1. What changes have taken place in organizations recently?

2. Explain the meaning of BPR.

3. How do you understand the term 'company culture'? What issues should be included into it?

4. Speak about the changes the US and UK department stores have gone through.

1. What changes have taken place in organizations recently?

Recent years have seen massive restructuring. Companies downsized and delayered, getting rid of levels of middle-management in order to become leaner, flatter, supposedly more efficient organisations. Often the reasoning was that computer networks allow top managers instant access to information that was previously gathered and transmitted upwards by middle managers, whose other main function was to communicate executives' key messages downwards to the workforce and in this they were accused of diluting or confusing the messages, or worse. With fewer organisational layers, top managers say they can communicate more directly with front-line employees, the people who actually produce the goods or services, and deal with customers. With less direct supervision, employees have often been encouraged to make more decisions for themselves in a process of empowerment.

Another trend was re-engineering, the idea that an organisation should not change incrementally,

but should start again from scratch with no preconceptions about how things-should be done, not just in manufacturing but in all the processes that contribute to what an organization does, hence business process re-engineering, or BPR.

The human side of this, again, was that there would probably be redundancies. The people

remaining would probably feel demoralized, wondering when the next wave of change was going to come and whether it would be their turn to be thrown out.