Question

Edwin Edwards is a team leader for Lightspeed.com, an e-business that has employees in every global time zone. Some of the factors that the team has to contend with are deadlines, strong work ethic, creativity-innovation chain, high-speed turnaround, and professionalism. As a team leader, Edwin sees team members via videoconference only a few times per year or via compressed video via Internet a few times more per year. A frustration that he is encountering himself is that he works with all of these people and does not have control over their ""actual"" work or the few organizational rules, regulations, and policies. Yet, due to the position he is in, he feels he gets all of their complaints. The team does not deal well when a member offers an ""off-the-wall"" solution to a team problem. Team members seem to have more trouble with this than any other team-conflict issue. What he likes most about leading the team is that they seem to prefer getting their objectives accomplished instead of wasting time trying to decide who should be doing What tasks.

If Edwin decided to remove a layer of managers and increase the span of control, he would be making a change in which of the following categories?
A) technology
B) people
C) processes
D) structure

Answer 1

Edwin Edwards would be changing the structure of the organization by removing a layer of managers and increasing the span of control.

Step-by-step explanation:

If Edwin Edwards, the team leader for Lightspeed.com, decided to remove a layer of managers and increase the span of control, he would be making a change in the structure of the organization. This decision would potentially flatten the organizational hierarchy, which could facilitate more direct communication and quicker decision-making across the various global teams that comprise the e-business. It may also reflect a shift in managerial style, potentially aligning with a transformational leadership approach that empowers teams and individuals to be more autonomous and possibly increasing overall efficiency and responsiveness within the company.