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September 15, 2020

WORKBOOK FOR LECTURE 1 :

INTRODUCTION TO EUROPEAN
BUSINESS

1. ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKBOOK

This workbook is organized into two parts. The first part provides a summary of the
main concepts that were presented in Lecture 1. This summary will help you to
revise these concepts and you can use them for reference purposes during the
different parts of the course.
The second part is practical, and its purpose is to help you and your group apply the
concepts towards analysing and understanding how a real company operates in the
business world.

PART 1 – SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCEPTS FOR LECTURE 1.

Understanding What Businesses Do
A. A business is a profit-seeking organization that provides goods and services
designed to satisfy customers’ needs
1. A company’s business model is an outline of how the business intends to
generate revenue (money received through the sale of goods and services)
2. If revenue exceeds expenses, the business makes a profit
B. Businesses add value for customers by transforming lower-value inputs into
higher-value inputs
1. Businesses seek a competitive advantage that makes its products more
appealing than those of its competitors
2. Businesses make decisions involving some risk in anticipation of receiving
future rewards
C. Major types of businesses
1. Not-for-profit (nonprofit) organizations such as charities, museums, and
most universities do not have a profit motive
2. Goods-producing businesses create value by making tangible or intangible
goods. Goods-producing businesses may be capital-intensive and this may
be a barrier to entry
 3. Service businesses create value by performing activities that deliver some
benefit to customers

II. Making the Leap from Buyer to Seller

A. A business mindset considers decisions to be made and problems to be
overcome before companies can deliver goods/services that satisfy customers’
needs
B. Businesses contribute to society through:
1. Offering valuable goods and services
2. Providing employment
3. Paying taxes
4. Contributing to national growth, stability, and security
C. Businesses can have negative effects on society such as:
1. Generating pollution and creating waste
2. Creating health and safety risks
3. Disrupting communities
4. Causing financial instability

III. Recognizing the Multiple Environments of Business

A. The social environment consists of trends and forces in society at large, such as
population trends
M
1. A company is responsible to its stakeholders (all those groups affected by

g
its activities)
B. The technological environment is comprised of forces resulting from the
practical application of science to innovations, products, and processes
C. The economic environment encompasses conditions and forces that:
T 1. Affect the cost and availability of goods, services, and labour

L 2. Shape the behaviour of buyers and sellers

D. The legal and regulatory environment is comprised of laws and regulations at
local, state, national, and international levels
E. The market environment is composed of:
1. A company’s target customers
2. Buying influences that shape those customers’ behaviours
3. A company’s competitors

2
IV. Identifying the Major Functional Areas in a Business Enterprise
A. Research and development (R&D) is the functional area responsible for
conception and design of products
1. Companies use information technology (IT) systems to promote
communication and information usage
B. Manufacturing, production and/or operations – the functional area charged with
producing the goods and/or services of the company. It includes functions such
as purchasing, logistics, and facilities management
C. Marketing, sales, distribution and customer support – customer-related
functions that provide customers with the right product at the right price and
place, and then make sure customers have needed support and information. The
advent of social media has put buyers on more equal footing with sellers
D. Finance and accounting – responsible for all aspects of a firm’s finances,
including financial planning, monitoring, and reporting
E. Human resources – responsible for the recruitment, hiring, development, and
support of employees
F. Business services – other services performed by in-house staff, external firms, or
a combination of the two in areas such as law, banking, and real estate

V. Exploring Careers in Business

A. Operations Manager/Operations management
B. Human Resources Specialist
C. Information Technology (IT) Manager
D. Marketing Specialist
E. Sales Professional
F. Accountant
G. Financial Manager

VI. Achieving Professionalism

A. Professionalism is the quality of performing at a high level and conducting
oneself with purpose and pride
B. Professionalism encompasses seven traits:
1. Striving to excel
2. Being dependable and accountable
3. Being a team player
4. Communicating effectively

3
 5. Demonstrating etiquette
6. Making ethical decisions
7. Maintaining a confident, positive outlook

PART 2: APPLYING THE CONCEPTS TO THE COMPANY ASSIGNED

TO YOUR GROUP (15 MINUTES)
Your group has been assigned a company that you will study during this practical
session. The group needs to nominate a spokesperson to represent it during the
feedback session which follows.
The name of this company is:
Please answer the questions below in written form after you have checked out this
company’s website.

Questions:
1. What products or services does this organisation provide and who are these
products/services targeted at? Do you think they are doing a good job with
their products/services?
2. How would you describe the business mindset of the company you are
studying? Justify your answer!
3. How is this organisation affected by external factors (e.g. the state of the
economy and the current political context?) and how are they dealing with
these challenges?

4
Date

WORKBOOK FOR LECTURE 2:

UNDERSTANDING BASIC
ECONOMICS

1. ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKBOOK

This workbook is organized into two parts. The first part provides a summary of the
main concepts that were presented in Lecture 2. This summary will help you to
revise these concepts and you can use them for reference purposes during the
different parts of the course.
The second part is practical, and its purpose is to help you and your group apply the
concepts towards analysing and understanding how a real company operates in the
business world.

PART 1 – SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCEPTS FOR LECTURE 2.

I. What Is This Thing Called the Economy?
A. The economy is the sum total of all the economic activity within a given region
B. Economics is the study of how a society uses its scarce resources to produce
and distribute goods and services
1. Microeconomics is the study of economic behavior among consumers,
businesses, and industries that collectively determine the quantity of goods
and services demanded and supplied at different prices
2. Macroeconomics is the study of a country’s larger economic issues, such as
competition, government policies, and how an economy maintains and
allocates its scarce resources
C. Each society must decide how to use its economic resources or factors of
production
1. Natural resources – things that are useful in their natural state (land,
forests, minerals, and water)
2. Human resources – people and their individual talents and capacities
3. Capital – money, computers, machines, tools, and buildings
4. Entrepreneurship – the spirit of innovation, the initiative and the
willingness to take on risks involved in creating/operating a business
 5. Knowledge – the collective intelligence of an organization
C. The supply of these factors of production is limited
1. Scarcity creates competition for resources
2. Scarcity forces consumers, companies, and governments to make trade-offs
a. Opportunity cost is the value of the most attractive option not selected
when making a trade-off

II. Economic Systems

A. An economic system is the basic set of rules for allocating a society’s resources
to satisfy its citizens’ needs
1. Free-market system – individuals and companies decide what products to
produce, how to produce them, to whom to sell them, and at what price
a. Referred to as capitalism – private parties own/operate the majority of
businesses and competition, supply, and demand determine
goods/services produced
b. No economy is without limited intervention by government, creating a
mixed economy or mixed capitalism
2. Planned system – governments largely control allocation of resources
a. Communism is the economic system that allows individuals the least
degree of economic freedom
b. Socialism has a high degree of government planning and some
government ownership of capital resources, but private ownership is
permitted in some industries
3. Governments change structure of economy in two ways:
a. Nationalizing – assuming ownership of selected companies or
industries
b. Privatizing – allowing private businesses to perform services once
performed by the government

