the external forces affecting their business
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Punctuated Equilibrium Theory
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companies go through long, simple periods of stability (equilibrium) during which incremental changes occur, followed by short, complex periods of dynamic, fundamental change (revolutionary periods), which end with a return to stability (new equilibrium) Ex. Airline industry
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1) Economy 2) Sociocultural Trends 3) Technology 4) Political/Legal Trends
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List the factors of the general environment that indirectly affect all organizations
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1) General Environment 2) Specific Environment
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List the 2 kinds of External environments that influence organizations
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Specific Environment
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An environment that is unique to that firm's industry and directly affects the way it conducts day-to-day business. It Includes competition, customers, suppliers, industry regulation, organization, and advocacy groups
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Technology
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an umbrella term for the knowledge, tools, and techniques used to transform inputs into outputs Changes in this can help companies provide better products or produce their products more efficiently. Ex. Smartphone innovation is changing many industries - small shops can now accept credit cards through a card reader on a smartphone
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Reactive Customer Monitoring
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Identifying and addressing customer trends and problems after they occur
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Proactive Customer Monitoring
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Identifying and addressing customer needs, trends, and issues before they occur
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Competitors
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companies in the same industry that sell similar products or services
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Competitive Analysis
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a process of monitoring the competition that involves identifying competition, anticipating their moves, and determining their strengths and weaknesses
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Suppliers
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companies that provide material, human, financial, and informational resources to other companies.
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Supplier Dependence
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supplier dependence is the degree to which a company relies on that supplier because of the importance of the supplier's product to the company and the difficulty of finding other sources for that product.
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Buyer Dependence
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Buyer dependence is the degree to which a supplier relies on a buyer because of the importance of that buyer to the supplier's sales and the difficulty of finding other buyers of its products.
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Opportunistic Behavior
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When one party benefits at the expense of another
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Relationship behavior
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Focuses on establishing a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship between buyers and sellers Importance: in a study of auto suppliers and automakers, in cases where a lack of trust existed between buyers and suppliers, procurement costs could be as much as 5x higher than when parties trusted one another. Least-trusted companies are often the least profitable
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Industry Regulation
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Regulations and rules that govern the practices and procedures of specific industries, businesses, and professions
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Advocacy Groups
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groups of concerned citizens who band together to try to influence the business practices of specific industries, businesses, and professions. The members of a group generally share the same point of view on a particular issue. These groups use a number of approaches to try to influence companies.
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product boycott
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tactic in which an advocacy group actively tries to persuade consumers not to purchase a company's product or service.
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Media Advocacy
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much more aggressive than the public communications approach. This typically involves framing the group's concerns as public issues (affecting everyone); exposing questionable, exploitative, or unethical practices; and forcing media coverage by buying media time or creating controversy that is likely to receive extensive news coverage.
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Public Communications Approach
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relies on voluntary participation by the news media and the advertising industry to send out an advocacy group's message.
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Environmental Scanning
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Searching the environment for important events or issues that might affect an organization. Managers do this to reduce uncertainty. Organizational strategies can affect this. It contributes to organizational performance
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Cognitive Maps
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summarize the perceived relationships between environmental factors and possible organizational actions.
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1) Adaptability 2) Employee Involvement 3) Clear Mission 4) Consistency
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List the 4 keys to an organizational culture
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Adaptability
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the ability to notice and respond to changes in the organization's environment.
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1) Seen (Surface Level) 2) Heard (Expressed values and beliefs) 3) Believed (unconscious assumptions and beliefs)
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List the 3 Levels of Organizational Culture
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Seen (Surface Level)
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First level or organizational culture; Includes symbolic artifacts such as dress codes, workers' and managers' behaviors, and what people say
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Heard (Expressed values and beliefs)
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Second level of organizational culture; Includes how decisions are made and explained and widely shared assumptions and beliefs
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Believed (unconscious assumptions and beliefs)
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Third level of organizational culture; Includes things that are buried deep below the surface and that are rarely discussed or thought about
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1) History 2) Values and Beliefs 3) Rituals and Ceremonies 4) Stories 5) Heroic Figures 6) Cultural Network
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List the factors of Deal and Kennedy's Cultural Framework
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History
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A shared narrative of the past lays the foundation for corporate culture. The traditions of the past keep people anchored to the core values that the organization was built on.
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Values and Beliefs
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Cultural identity is formed around the shared beliefs of what is really important, and the values that determine what the organization stands for.
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Rituals and Ceremonies
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Ceremonies are the things that employees do every day that bring them together. Examples include Friday afternoon get-togethers or simply saying goodbye to everyone before you leave for the day.
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Stories
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Corporate stories typically exemplify company values, and capture dramatically the exploits of employees who personify these values in action. Stories allow employees to learn about what is expected of them and better understand what the business stands for.
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Heroic Figures
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Related to stories are the employees and managers whose status is elevated because they embody organizational values. These heroes serve as role models and their words and actions signal the ideal to aspire to.
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Cultural Network
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The informal network within an organization is often where the most important information is learned.
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1) Work Hard, Play Hard 2) Tough-Guy, Macho 3) Bet-your-company 4) Process
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List the Deal and Kennedy types of company culture
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Work Hard/Play Hard Culture
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This culture is the world of sales (among others). Employees themselves take few risks; however, the feedback on how well they are performing is almost immediate. Employees in this culture have to maintain high levels of energy and stay upbeat. Heroes in such cultures are high volume salespeople. Interestingly, this culture recognizes that one person alone cannot make the company. They know it is a team effort and everyone is driven to excel. Contests among employees are common here, as they drive everyone to reach new heights.
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Tough-Guy, Macho Culture
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This culture contains a world of individualists who enjoy risk and who get quick feedback on their decisions. This is an all-or-nothing culture where successful employees are the ones who enjoy excitement and work very hard to be stars. The entertainment industry, sports teams and advertising are great examples of this cultural type. Teamwork is not highly valued in this culture, and it's a difficult environment for people who blossom slowly. This leads to higher turnover, which impedes efforts to build a cohesive culture. Thus, individualism continues to prevail.
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Bet-Your-Company Culture
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Here, the culture is one in which decisions are high risk but employees may wait years before they know whether their actions actually paid off. Pharmaceutical companies are an obvious example of this culture, as are oil and gas companies, architectural firms and organizations in other large, capital-intensive industries. Because the need to make the right decision is so great, the cultural elements evolve such that values are long-term focused and there is a collective belief in the need to plan, prepare and perform due diligence at all stages of decision making.
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Process Culture
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In this culture, feedback is slow, and the risks are low. Large retailers, banks, insurance companies and government organizations are typically in this group. No single transaction has much impact on the organization's success and it takes years to find out whether a decision was good or bad. Because of the lack of immediate feedback, employees find it very difficult to measure what they do so they focus instead on how they do things. Technical excellence is often valued here and employees will pay attention to getting the process and the details right without necessarily measuring the actual outcome.
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Tactical Plans
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specify how a company will use resources, budgets, and people to accomplish specific goals related to its strategic objective time frame: 6 months to 2 years
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Management by Objectives
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discuss possible goals, collectively set goals, jointly develop tactical plans, meet regularly to review progress