Module 3 – Case
ORGANIZATION
STRUCTURE
Assignment Overview
Based on your background readings related to organization
structure (Boundless, Chapter 2) and the case reading below, consider the
following business case and answer the questions. A typical auto dealership
has, perhaps, a hundred or so employees engaged in new (possibly two or more
different brands of both trucks and cars) and used vehicle sales, service,
finance (loans and leasing), personnel (human resource policies, evaluation,
payroll and benefits administration), marketing and advertising, and other
business concerns (budgeting, accounting, facilities, etc.).
Case reading
Healey, T. (2016). A
guide to dealership structure.
http://automotive.about.com/od/Retail/a/We-Take-A-Look-At-The-Basic-Structure-Of-An-Automotive-Dealership.htm
Case Assignment
Visit a local car dealership. Most managers love to talk to students about
their businesses, but be sure to call ahead and talk to the general manager to
explain the purpose of the visit and arrange a time. Request a 10-minute interview
to discuss such questions as:
How many employees in how many departments?
Who heads these departments and who do they report to?
What kinds of decisions are made at the corporate
headquarters and what kinds of decisions do they make at the dealership?
Any other questions you have that will help you complete
your assignment.
When you have completed the readings and conducted your site
visit:
Draw an organizational chart for this dealership. Identify
the various management positions or titles on the chart and indicate the
positions/jobs that would report to each.
SmartDraw.com (https://cloud.smartdraw.com/) provides free
examples, though others are also available via Google. PowerPoint also has templates for
organizational charts you can use.
Explain the current organizational structure in terms of
requirements for (1) specialization (e.g., accounting vs. the body shop) and
(2) decentralization, in other words, “downstreaming” authority to department
heads for advertising, for example.
Make one recommendation for a change in the organizational
structure that will improve productivity or efficiency, and justify that
recommendation.
Assignment Expectations
This Case Assignment is graded according to the same case
rubric that has been used in Modules 1 and 2.
In addition:
Case reports are to be prepared in Microsoft Word and should
be 3-4 pages in length, in addition to a cover page (course name and number,
module number, session name, student name, and date prepared) and reference
list – double-spaced, 12 pt. type, Times New Roman font.
Report content should include a brief introduction to the
assignment, background information about the organization being studied, the
organizational chart, and your discussion of organizational structure in terms
of the concepts or theories being applied in the assignment.
Use subtitles, bullets, and tables to improve presentation
values.
Attention is to be given to citing sources of information in
text as well as in the reference list at the end of reports. Citation and
reference style instructions are available at
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/.
Submit your report in the Case dropbox for this module on or
before the date due, as indicated in the TLC Homepage.