III. The Forces of Demand and Supply

A. Demand – buyers’ willingness and ability to purchase products at various price
points
1. The demand curve shows the relationship between price and demand – as
price decreases, demand increases (i.e., more people are willing to buy)
B. Supply – the quantities of a good/service that producers will provide on a
particular date at various prices

2
 1. The supply curve shows the relationship between supply and demand – as
price increases, the quantity that sellers are willing to supply increases
C. Demand and supply curves intersect at equilibrium point – the point at which
quantity supplied equals quantity demanded

IV. The Macro View: Understanding How an Economy Operates

A. Competition is rivalry among businesses for the same customers.
B. There are different degrees of competition
1. Pure competition – the market situation in which there are so many buyers
and sellers that no single buyer or seller can individually influence market
price
2. Monopoly – the market situation in which one company dominates the
market and can control prices
3. Monopolistic competition – the market situation in which there are many
sellers who differentiate their products from those of competitors in at least
some small way
4. Oligopoly – the market situation in which a very small number of suppliers,
sometimes only two, provide a particular good or service
C. Economic activity changes in response to factors such as investment patterns,
shifts in consumer attitudes, world events and basic economic forces – called
economic fluctuation or business cycles
1. Economic expansion – when the economy is growing and consumers are
spending more money
2. Economic contraction – when spending declines, employment drops and the
economy slows down
a. A recession is two consecutive quarters of decline in gross domestic
product
b. A deep and prolonged recession can be considered a depression, a
catastrophic collapse of financial markets
D. Unemployment rate – the percentage of labor force currently without
employment btw jobs can't find market
econ

1. Four types of unemployment – frictional, structural, cyclical, and seasonal

E. Inflation – the steady rise in the average prices of goods and services
throughout the economy
1. Deflation is the sustained fall in average prices

V. Government’s Role in a Free-Market System

3
 A. There is considerable debate over the key roles that governments play in the
economy
1. Regulation involves relying more on laws and policies than on market
forces to govern economic activity
2. Deregulation involves removing laws and regulations to allow the market to
prevent excesses and correct itself over time
B. The government plays a role in the economy in four major areas:
1. Protecting stakeholders through numerous regulatory agencies
2. Fostering competition through prevention of monopolies
a. Antitrust legislation
b. Merger and acquisition approval
3. Encouraging innovation and economic development
4. Stabilizing and stimulating the economy through use of monetary policy and
fiscal policy
a. Monetary policy involves adjusting the nation’s money supply by
increasing or decreasing interest rates. It is administered by the Federal
Reserve Board
b. Fiscal policy involves changes in the government’s revenues (taxation)
and expenditures

VI. Economic Measures and Monitors

A. Economic indicators are statistics such as interest rates, unemployment rates,
housing data and industrial productivity
1. Leading indicators (such as housing starts and durable-goods orders)
suggest changes that may happen to the economy in the future
2. Lagging indicators (such as the unemployment rate) provide confirmation
that something has happened in the past
B. Price indexes offer a way to monitor inflation or deflation
1. The consumer price index (CPI) measures rate of inflation by comparing
change in prices of a representative “basket” of consumer goods and services
2. The producer price index (PPI) is a statistical measure of price trends at
the producer and wholesaler levels
C. The gross domestic product (GDP) is the value of all the final goods and
services produced by businesses located within a nation’s borders.

4
PART 2: APPLYING THE CONCEPTS TO THE COMPANY ASSIGNED
TO YOUR GROUP (30 MINUTES)
Your group has been assigned a company that you will study during this practical
session. The group needs to nominate a spokesperson to represent it during the
feedback session which follows. For this particular workshop, however, the
questions will also concern companies in general, as well as the company
under study.
Write the name of your company here :
Please answer the questions below in written form.

Questions:
1. Why is it important for businesspeople to understand economic
issues at both macro and micro levels?
2. Identify the economic resources available to your company and
explain how you think they developed and managed?
3. Can companies successfully respect both prosperity and
sustainability objectives or is there inevitably a trade-off between
the two?
4. Why do governments intervene in free-market systems?
5. Comment on some of the positive and negative effects of the
coronavirus on the company you are studying?

5
Date

WORKBOOK FOR LECTURE 3:

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SMALL
BUSINESS

1. ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKBOOK

This workbook is organized into two parts. The first part provides a summary of the
main concepts that were presented in Lecture 3. This summary will help you to
revise these concepts and you can use them for reference purposes during the
different parts of the course.
The second part is practical, and its purpose is to help you and your group apply the
concepts towards analysing and understanding how a real company operates in the
business world.

PART 1 – SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCEPTS FOR LECTURE 3.

THE BIG WORLD OF SMALL BUSINESS

A. A small business is an independently owned and operated company that
employs fewer than 500 people and is not dominant in its field
B. The roles of small business include:
1. Providing jobs
2. Introducing new products and innovation
3. Supplying the needs of larger organizations
4. Injecting money into the economy
5. Taking risks that larger companies avoid
6. Providing specialized goods and services
C. There are different types of small businesses
1. Lifestyle businesses are built around the personal and financial needs of an
individual or family; these businesses will likely remain small
2. High-growth ventures are small because they are young but have plans to
expand rapidly
D. Factors contributing to the increase in the number of small businesses include:
 1. E-commerce, social media, and other technologies
2. Growing diversity in entrepreneurship
3. Downsizing and outsourcing

II. Entrepreneurhip
A What is Entrepreneurship
• The science of designing a social artifact
• Turning an idea into a business
• Search for change, find solutions to social problems, exploit it as an
opportunity to create value
• a way of thinking and acting, imagining new ways to solve problems and
create value
B Opportunity
1. Definition: An opportunity is a favorable set of circumstances that creates a
need for a new product, service, or business.
2. Four essential qualities: attractive, timely, durable, anchored in a
product/service/business that creates or add values to the buyer or end user.
3. Opportunities exist and some entrepreneurs successfully exploit them (Shane
& Venkataraman)
4. Entrepreneurs create opportunities (Sarasvathy)
C Managerial thinking (Causation) versus Entrepreneurial thinking (Effectuation)
1. Causal logic: selecting between given means to achieve given goals. Goal
driven. “To the extent we can predict the future, we can control it”. Works well
when uncertainty is low. Works well in exploitation and optimisation when
you have specific goals. Necessity paradigm (you have to do …)
2. Effectual logic: imagining possible new ends using a given set of means.
Means driven. “To the extent that we can control the future, we do not need to
predict it” Works well when uncertainty is high. Works well in exploration
when you have no specific goals or a vague vision. Sufficiency paradigm (you
can do …) → no
given goal .

