Lecture 1: Project and Asset Management Flashcards

Question

What are the pros of scientific management?

Answer 1

- Higher wages (at first) - Production increase - Lower costs in production leads to lower prices for consumers - Use of unskilled workers

Answer 2

- Work is social experience, people work to satisfy social needs - Organisations should be natural groups, in which social aspects take precedence over organisational structures - Considerate supervision leads to job satisfaction which in turns leads to increased productivity

Answer 3

- Managers need to be socially as well as technically skilled - Relation between considerate leadership and production is doubtful - No leadership - Based on the idea of a positive human nature

Answer 4

- Job satisfaction - Possibility to be creative - Control over job

Answer 5

- Art workshops - Marketing company - Starbucks coffee

Answer 6

- Uses an informal and social working environment in which employees can enjoy themselves and be enthusiastic. Every employee is treated equally and called 'partner' to make them feel more familiar and closer to their work place. - Every employee is expected to participate in developing plans and achieving their goals. - Tools and courses are in place to support and train employees towards their future career development.

Answer 7

To find a scientific basis for human behaviour and develop behavioural techniques - Action - Reward

Answer 8

To enable better managerial decision making by providing quantitative information through tools such as mathematics, statistics, and information aids. E.g. management accounting, information systems, quantity surveying, etc.

Answer 9

- Organisational philosophies are as important as formal and informal rules and procedures. - CA use the fact that results are made by teams instead of individuals and that the team can have a 'moral' system that leads to common behavioural code of conduct.

Answer 10

- Individuals can 'forget' their own values - Requires able managers to start group feeling - Requires able managers to lead groups

Answer 11

- Very strong motivation is achievable | - People generally want to belong to a group

Answer 12

- Armed forces subgroups (SAS etc.) - Sports teams - Audit teams - Project teams

Answer 13

All businesses will use a mix of mentioned management philosophies. Some will turn towards a particular thought but most have rules (bureaucratic), strive for efficiency (scientific), use HRM to motivate their employees and create a 'we' feeling (cultural) to set them apart from competitors.

Answer 14

Management should organise work so that each worker specialises in the narrowest possible task, thereby increasing his or her expertise and speed of work, and reducing the amount of time and effort spent in training. This is a key concept of scientific management.

Answer 15

- Hourly paid workers gained no personal benefit from working harder - Piece- rates workers (i.e. according to how much they produced) worried that by working too hard they would work themselves out of a job.

Answer 16

The state of competition in an industry depends on: 1-threat of new potential entrants 2-bargaining power of suppliers 3-bargaining power of buyers 4-threat of substitute products or services leads to... 5- Industry competitors and rivalry among existing firms The weaker the forces collectively, the greater the opportunity for superior performance.

Answer 17

a plan of action or policy in business or politics etc.

Answer 18

1. Know when to fight and when not to fight 2. Know how to handle both superior and inferior forces 3. Team is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks 4. Prepared himself, waits to take enemy unprepared 5. Has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

Answer 19

Waging war with all strength leads to difficulties, and lending ears to all these difficulties results in weakness and inactivity. We can triumph over such obstacles only with very great exertion, and to accomplish this, the leader must show a severity bordering on cruelty. Only when he knows that everything possible is always being done, can he be sure that these small difficulties will not have a great influence on his operations.

Answer 20

- provide direction - provide coherence - basis for assessment and risk analysis - basis to make decisions

Answer 21

Corporate Strategy: Corporate Head Office Business Strategy: Division A/ Division B Functional Strategy: - R&D - Human Resources - Production - Marketing/ Sales

Answer 22

E.g. high price & high quality = premium low price & high quality = super bargain high price & low quality = hit and run low price & low quality = cheap goods

Answer 23

The effect of people behaving and performing differently because they know they have been singled out for special attention. The key factor underlying the success was what might be termed 'morale'.

Answer 24

Work satisfaction and performance depended more on informal social patterns of the work group than on the factors of formal organisational structure, job design, and financial incentives in which classical theorists would have been more interested.

Answer 25

The company sought to impose rational 'administraive' methods of work. However the administrative system malfunctioned because it triggered the development of a social political system which was more powereful than it in determining behaviour.

Answer 26

To try to modify both systems so that they are in harmony with each other; or to develop an overarching cultural system as a common value base against which both systems can be evaluated and modified.

Answer 27

People have a strong need for socail relationships, and that often it is the informal network of relationships at work which determine how they will act.

Answer 28

Rather than fragmenting work, ordering workers what to do, and planning and controlling every step of the process, management should seek to build groups - teams - or workers who felt good about themselves and good about the team. With positive attitudes, they would get on with the job, and productivity would look after itself.

Answer 29

Managers view that people dislike work and will try to avoid it, that people seek security rather than responsibility, that people want to be directed, and that they must be coerced, threatened and controlled if they are to achieve anything.

Answer 30

Managers assume that people find work natural, that they will respond to rewards of self-esteem and self-actualisation and that they will seek to exercise self-direction and to take responsibility.

Answer 31

It sought to make the study of human behaviour in organisations more scientific and to develop practical behavioural techniques. It also developed human relations ideas.

Answer 32

The point at which the decision to produce becomes profitable. Found from studying the costs of producing a product in variable numbers v.s the demand for it at different levels of price.

Answer 33

Operations management (OM) is concerned with managing the production of the organisation's products or services with the assistance of quantitative techniques.

Answer 34

Management science is a disciple that attempts to aid managerial decision making by applying a scientific/ systematic approach to managerial problems that include quantitative factores. This often includes using mathematical models to provide predictive information to management enabling managers to take decisions based on a much more precise knowledge of likely outcomes.

