1. ANALYZING THE ORGANIZATION: DESIGN MODULE #1 (pp. 24-25)
Assignment
Choose a company to study and answer the following questions about it (note: you will pick and choose from the questions at the end of the 14 chapters)
What is the name of the organization? Give a short account of the history of the company. Describe the way it has grown and developed.
What does the organization do? What goods and services does it produce/provide? What kinds of value does it create? If the company has an annual report, what does the report describe as the company’s organizational mission?

2. ANALYZING THE ORGANIZATION: DESIGN MODULE #1 (pp. 24-25)
Assignment
Draw a model of the way the organization creates value. Briefly describe its inputs, throughputs, outputs, and environment.
Do an initial analysis of the organization’s major problems or issues. What challenges confront the organization today – for example, in its efforts to attract customers, to lower costs, to increase operating efficiency? How does its organizational design relate to these problems?
Read its annual report and determine which kinds of goals, standards, or targets the organization is using to evaluate performance. How well is the organization doing when judged by the criteria of control, innovation, and efficiency?

3. Mngt 443 Overview
1950s and 60s marked by less-than- perfect competition
Trade barriers
Monopolies and oligopolies
Perhaps 40% of economy
1970s brought change, continues today
Deregulation
Globalization
New technology

4. Mngt 443 Overview Corporations responded by restructuring
History of “vertical integration”
History of staff functions in-house
Price competition led to search for ways to cut costs and improve quality: outsourcing
Technology helped manage processes
Some organizations have become “virtual corporations”
Have American corporations downsized, outsourced, restructured, and reengineered to such a degree that they are losing intangible qualities that once made whole firm greater than sum of its parts?
Where is core competence?
Note HBR article, “Restoring American Competitiveness” (2009)
Same question can be asked of individuals – see Fortune article “Can Americans Compete?”