D Effectuation 5 principles
Sarasvathy has define a heuristic of the entrepreneurial mindset et 5 principles
which drive entrepreneurs’ actions.
1. Means (Bird in hand): Start with Who you are, What you know, and Whom
you know
2. Affordable loss (focus on the downside): Invest what you can afford to lose –
extreme case $0
3. Cocreation (crazy quilt): Build a network of self-selected stakeholders

2
 4. Leverage Contingencies (Lemonade): Embrace and Leverage surprises,
contingencies, failures
5. World view (pilot in the plane): The future comes from what people do

III. The Entrepreneurial Spirit and Mindset

A. The entrepreneurial spirit is the positive, forward-thinking desire to create
profitable, sustainable business enterprises
B. People start their own businesses for a variety of reasons, including wanting
more control over their futures, being tired of working for others, and being
unable to find employment
C. Qualities shared by successful entrepreneurs include curiosity, welcome and
create change, resourceful, self-discipline, comfortable with ambiguity, an ability
to learn from mistakes and risk-taking, a passion for work and knowing their
customers, a perspective that doesn’t measure success in strictly financial terms
D. Common myths about entrepreneurship are deconstructed thanks to
effectuation 5 principles. There are not super heroes!
E. There’s a continuous dialogue between the entrepreneurial project and the
team, their means per the effectuation definition of means as well as value
creation and transformation of the team.
F. Intrapreneurship designates entrepreneurial efforts within a larger
organization. Also known as corporate entrepreneurship, one can look at
entrepreneurial intensity of an organization to understand their position on the
continuum that ranges from highly conservative to highly entrepreneurial.

IV. The Start-Up Phase: Planning and Launching a New Business

A. There are three options to starting a business:
1. Creating a new, independent business
2. Buying an existing independent business
3. Buying into a franchise system
B. There are pros and cons to the three options to starting a business. It really
depends on what the entrepreneur wants to build, once again, it relies on
his/her means (who I am).
V. The Growth Phase: Nurturing and Sustaining a Young Business
A. Many new businesses fail each year for a variety of reasons. Advice and support
is available from a wide variety of sources, including:
1. Government agencies and not-for-profit organizations, such as the Small
Business Administration (SBA), Minority Business Development Agency, the

3
 Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), colleges and universities, and
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
2. Banks, credit card companies, and software companies
3. Mentors and advisory boards
a. An advisory board is a team of people with subject-area expertise or
vital contacts who help a business owner review plans and decisions
4. Print and online media, including blogs written by business owners and
investors, as well as websites for business magazines
5. Networks and support groups
6. Business incubators – facilities that house small businesses and provide
support service during the company’s early growth phase

VI. Financing Options for Small Businesses

A. Small businesses have a variety of resources available to them in financing their
ventures
B. The first infusion of capital in a business is called seed money
C. Private financing is a broad term encompassing every source of funding except
selling stocks and bonds and includes:
1. Banks and microlenders
a. A microlender is an organization that lends smaller amounts of money
to business owners who may not otherwise qualify for conventional
bank loans
2. Venture capitalists (VCs) provide money to finance new businesses or
turnarounds in exchange for a portion of ownership, with the objective of
reselling the business at a profit
3. Angel investors are private individuals who invest money in start-ups
usually earlier in a business’s life and in smaller amounts than venture
capitalists
4. Personal credit cards and personal lines of credit
5. Small Business Administration assistance
D. Going public, in which a company offers shares of ownership to the public
1. The first time a company offers its stock for sale is known as an initial
public offering (IPO) or “going public”
E. Crowdfunding – combines elements of public and private financing
1. Kickstarter and such sites focus on individual projects or charitable endeavors
2. Crowdfunder, Indiegogo, and other such sites help business owners raise
money to launch or expand companies
4
VII. The Franchise Alternative
A. An entrepreneur who does not want to start up an independent business can
buy a franchise, in which s/he buys the right to use a company’s trade name and
sell its goods or services in a specific territory
1. The franchisor is the parent company that licenses elements of its business
systems
2. The franchisee is the small business owner who contracts to sell the goods
and services in exchange for an initial start-up fee and royalties based on
sales volume
B. There are three basic types of franchises:
1. Product franchise
2. Manufacturing franchise
3. Business-format franchise
C. Franchising has advantages and disadvantages, and it is important to carefully
research a franchising opportunity

PART 2: APPLYING THE CONCEPTS TO THE COMPANY ASSIGNED

TO YOUR GROUP (30 MINUTES)
Your group has been assigned a company that you will study during this practical
session. The group needs to nominate a spokesperson to represent it during the
feedback session which follows.
Write the name of your company here:
Study its life history and answer the questions below in written form. Focus on the
business mindset present in the company!

Questions:
1. How did the company you are studying begin its life?
2. Was there a specific opportunity on the market that contributed to
its creation? If so, comment on the nature of this opportunity!
3. Who was responsible for its creation and how would you
characterize the company’s entrepreneurial mindset at the time?
Can you find any present-day evidence of this mindset?
4. How have the company’s products/services evolved over time? What
are the major differences between its initial product / service and its
offer today?

5
 5. The risk of failure is an inherent part of free enterprise. Does society
have an obligation to come to the aid of entrepreneurs who try but
fail? Why or why not?

6
 Date

WORKBOOK FOR LECTURE 4:

ORGANISATIONS AND THEIR
SUPPLIERS: DISCOVERING
OPERATION MANAGEMENT
Organization of the workbook
This workbook is organized into two parts. The first part provides a summary of the
main concepts that were presented in Lecture 4. This summary will help you to
revise these concepts and you can use them for reference purposes during the
different parts of the course.
The second part is practical, and its purpose is to help you and your group apply the
concepts towards analysing and understanding how a real company operates in the
business world.

PART 1 – SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCEPTS FOR LECTURE 4.

