UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE
FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT
MGT3360 FINAL EXAM OVERVIEW
1.
20 Multiple Choice Questions................................ 20 x 1........................ 20
2.
3 Essay Questions from choice of 5..................... 3 x 15........................ 45
65
Space available for each essay will be one side of one page. Think through your answers
ahead of time and be concise. Group discussion of questions is encouraged, but the
formulation of answers must be an individual effort. The objective of this method of
testing is to encourage you to give more sustained thought to the application of a
conceptual framework than might normally be the case in a standard time-limited exam.
Be sure that your answers strive to apply and illustrate the theories we have discussed.
Numbers in parentheses following each question give a breakdown of marks where
applicable.
This is not an “open book” exam. No papers will be permitted into the exam. Time
available for the exam: 120 minutes (Monday, April 23rd 9:00 – 11:00, AH176)
The five essay questions you will see on your exam (from which you must choose three)
will be taken from the following eight:
Essay Questions
1.
You work in a restaurant (part of a large national chain) that offers both buffet
and menu food service to its customers. Use Thompson’s levels of interdependence to
identify an example of each level within the activities of the restaurant (including, if
necessary, the larger organization) and use the example to illustrate the theory. Be sure in
each example to be clear about who/what is interdependent with whom/what.
(5+5+5)
2.
It is ten years from now. You have recently returned to your organization with an
MBA from a well-known graduate school that counts many of your colleagues in other
departments (Engineering, Marketing) among its successful alumni. One of them, Fred,
looks up to you and his technical expertise could be very useful to you as you build your
development team. You have recently put forward an idea for a new product but it has
received mixed reviews. Several people are clearly on board saying new products are
needed, but one or two have also come out quite strongly against the idea by suggesting
that it is not technically feasible. A meeting has been called at headquarters to discuss
how to improve divisional sales.
Explain how you will use political tactics before and during the meeting to get your new
product proposal supported.
(3+3+3+3+3)
3.
The Management Student Society (MSS) feels that their time could be better
spent organizing activities instead of raising money and so they would like to have all
registered Faculty of Management students pay $20.00 each semester to MSS. They hope
that students would also be more motivated to attend MSS events they had already ‘paid
for’ and the fees could also allow event prices to be heavily subsidized. Since you are the
MGT3360 change guru, the MSS Executive have come to you to tell them how best to
make this change happen, that is, which type of change and which mode of change (from
the contingency model class handout) should they be using? a) Perform a diagnosis of the
situation using each of the ten contingency factors from the handout and b) make a
change strategy recommendation that draws on your analysis. Remember: they don’t
want advice about the content of the change but rather the process.
((1x10)+5)
4.
Consider the following situation:
You hold the position of construction manager for a Canadian company located in
a foreign country. Your company has taken on a project to build a hospital. The building
is substantially behind schedule already and if delayed much longer will not be available
before construction ends for the winter. Yesterday, a customs official at the port where
your construction materials are being unloaded telephoned to say that there was a
problem clearing your materials through customs. When you met with him earlier today,
he suggested that the problem could likely be cleared up… for $100. If you do not make
this payment, you are reasonably certain that your materials will sit on the dock for at
least a week until they are released.
Use the moral philosophy framework described in class (Utilitarian, Categorical
Imperative, and Cultural Relativism) to make three distinct arguments regarding what to
do in this situation. Note that you may come up with similar recommendations about
what to do in more than one of your three arguments, but there should be no overlap in
how you get to those recommendations.
(5+5+5)
5.
Which of the following decision approaches best characterizes how decisions
were made in your group this term: management science, Carnegie, incremental decision,
or garbage can? a) Justify your choice in process terms using actual decisions made by
the group as illustrations. b) Was this approach consistent with the contingency decisionmaking framework? Why or why not?
(10+5)
6.
For each of the following pairings, use the concepts of horizontal power to
provide a different justification for why one might have more power than the other. (i.e. –
there are five different sources of horizontal power. Choose the best ‘fit’ for each source
from those below so that all sources and all examples are used up.) As always, be sure to
support your argument by drawing assumptions from the examples.
(3x5)
a) Car assembly plant vs. engine plant at GM
b) Website development vs. building maintenance at Google
c) R&D vs. legal department at large pet food company
d) retail sales dept vs. online sales dept at Sears
e) the bookstore vs. the Education Faculty at UofL
7.
The President of your company has recently announced that market
control is the best thing for your firm and will be using it to control both the overall firm
and its individual divisions. The company is very big and composed of several
interdependent divisions: an iron mining operation, a steel making facility, and a
manufacturing plant that makes knives. Compared to the other operations in the
company, the knife making plant in which you work is pretty small, but its workers are
very proud of the division’s ability to ‘keep their edge’ despite competitive pressure from
new products and technologies from other countries. On the other hand, not much
changes in the other divisions. Maybe the new control approach will get rid of some of
those procedures and the paperwork that seems to be everywhere in the company now.
What advice would you give the President concerning the appropriate control system:
a) for the company? b) for your division? c) for the other two divisions?
(5+5+5)
8.
You are a vice-president in a firm that has been taking a beating in the
marketplace at the hands of hot, new start-ups, that is, young competitors using highly
innovative products to create and capture new markets. You would also like to focus
more on new product innovation, but you are concerned that the existing culture of the
firm is too complacent; no one is ‘hungry’ any more. You’re aware of how both Disney
and McDonalds use culture to ensure that all employees get ‘the message’ and think there
is a role for manipulating culture in your planned turnaround. Using rites & ceremonies,
stories, symbols and language (and your imagination), put together a proposal to your
CEO outlining how you plan to change the culture of the firm so that your employees are
‘hungry’ again.
(15)