Answer 35

They provide much of the detailed information aboout organisational functioning necesary for management control. (e.g. figures on production, sales, and costs)

Answer 36

It provides quantified financial information. | Tools for achieving greater precision in information and prediction and thereby assisting management decision making.

Answer 37

How we tend to think about, analyse and design social systems and technical systems should be closely integrated. Such that work takes account of the social needs of the workers as well as the technical advantages of mechanisation, resulting in much more positive outcomes.

Answer 38

A theory saying that oranisations need to be considered in its totality, with an analysis of the way each component part interacts with each other part, and of the way the whole interacts with its environment.

Answer 39

- It helps us to widen our perspective on organisations - It helps managers to think beyond an immediate problem to the wider causes and ramifaications elsewhere in the total system - 'big picture' perspective which is necessary to make strategic decisions without being unpleasantly suprised by effects which were not anticipated

Answer 40

Contingency theory advocated that there re no 'universal' principles of management. There is no universally correct answer. Every situation is unique and that means every problem has its own solutions. In this view, the most important skill of management is that of making a good interpretation of factors relevant to a decision.

Answer 41

A problem with management thought is the constant desire to establish the 'right answer' to any problem. Based on the idea that for every problem there is a single 'right' answer.

Answer 42

To find a position in the industry where the company can best defend itself against the Porter's Five Forces or can influence them in its favour. Analyse the sources of competitve pressure to provide the groundwork for a strategic agenda of action.

Answer 43

- It highlights the critical strengths and weaknesses of the company - Animates the position of the company in the industry - clarify the areas where strategic changes may yeild payoff - Highlight the places where industry trends promise to hold the greatest significance as either opportunities or threats - Helps consideration for areas of diversification

Answer 44

The strongest competitive force or forces determine the profitability of an industry and so are of the greatest importance in strategy formulation.

Answer 45

New entrants to an industry bring new capacity, the desire to gain market share, and often substantial resources.

Answer 46

1. Economies of Scale 2. Product differentiation 3. Capital Requirements 4. Cost disadvantages independent of size 5. Access to distribution channels 6. Government policy

Answer 47

The cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to size, output, or scale of operation, with cost per unit of output generally decreasing with increasing scale as fixed costs are spread out over more units of output.

Answer 48

Brand identification creates a barrier by forcing entrants to spend heavily to overcome customer loyalty. Advertising customer sercice, being first in the industry, and product differences are among the factors fostering brand identification.

Answer 49

The need to invest in large financial resources in order to compete creates a barrier to entry, particularly if the capital is required for unrecoverable expenditures in up-front advertising or research and developement.

Answer 50

Entrenched companies may have cost advantages not available to potential rivals, no matter what their size and attainable economies of scale.

Answer 51

The new comer on the block must secure distribution of its products or services. The more limited the distribution channels, the toughter that entry into the industry will be. Sometimes this barrier is so high that the contestant must create its own distribution channels.

Answer 52

The government can limit or even forclose enty to industries with controls such as license requirements and limits on access to raw materials. The government can also play a major indirect role by affecting entry barriers through controls such as air and water pollution standards and safety regulations.

Answer 53

If other companies are likely to lash out at the new entrants or if they have substantial resources to fight back, if they seem likely to cut prices to keep market shares, or if industry growth is slow.

Answer 54

Suppliers can exert bargaining power on participants in an industry by raising prices or reducing the quality of purchased good and services. Customers likewise can force down prices, demand higher quality or more service, and play competitors off against each other.

Answer 55

- It is dominated by a few companies and is more concentrated than the industry it sells to. - Its product is unique or at least differntiated, or has built up switching costs. - It is not obliqued to contend with other products for sale to the industry. - It poses a cridble threat of integrating forward into the industry's business - The industy is not an important customer of the supplier group.

Answer 56

- It is concentrated or purchases in large volumes. - The products it purchases from the industry are standard or undifferentiated. - The products it purchases from the industry form a component of its product and represent a significant fraction of its cost. - It earns low frofits, which create great incentive to lower its purchasing costs. - The industry's product is unimportant to the quality of the buyers's products or services. - The industry's product does not save the buyer money. - The buyers pose a credible threat of integrating backward to make the industry's product.

Answer 57

A company can improve its strategic posture by finding suppliers or buyers who possess the least power to influence it adversely. A company can sell to powerful buyers only if it is a low-cost producer in its industry or produces unique features. Otherwise, elling to everyone is self defeating because the more sales it achieves the more vulnerable it becomes.

Answer 58

Substitute products are those that (a) are subject to trends improving their price-performance trade-off with the industry's product (b) are produced by industries earning high profits. Substitutes compe into play if some development increases competition in their industries and causes price reduction or performance improvement.

Answer 59

Rivalry among existing competitors takes the familiar form of jockeying for position- using tactics like price competion, product introduction, and advertising slugfests.

Answer 60

- Competitors are numerous or are roughly equal in size and power. - Industry growth is slow - The product or service lacks differentiation or switching costs - Fixed costs are high or the product is perishable - Capacity is normally augmented in large increasements - Exit barriers are high - The rivals are diverse in strategies, origins, and "personalities"

Answer 61

Assess the forcing affecting competition in an industry and their underlying causes such that the company's strengths and weaknesses can be identified. Then devise a plan of action that may include: 1. positioning of the company so that its capabilities provide the best defence against the competitive forces. 2. Influencing the balance of forces through strategic moves, improving the companies position 3. Anticipating shifts in the factors underlying the forces and responding to them

Answer 62

- Division of work - Authority - Unity of command - Unity of direction - Subordination of individual to general interests - Remuneration - Centralisation - Scalar chain - Order - Equity - Stability of tenure - Initiative of tenure - Esprit de corps