I. The Systems View of Business
A. Business can be viewed from a systems perspective. A system is an
interconnected and coordinated set of elements and processes that convert
inputs to desired outputs
B. A company is made up of numerous subsystems (i.e., marketing, accounting,
manufacturing, etc.) that constitute the overall system of the company
C. Seven principles of systems thinking that can help managers for peak
performance are:
1. Help employees see how they contribute to the overall goal
2. Understand how individual systems work and how they interact
3. Understand problems before fixing them, and focus on things that are
meaningful, not simply measurable
4. Understand the potential impact of solutions before implementing them
5. Do not move problems from one subsystem to another without fixing them
6. Understand how feedback works in a system
7. Use mistakes as opportunities to learn and improve
II. Operations(production)
A. Activities involved in making products — goods and services — for customers
1. Activities involved in making products — goods and services — for
customers
 B. Generic production systems
1. Inputs combined with a network of activities and buffers and the available
resources provide the outputs
2. Decisions such as: which kind of assets, how many, where and when will be
used must be made taking into consideration the Capital and Labor
Markets
3. Operations strategy must decide the value chain boundaries; what assets
decisions are and what process decisions will be

III. Business strategy and operations capabilities

A. Value=Capabilities(Assets+Processes) - A good operating systems ensures alignment across
VCAP
B. Operations capability: special ability that production does especially well to
outperform the competition
C. Different value propositions require different capabilities

I
1. Generic dimensions of “capabilities”
1. Quality advantage: doing things right
2. Speed advantage: doing things fast
3. doing things on-timeDependability: advantage
4. Flexibility advantage: being able to change what you do
5. Cost advantage: doing things productively
D. Productivity - The efficiency with which an organization can convert inputs to
outputs
E. Lean systems
1. Definition: Systems (in manufacturing and other functional areas) that
maximize productivity by reducing waste and delays.
2. Just-in-Time (JIT) Production- Type of lean production system that
brings together all materials at the precise time they are required at each
production stage

IV. Process performance

A. Operations capability: special ability that production does especially well to
outperform the competition
B. Operations management in the service sector faces a number of unique
challenges, including:
1. Perishability – services are consumed at the same time they are produced
and cannot exist before or after that time
2. Location constraints – services, customers, and providers need to be in the
same place at the same time
3. Scalability – the potential to increase production by expanding or replicating
initial production capacity
4. Performance variability and perceptions of quality – the quality of services is
often subjective
5. Customer involvement and provider interaction – the interpersonal
experience affects customer perception of quality
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 C. Process layout
D. Three dimensions of process performance
1. Work-in-process Inventory (WIP)
2. Throughput Time (TPT)
3. Throughput rate
4. Little’s law: Inventory (WIP) = Throughput Rate (R) * Throughput Time (T)
E. More definitions to characterize a process

:
1. Cycle time
2. Idle time
3. Queuing time
4. Value-added time
5. Set-up time
6. Bottleneck
7. – services are consumed at the same time they are produced and cannot
exist before or after that time
F. Postponement and modularity
1. Delay as late the customization
2. Modularity in the process
G. Industry 4.0

V. Supply Chain Management

A. A supply chain is a set of connected systems that coordinates the flow of goods
and materials from suppliers through to final customers
B. Supply chain management (SCM) combines business procedures and policies
with information systems that integrate the various elements of the supply chain
into a cohesive system
C. Benefits of SCM include:
1. Managing risks from costs and availability to health and safety issues
2. Coordinating relationships in the supply chain
3. Addressing trade-offs and balancing competing interests of functional areas
4. Promoting sustainability (i.e., resource usage, waste, and environmental
impact)
D. Supply chain and value chain are not interchangeable terms
1. The supply chain is the part of the value chain that acquires and manages
goods and services needed to produce the company’s products
E. SCM encompasses the following functions:
1. Inventory control – determining the right quantities of supplies and
products to have in inventory (goods and materials kept in stock for
production or sale)
2. Procurement – the acquisition of raw materials, parts, components,
supplies, and finished products required to produce goods and services.
3
 Systems and techniques used to ensure that the company has what it needs
when it needs them include:

1
a. Materials requirement planning (MRP)
b. Manufacturing resource planning (MRP II)
c. Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

VI. Production and Operations Management

A. Production and operations management oversees all the activities involved in
producing goods and services
B. It encompasses the following functions:
1. Lean systems are systems in manufacturing and other functional areas that
maximize productivity by reducing waste and delays
a. Productivity is the efficiency with which a company can convert inputs
to outputs
b. Lean systems rely on just-in-time (JIT) inventory management, in which
goods and materials are delivered throughout the production process
right before they are needed
2. Depending on the nature of the product and desires of target customers,
goods and services can be created through:
a. Mass production – the creation of identical goods or services, usually in
large quantities
b. Customized production – the creation of a unique good or service for
each customer
c. Mass customization – a manufacturing approach in which part of the
product is mass produced and the remaining features are customized for
each buyer
3. Facilities location and design (factory layout), determining the arrangement
of production work centers and other elements
4. Forecasting and capacity planning – establishing the overall level of
resources needed to meet customer demand
5. Scheduling – determining how long each operation takes and deciding which
tasks are done in which order. Tools used in this function include:
a. Master production schedule (MPS) to coordinate production of goods
b. Gantt charts to show the progress of tasks needed to complete a project
c. Program evaluation and review technique (PERT) chart to identify the
optimal sequencing of activities

4
 i. The sequence of operations that requires the longest time to
complete is known as the critical path
C. Outsourcing allows companies to focus on core competencies and contract out
other functions or operations to other companies
D. A variation of outsourcing is known as offshoring, in which a company transfers
a part or all of a business function to a facility in another country in pursuit of
lower costs
VII. Product and Process Quality
A. Quality is the degree to which a product or process meets reasonable or agreed-
upon expectations
B. Operations management must define those expectations and then organize
resources and systems to achieve that level, and this becomes more difficult with
the increasing complexity of products
C. The traditional means of maintaining quality is quality control – measuring
quality against established standards after the good or service has been
produced and weeding out defective products
1. Quality assurance is a more comprehensive and proactive approach of
company policies, practices, and procedures designed to ensure that every
product meets quality standards
2. Major tools and strategies for ensuring product quality are:
a. Continuous improvement
b. Statistical process control (SPC), which involves the use of random
sampling and tools such as control charts to monitor the production
process
c. Six Sigma – a rigorous quality management program that strives to
eliminate deviations between the actual and desired performance of a
business system
d. ISO 9000 – a globally recognized family of standards for quality
management systems
e. ISO 14000 – a globally recognized family of standards for a firm which
has improved its environmental performance
f. Business Process Reengineering – rethinking and radical redesign of
business processes to improve performance, quality, and productivity

5
PART 2: APPLYING THE CONCEPTS TO THE COMPANY ASSIGNED
TO YOUR GROUP (30 MINUTES)
Your group has been assigned a company that you will study during this practical
session. The group needs to nominate a spokesperson to represent it during the
feedback session which follows.
Write the name of your company here :

Questions:
1. Can you explain how the supply chain management system works in the
company under study?
2. Does the company’s SCM help to establish a competitive advantage? Justify your
answer!
3. What are the challenges of delivering services as opposed to traditionally
manufactured products?
4. Does the company under study practice offshoring? If so, what ethical issues can
be identified?
5. How does our society’s concern for respecting the environment affect a
company’s decision about where to build factories?

