1. Discuss the functions of management. Which function of management is the most important? Support your answer.
2. In order to be effective and efficient, CEOs must monitor both the internal and external environments. Is it more important for the CEO to monitor the organization's external or internal environment? Why?
3. You have recently been assigned as the ethics officer for your organization, as part of your responsibilities you have been asked to write a code of ethics. Discuss the three areas of special concern for managerial ethics that you will need to address specifically in the code of ethics.
4. There are several characteristics that an organization needs to possess to be considered a multicultural organization. Describe what a multicultural organization will look like using these characteristics.
5. Discuss a time in your professional or personal life when you had to implement a reaction plan. How did that plan differ from a contingency plan?
6. If you were considering starting you own business, what are the four major types of information would you include in your business plan?
7. Define the term reengineering. Discuss why an organization might need to engage in it.
8. Briefly explain what is meant by objective and judgmental performance evaluation. Discuss two methods of judgmental evaluation.
9. As a manager, in what types of situations should you use written communication? Briefly discuss the reasons why written communication would be best in these situations.
10. In your opinion, which two characteristics of effective controls are the most important? Why?
11. Compare and contrast the sociocultural and the political-legal dimensions of the general environment, with particular attention to how forces in one could affect the other.
12. Discuss the notion of social responsibility. Discuss how an organization is impacted when its adopts socially responsible practices.
13. Assume you accepted a transfer with your company to move overseas as a manager within the company's new international division. Discuss the general environmental challenges of international management that you will face in the global environment that you did not face in the domestic environment?
14. The CEO of your organization has developed two potential plans to help the organization cut costs. The CEO has asked you to form a group; the members of the group are to represent a cross-section of all the departments within the organization. The goal of the group is to discuss and decide which of the two proposed plans you should implement.
15. Describe the job characteristics approach to job design and explain how it is related to job enrichment and the creation of work teams.
16. Phil W. supervises a group of very competent workers. These employees are involved in a routine task, and the company has written standard operating procedures to cover most of the operation. Phil is trying to decide what leadership style?
17. You are the plant manager at Acme Plastics. You are running two shifts, a day shift and an evening shift. Before the day shift leaves each day, the workers must get an adequate supply of raw materials from the warehouse for the evening shift to use. On several occasions, they have failed to do so. By the time the evening shift gets to work?