SOCIOLOGY 110: FORMAL ORGANIZATIONS & BUREAUCRACY

Professor François Nielsen

Questions sampler

1. Examples of contextual dimensions are:
  1. size, centralization, specialization
  2. size, technology, environment
  3. formalization, centralization, specialization
  4. size, technology, professionalism
2. Among the elements in the industry sector are:
  1. competitors.
  2. employment agencies.
  3. manufacturers.
  4. automation.
3. An organization that has a environment is more likely to need a number of specialized departments that have different cognitive and emotional orientations.
  1. stable
  2. highly uncertain
  3. simple but dynamic
  4. mechanistic
4. During the late 1970s and into the 1980s, power companies were faced with a great deal of uncertainty generated by groups protesting the use of nuclear power. This is an example of the effect of an unstable:
  1. market sector.
  2. sociocultural sector.
  3. technology sector.
  4. government sector.
5. Two comparable size colleges are located in adjacent towns. The admissions counselors of College A have been telling prospective students that College A is better than College B because their latest freshman class has 150 more students than the freshman class at College B. Which effectiveness approach are the admissions counselors of College A using?
  1. internal process
  2. goal
  3. competing values
  4. system resource
6. The Vanguard Corporation has goals of stability and equilibrium. In the competing values approach to effectiveness evaluation, it would be considered to be primarily in which quadrant?
  1. rational goal model
  2. internal process model
  3. open systems model
  4. human relations model
7. Concerning the relationship between technology and structure, one remarkable finding of Joan Woodward was that managers in successful firms usually:
  1. were acutely aware of the structural requirements of their production system
  2. were greatly influenced by the principles of classical management theory
  3. had limited awareness of the structural requirements of their production system
  4. had deliberately adjusted the organizational structure to fit their specific needs
8. Assume you are the supervisor of workers who have received limited training for their jobs and that the work is routine. You would:
  1. be able to handle only a narrow span of control.
  2. use an organic structure.
  3. allow workers to decide how to perform the tasks.
  4. be able to have a wide span of control.

Last modified 9 February 1999