6
Date

WORKBOOK FOR LECTURE 6:

INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING

1. ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKBOOK

This workbook is organized into two parts. The first part provides a summary of the
main concepts that were presented in Lecture 3. This summary will help you to
revise these concepts and you can use them for reference purposes during the
different parts of the course.
The second part is practical, and its purpose is to help you and your group apply the
concepts towards analysing and understanding how a real company operates in the
business world.

PART 1 – SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCEPTS FOR LECTURE 6.

INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING

1. DEFINITIONS OF MARKETING
A. What is marketing?
1. Definition by Philip Kotler
 Marketing is a process by which companies:
o Create value for customers
o Build strong relationship
o And capture value from customer in return

2. Definition by the American Marketing Association (AMA)

 Marketing is the activity
o conducted by organizations and individuals, that operates
through a set of institutions and processes
o for creating, communicating, delivering,
o and exchanging market offerings that have value broaden
→
o for customers, clients, marketers, and society at large. community rather
than focused
 Society at large reflect the shift to a more societal marketing concept.
on profit
.
B. What can be marketed?
1. For long Marketing was about product marketing
2. In today’s world, marketing offering go far more beyond products and
include services, events or experiences
3. We now talk about 10 main entities:
 Goods
 Services
 Events
 Experience
 Persons
 Places
 Properties
 Organizations
 Information
 Ideas

C. A brief History of marketing

1. Marketing concept exists since the very first transaction human made
2. Marketing have undergone significant transformation while adapting the
evolution of the society
3. The 4 eras of marketing
 The production era (up to 1930): is characterized by mass production.
Business held the position of power over the customer
 The sales era (1930 to 1950): is characterized by more focused
promotional effort. Customer’s wants and needs became important.
 The Marketing era (1950 to 60) is characterized by the importance of
building meaningful customer relationship. The purpose of the company
is no longer to manufacture a variety of product. > satisfy customer
 The Relationship era (From 1960) is characterized by a fundamental
shift. The aim of the marketing concept is to establish long term and
satisfying relations with customer, in order to foster loyalty.
4. Focus on the last 20 years
 Connectivity changes the rule. Marketing concept is transforming in
response of this new dynamic environment.
 Technology change the way marketers work, due to:
o Fast development of the internet

o Cheap computers and mobiles phone

2
 o The rise of social media (twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok
…)
 Marketers no longer have the control over their brand as they are
competing with the collective power of customers.

5. Challenges for tomorrow

 The war for the customer attention, with the proliferation of media
(traditional + digital)
 Meet the expectations of customer: organizations must offer more
transparency f they want their customer to trust them.
 Emergence of a societal marketing concept, which take into
consideration human well-being, and environmental preservation
 Being adaptable, agile: marketers must be able to rethink their strategy
in an unpredictable environment.

2. CORE MARKETING CONCEPTS

A. Needs, wants and demands
1. Needs
 Is a state of felt deprivation
 Can be physical (hunger), or about safety, love, belonging (i.e Maslow
pyramid of needs)
2. Wants: The form human needs take, shaped by culture and individual
personality
3. Demands: when an individual wants something premium, and has the ability
to buy it, the wants is concerted in demands
4. Desire is the basic difference between wants and demands
5. Needs, wants and demands vary by target market, cultural and social norms.

B. The customer perceived value (CPV):

 is the difference between the prospective customer’s evaluation of all the
benefits and all the costs of an offering and the perceived alternatives
(Kotler and Kelly)
 Perceived benefits: products benefits, service benefits, relational
benefits, image benefits (…)
 Perceived costs:
 Customer perceived value is the net sum of real or perceived benefits
minus real or perceived costs, changing any of these modify the CPV.

3
  Marketers usually create value increasing the value of the customer
offering by some combination of raising functional or emotional benefits
and/or reducing one or more various types of costs.

C. Different types of value

1. Utilitarian value: a value derived from a product or service that helps the
customer solve problems and accomplish a task.
2. Hedonic value: hedonic value looks at the product’s ability in creating
experiences, feelings and emotions of its users.
3. Symbolic value: is what a product or a service can tell about you to others
4. Psychological value – is what a product or a service can do to comfort the
customer from external or internal threats.

3. THE MARKETING PLANNING PROCESS

A. The marketing planning process
1. is the central instrument for directing and coordinating the
marketing effort.
2. It operates at both a strategic and a tactical level
 The strategic level: lays out the target market and the CPV offering
the firm will offer, based on an analysis of the best markets
opportunity with the marketing research stage.
 Tactical: refers to the marketing tactic 4P’s
3. It involves three steps:
 Market research and analysis: Examining the current market
situation, including reviewing past performance, evaluating the
competition, examining internal strengths and weaknesses, and
analyzing the external environment
 Marketing Strategy: the overall plan for marketing a product. It
involves 3 steps: segmenting the market, choosing target markets
and establishing a clear positioning in the mind of your customer.
 Marketing Mix: is the tactical declination of the marketing strategy.
It consists of four key elements: product, price, place and promotion
B. Marketing Research and analysis
 This goal of this stage is to provide the marketer with information about
prospective and existing customers, the competition, and the industry in
general
 Market research provides relevant data to help solve marketing
challenges.
 Market research involves two types of data:

4
 o Primary data: information you collect yourself by going directly
to a source, for example survey or focus group $ but determining results .

o Secondary data: include reports and studies by government

agencies, trade associations or other businesses within your
industry (…)
 the next step is analysis, starting with a SWOT analysis for instance

C. The marketing strategy

1. Is the overall plan for marketing a product. It involves 3 steps: segmenting the
market, choosing target markets and establishing a clear positioning in the mind of
your customer STP process

2. Segmenting the market

 A market is the group of customers who want or need a particular product
and have the money to buy it.
 Market segmentation is the process of dividing the market into smaller
groups with similar needs, wants and purchase behaviors.
 A market can be segmented in 4 basic ways:
o Demographics – the statistical analysis of a population

o Psychographics – categorizing customers based on their

psychological makeup, interests and lifestyles
o Geographic segmentation – categorizing customers according to their
geographic location
o Behavioral segmentation – grouping customers according to their
relationship with products or response to product characteristics

3. Choosing target markets

 After the market has been segmented, marketers will decide on its target
markets - specific customer groups or segments to which the company wants
to sell its products.
 There are four strategies for reaching the target market:
o Undifferentiated marketing (mass marketing) - utilizing the same
strategy for all potential buyers i. e easyjet
.

o Differentiated marketing – tailoring the marketing mix for each

customer group

o Concentrated marketing – focusing on only a single market segment

o Micromarketing (individual) marketing – targeting a single mark

can also be local .

5
 4. Establishing a clear positioning:
 After deciding on its target market, the company focuses on positioning
 Positioning is the act of designing the company’s offering and image to
occupy a distinctive place on the mind of the target market.
 A strong positioning is the way you differentiate yourself from your
competitors cursed believable , benefit driven , differentiating,
 It is expressed with a positioning statement, which helps to make this communicable,
perception clear and positive in the mind of the customer.
enduring .

D. Marketing Mix → tactical part

 The marketing mix consists of four elements of the marketing strategy:
product, price, distribution (place) and promotion (now often called
“customer communication”)
 Product is defined as the bundle of value that satisfies a customer need
or want
 Price is the amount of money charged for a product or service, and is
affected by numerous factors, including marketing objectives,
government regulations, production costs, customer perceptions,
competition, and customer demand
 Distributions channels are the systems for moving goods and services
from producers to customers. These channels include marketing
intermediaries such as wholesalers and retailers
 Promotion – all the activities a firm undertakes to promote its products
to the customers. Goals include informing, persuading, and reminding

PART 2: APPLYING THE CONCEPTS TO THE COMPANY ASSIGNED

TO YOUR GROUP (30 MINUTES)
Your group has been assigned a company that you will study during this practical
session. The group needs to nominate a spokesperson to represent it during the
feedback session which follows.
Write the name of your company here:
Study its life history and answer the questions below in written form. Focus on the
business mindset present in the company!

6
Questions:

a. Describe your company’s market. How did the company segment its
market?

b. Which market targeting strategy was selected by your company?

And why?

c. How does your company communicate with its customers?

d. Is there still need for traditional marketing techniques in a digital

world? Why or why not?

e. What external environmental factors affect strategic marketing

decision? And what are the consequences for the marketing
strategy?

7
Date

WORKBOOK FOR LECTURE 10:

MANAGEMENT ROLES,
FUNCTIONS AND SKILLS

1. Organization of the workbook

This workbook is organized into two parts. The first part provides a summary of the
main concepts that were presented in Lecture 8. This summary will help you to
revise these concepts and you can use them for reference purposes during the
different parts of the course.
The second part is practical, and its purpose is to help you and your group apply the
concepts towards analysing and understanding how a real company operates in the
business world.

PART 1 – SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCEPTS FOR LECTURE 10.

1. I. THE ROLES OF MANAGEMENT

A. Management is the process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to
meet organizational goals
B. Managerial roles are the behavioral patterns and activities involved in carrying
out the functions of management, and include thee major categories:
1. Interpersonal roles – providing leadership to employees, building
relationships, and acting as a liaison both inside and outside the company
2. Informational roles – gathering information from sources both inside and
outside the organization and disseminating information to employees, other
managers, and other stakeholders
3. Decisional roles – making both routine and non-routine decisions that affect
the organization -
sometimes use of AI
>

to avoid information overload

→ executive dashboards

II. The Planning Function

A. Planning involves establishing objectives and goals for an organization and
determining the best ways to accomplish them
 B. Strategic planning establishes the actions and resource allocation required
to accomplish the company’s long-range strategic goals and encompasses six
steps:
1. Defining the company’s mission statement, vision statement, and values
statement
a. The mission statement is a brief statement of why the organization
exists and what it aims to accomplish for customers, investors, and
other stakeholders
b. The vision statement is a brief, inspirational expression of what a
company aspires to be
c. The values statement identifies the principles that guide the
company’s decisions and behaviors
2. The company must also have a clear assessment of its strengths and
weaknesses relative to the opportunities and threats it faces. This is
accomplished through a SWOT analysis
a. Strengths are positive internal factors that contribute to the
company’s success
b. Weaknesses are negative internal factors that inhibit the company’s
success
c. Opportunities are positive situations that represent the possibility of
generating new revenue
d. Threats are negative forces that could inhibit a firm’s ability to
intuitive
achieve its objectives
→
historical data
→ judgments
3. Managers need to develop quantitative and qualitative forecasts that
predict what will occur, when it will occur, and how it will affect the
business
4. In order to understand the company’s competitors, it should also
perform a SWOT analysis on each of its major competitors
5. The company then needs to establish goals and objectives
a. A goal is a broad, long-range target or aim
b. An objective is a specific, short-range target or aim
c. Goals should be SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant,
and time limited
6. Once the strategic goals and objectives have been established,
management needs to develop action plans to reach them

III. The Organizing Function
A. Organizing is the process of arranging resources to carry out an organization’s
plans
2
 B. There are three levels of management in a typical corporate hierarchy, known as
the management pyramid. The levels of management are:
1. Top managers are those at the highest level of the organization. They are
responsible for setting strategic goals and take overall responsibility for an
organization
2. Middle managers develop plans to implement the goals of top managers
and coordinate the work of first-line managers
3. First-line managers (also known as supervisory managers) are at the
lowest level of the management hierarchy. They supervise the work of
nonmanagerial (operational) employees and implement the plans set at
higher management levels

IV. The Leading Function
A. Leading is the process of guiding and motivating people to work toward
organizational goals
B. Effective leaders possess a balance of three types of intelligence:
1. Cognitive intelligence – reasoning, problem solving, memorization, and other
rational skills
2. Emotional intelligence – a person’s awareness of and ability to manage his or
her own emotions
3. Social intelligence – an ability to understand the dynamics of social situations
and the emotions of other people
C. There are three basic leadership styles or types:
1. Autocratic leaders control the decision making process in their
organizations and restrict the decision-making freedom of subordinates
2. Democratic leaders delegate authority and involve employees in decision-
making. This style is often called participative management
3. Laissez-faire leaders leave most decisions up to employees, particularly
those concerning day-to-day matters and emphasize employee
empowerment – granting decision-making and problem-solving authorities
to employees so they can act without first obtaining approval from
management
D. Managers must also assume responsibility for education and encouragement.
This can take two forms:
1. Coaching involves helping employees reach their highest potential by
meeting with them, discussing problems that hinder their ability to work
effectively, and offering suggestions and encouragement
2. Mentoring is a process in which experienced managers guide less-
experienced managers by serving as role models

3
 D. Managing change:
1. Identify everything that needs to change
2. Identify the forces acting for and against a change
3. Choose the approach best suited to the situation
E. Establishing a productive organizational culture – the set of shared values and
norms that support the management system and guide management and
employee behavior

V. The Controlling Function
A. Controlling is the management function of measuring progress against goals
and objectives and correcting deviations if results are not as expected.
B. The control cycle is a four-step process:
1. The first step is establishing standards (the criteria against which
performance will be measured).
a. One common approach to setting standards is benchmarking, in which
a company’s key performance attributes are compared with industry
leaders
b. One of the most important performance variables is quality – a measure
of how closely a product conforms to predetermined standards and
customer expectations
2. The second step of the control cycle involves assessing performance using
both quantitative and qualitative performance measures
a. A balanced scorecard monitors performance from multiple
perspectives, the growth and development of employees and intellectual
property
3. The third step is comparing performance with established standards
4. In the fourth step, managers need to take corrective action to improve
performance
C. Managers must also plan how the company can respond to possible events,
including crisis management – establishing procedures and systems for
minimizing harm that might result from unusually threatening situations
1. A crisis management plan should contain both contingency plans and
communication plans

4
 VI. Essential Management Skills
A. Managers should possess four types of skills to be effective in the organization
1. Interpersonal skills – the ability to understand other people and interact
with them effectively
2. Technical skills – the knowledge and ability to perform the tasks required
in a particular job. This category includes administrative skills, which are
the technical skills in information gathering, data analysis, planning, and
organizing
3. Conceptual skills – the ability to visualize organizations, systems, markets,
and solutions both as complete entities and as interrelated pieces of a whole
4. Decision-making skills – the ability to define problems and opportunities,
identify and develop options, analyze the options, select the best option, and
implement the decision

PART 2: APPLYING THE CONCEPTS TO THE COMPANY ASSIGNED

TO YOUR GROUP (30 MINUTES)
New rules apply from now on. READ BELOW
Lecture groups are dismantled. All the questions below have to be prepared
individually.
Be prepared to do a quizz at the beginning of the class. The questions will be on the
content of the lecture from the video. The results will be added to the list of grades
accumulated during the lecture sessions.
The questions don’t require a written preparation, I won’t ask you to send it to me
after the class. It’s up to each of you to come prepared with arguments and examples
to enrich the debate during the class. Some questions are embed in the videos.
The objective of this work is for you to prepare for the final exam.

Questions:
1. Based on your understanding of the company you chose, who
provides the most leadership for its present and future strategies?
2. Imagine that one member in your group works in the Sales
Department of the company under study. You are the youngest
member in the department and you just got promoted to department
manager. What steps would you take to make sure all your
employees have confidence in your management and leadership?
3. Apart from meeting the company’s future talent needs, do managers
have a personal, ethical obligation to help their employees develop
and advance in their careers? Explain your answer.

5
 4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of the 3
leaderhip styles and when each style is most effective
5. Based on what you learnt on the project you’re working on in the
seminar, what similarities and what differences do you see in the
management roles described in this lecture?

6
Roles of management

- Interpersonal roles
- Informational roles
- Decisional roles

Planning function - Strategic planning 6 steps

- Defining statements (VMV)
- SWOT analysis
- Quantitative + qualitative forecast
- SWOT of competitors
- Goals + Objectives
- Development of action plan

Organizing Function- Management pyramid

- Top managers
- Middle managers
- First-line managers

Leading function

Leaders have different intelligences:

- Cognitive
- Emotional
- Social

Leaderships styles:
- Autocratic
- Democratic —> Participative management
- Laissez-faire —> employee empowerment
Responsibility for education and encouragement:
- Coaching
- Mentoring

Managing change
- Identify what needs change
- Identify forces in favor and against
- Choose best suited option

Build a positive organizational culture: (set of values

shared by members)
Can be negative and positive.

The Controlling Function

Controlling:
- measuring process
- correcting deviations

Control cycle:
- Establish standards: Benchmarking, quality
- Assessing performance: qualitative and quantitative
- Comparing performance
- Take corrective actions

Crisis management:
- Contingency plan
- Communication plan

Essential Management Skills

- Interpersonal skills
- Technical skills: administrative skills
- Conceptual skills
- Decision-making skills
Date

WORKBOOK FOR LECTURE 11:

ORGANIZATION AND TEAMWORK

1. Organization of the workbook

This workbook is organized into two parts. The first part provides a summary of the
main concepts that were presented in Lecture 8. This summary will help you to
revise these concepts and you can use them for reference purposes during the
different parts of the course.
The second part is practical, and its purpose is to help you and your group apply the
concepts towards analysing and understanding how a real company operates in the
business world.

PART 1 – SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCEPTS FOR LECTURE 11.

I. DESIGNING AN EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE
A. A company’s organization structure is the framework that enables managers to
divide responsibilities, ensure employee accountability, and distribute decision-
making authority
1. To design the organization’s structure, managers use an organization chart,
a visual representation of how employees and tasks are grouped and where
lines of communication and authority flow
2. The goal of many companies today is establishing an agile organization, one
in which company structure, policies, and capabilities allow employees to
respond quickly to customer needs and changes in the business environment
software delpees -

B. Designing the most effective structure for the organization involves:

1. Determining which functions need to be done in-house and which functions
can be outsourced
a. A company’s core competencies are those activities that the company
considers central and vital to its business
2. Identifying job responsibilities and determining the most appropriate level
of work specialization – the degree to which organizational tasks are
broken down into separate jobs division of labor .

3. Defining the chain of command – the lines of authority that connect the
various groups and levels within the organization. Two basic types:
c
 a. Line organization – a system that establishes a clear line of authority
flowing from the top down
is it just more b. Line-and-staff organization – a system that has a clear chain of
command but also includes functional groups of people who provide
detailed ?
advice and specialized services
a
part
or 4. Establishing the span of management – the number of people under one’s
manager’s control; this is also called the span of control
> mid
← a. In a flat organization, there are fewer levels of management but each
reduce time of manager is responsible for more employees ( GDmanagers
knowledge
but → time of individual man w/ employee
decision making b. In a tall organization, there are more layers of management, with each
↳ closer contact w/ manager responsible for fewer people ①
customers 5. Determining decision-making authority
a. Centralization is the concentration decision-making authority at the top
* leader

Styles { levels of the organization

Brggiaaeaeuacaphw.ngatecaone.fi
b. Decentralization is the delegation of decision-making authority to
employees in lower level positions in the organization
Yes .

$ A span
stimulate responsiveness t Ys ⇒
lost knowledge
II. ORGANIZING THE WORKFORCE
A. The arrangement of activities into logical groups that are then clustered into
larger departments and units to form the total organization is known as
departmentalization
B. Departmentalization typically occurs in one of four ways: functional, divisional,
matrix, or network
1. A functional structure groups employees according to their similar skills,
resource use, and expertise; i.e., research and development, marketing and
scale career path
sales, human resources economies og '
° cultural
dip expertise silos ettect =p b collab
•

structural
2. A divisional structure groups departments according to similarities in G. cross functional teams
product, process, customer, or geography. Each division encompasses all the
major functional resources (research and design, manufacturing, finance,
to change
and marketing) required to achieve its goals react quickly
P $ i. HR -

focus narrow goals

on e .
own

3. A matrix structure is one in which employees are assigned to both a

functional group and a project team, thus using functional and divisional
=/ functor ? Tam deep limited resources
patterns simultaneously ?
complex matrix management ; @ count
4. A network structure is one in which individual companies are connected
electronically to perform selected tasks for a small headquarters
organization
~> outsourcing .

I $

virtual org
°

p flexibility read

thempetitioned
vulnerable beyond control .

direct camper 2
outsourcing → lack of originality .
 III. ORGANIZING IN TEAMS
A. A team is a unit of two or more people who work together to achieve a shared
goal I work
groups
B. There are several types of teams: depends on
goals +
objectives
1. A problem-solving team is assembled to find ways to improve quality,
efficiency and/or the work environment, and disbands after presenting or
implementing the solution → pb =3 See → quality
less prod 2. A self-managed team is one in which members are responsible for an entire 45$
process or operation and requires minimal supervision select members
greens depends
agile ego
fast decision
will work
of 3. A functional team is one whose members come from a single functional flexibility
department. The structure typically follows the formal chain of command
vertical
4. A cross-functional team draws together employees from different horizontal
functional areas. It can take on several roles, including:
vulnerable conflict
a. A task force, which is formed to work on a specific activity within a need leader
specified period of time shop .

b. A committee that may be a permanent part of the organization and deals

with regularly recurring tasks
emotional isda
5. A virtual team uses communication technology to bring together
-

difficult to
geographically distant employees take actions to compensate
agile
outsourcing
.

C. Social networking and virtual communities are redefining teamwork and team
communication by facilitating communication and erasing the constraints of
geographic and organizational boundaries
1. Companies may use social networking technologies to form virtual
communities or communities of practice

IV. ENSURING TEAM PRODUCTIVITY
A. The use of teams within an organization has several advantages, including:
1. Higher-quality decisions boldness learning opportunity
2. Increased diversity of views trust building
3. Increased commitment to solutions and changes sense agormeenith
4. Lower levels of stress and destructive internal competition
5. Improved flexibility and responsiveness D performance .

B. The use of teams within an organization also has several disadvantages,

including:
1. Inefficiency
2. Groupthink – uniformity of thought that occurs when peer pressure causes
individual team members to withhold contrary or unpopular opinions

hidden agenda 3
 3. Diminished individual motivation
4. Structural disruption
5. Excessive workloads
C. The size of the team (5 to 12 members is recommended) and the types of
individuals on a team are also vital to its success
D. Other factors contributing to the success and effectiveness of the team include:
1. A clear sense of purpose
2. Open and honest communication between team members
3. Empathy and mutual understanding 9
4. Encouraging creative, original thinking
5. Accountability
6. Focus
7. Decision by consensus

V. FOSTERING TEAMWORK
A. Teams typically go through five stages of development, as follows:
1. Forming – a period of orientation in which members get to know each other
and what is expected of them
2. Storming – the period in which conflicts may arise as team members jockey
for position or form coalitions
3. Norming – the period in which harmony develops and team members reach
agreement on member roles
4. Performing – the stage in which members are committed to team goals and
the team focuses on task accomplishment
5. Adjourning – the stage after task completion in which issues are wrapped up
and the team is dissolved
B. As the team moves through the stages of development, it develops a certain level
of cohesiveness, a measure of how committed team members are to their
team’s goals am petri
o
evoeeeoi

C. Teams will also establish norms, informal standards of conduct that guide team
behavior
D. Teams may also experience conflict
1. Conflict can be constructive or destructive
2. Conflict arises for a variety of reasons, including competing for resources,
disagreement over responsibilities, poor communication, withholding
information, differences in values, power struggles, and differing goals

4
 3. Conflict can be resolved through proactive attention, communication,
openness, research, flexibility, fair play, and alliance

VI. MANAGING AN UNSTRUCTURED ORGANIZATION
A. An unstructured organization is a virtual and networked organization that
lacks a conventional structure but instead assembles talent as needed from the
open market. → new
technology .

B. The advantages of an unstructured organization include:

1. Increased agility. It can assemble, disassemble and reconfigure as needed
2. Lower fixed costs and more flexible capacity management
3. Access to otherwise unreachable talent, because companies can “rent” top
experts in a field as needed
4. Benefits of competition, because independent contractors compete with
other contractors and must perform or risk not getting more assignments
5. Performance-based evaluation & not project by project .

6. Freedom and flexibility for workers, who can pick and choose projects and
clients
virtual
7. Access to jobs that may otherwise be unattainable distributed
C. Potential disadvantages of an unstructured organization include:
approach .

1. Complexity and control, because workers report to multiple bosses in

multiple companies
2. Uncertainty
3. Loss of meaning and connection
4. Diminished loyalty – workers are often competing vendors, not long-term
employees
5. Career development – independent contractors are responsible for
developing their own careers, rather than following a designated career path
6. Management succession
7. Accountability and liability

5
PART 2: APPLYING THE CONCEPTS TO THE COMPANY ASSIGNED
TO YOUR GROUP (30 MINUTES)

You should be prepared to discuss any of these questions even if you prepared them
in teams.
Be prepared to do a quizz at the beginning of the class. The questions will be on the
content of the lecture from the video. The results will be added to the list of grades
accumulated during the lecture sessions.
The questions below don’t require a written preparation, I won’t ask you to send it
to me after the class. It’s up to each of you to come prepared with arguments and
examples to enrich the debate during the class. Some questions are embedded in the
videos.
The objective of this work is for you to prepare for the final exam.

Questions:
1. Based on your understanding of the company you chose, how would
you qualify their organization “tall organization” or “flat
organization”?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of work specialization?
3. What can managers do to help teams work more effectively? Explain
your answer.
4. In lecture 10 we discussed several styles of leadership, including
autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. Using your knowledge
about the differences in these leadership styles, which style would
you expect to find under the following organization structures: (a)
tall organization with departmentalization by function; (b) tall
organization with departmentalization by matrix; (c) flat
organization; (d) self-directed teams?
5. What are some possible benefits and risks of having teams compete
against each other, such as having the sales teams from various
regions compete to add the most new customers?