ICAEW BTF COMPREHENSIVE EXAMS UPDATED
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔Team roles - plant - ✔✔thoughtful and thought-provoking
✔✔Team roles - evaluator - ✔✔analytically criticises others' ideas, brings team down to
earth
✔✔Team roles - resource-investigator - ✔✔not a new ideas person, tends to pick up on
others' ideas and adds to them, usually a social type of person who often acts as a
bridge to the outside world
✔✔Team roles - company worker - ✔✔turns general ideas into specifics, practical and
efficient, administrator handling scheduling aspects
✔✔Team roles - team worker - ✔✔concerned with the relationships within the team,
supporting and defuses potential conflict situations
✔✔Team roles - finisher - ✔✔unpopular but necessary - progress chaser ensuring
timetables are met
✔✔Team roles - specialist - ✔✔brought in from outside the team for skills or knowledge
, ✔✔Team role restrictions in an effective team (Belbin) - ✔✔- Only one leader and/or
shaper
- Equal number of plants and evaluators
- Equal numbers of company workers and team workers
- Not too many finishers (probably one is enough)
✔✔Leadership effectiveness: Authority - ✔✔Having sufficient rights to control and judge
the actions of subordinates
✔✔Leadership effectiveness: Autonomy - ✔✔Giving subordinates necessary and
reasonable freedom of action to carry out their roles
✔✔Leadership effectiveness: leadership - ✔✔exercising the power conferred by right in
such a way as to win a willing and positive response from subordinates
✔✔Four basic leadership styles (Likert) on the authoritative - participative continuum -
✔✔Exploitative authoritative (decisions imposed, motivated by threats, centralised
decision making, little superior/subordinate communication, lack of teamwork)
Benevolent authoritative --> Consultative (increasing trust in subordinates' ability, more
participative motivation style, increasing delegation, increasing communication,
increasing teamwork)
Participative (complete trust and discussion, motivated by rewards - goals agreed, high
degree of delegation, frequent communication, superior and subordinates act as a
team)
✔✔Likert's four characteristics of effective managers - ✔✔1. Employee centred rather
than work-oriented
2. Set high standards but flexible in terms of method
3. Natural delegators with high levels of trust
4. Encourage participative management
✔✔Organisational structure - ✔✔Formed by the grouping of people into departments or
sections and the allocation of responsibility and authority
Sets out how the various functions are formally arranged
✔✔Building blocks of organisational structure - ✔✔Operating core (directly involved in
obtaining inputs and converting them into outputs)
Middle line (Conveys goals set by strategic apex and controls the work of the operating
core)
Strategic apex (Ensures the organisation follows its mission. Top managers. Manages
org relationship with environment)
Support staff (ancillary services e.g. PR, legal, cafeteria, security. Function
independently of operating core)
Technostructure (Analysts determine and standardise work processes and techniques.
Planners determine and standardise outputs. Personnel analysts standardise skills)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔Team roles - plant - ✔✔thoughtful and thought-provoking
✔✔Team roles - evaluator - ✔✔analytically criticises others' ideas, brings team down to
earth
✔✔Team roles - resource-investigator - ✔✔not a new ideas person, tends to pick up on
others' ideas and adds to them, usually a social type of person who often acts as a
bridge to the outside world
✔✔Team roles - company worker - ✔✔turns general ideas into specifics, practical and
efficient, administrator handling scheduling aspects
✔✔Team roles - team worker - ✔✔concerned with the relationships within the team,
supporting and defuses potential conflict situations
✔✔Team roles - finisher - ✔✔unpopular but necessary - progress chaser ensuring
timetables are met
✔✔Team roles - specialist - ✔✔brought in from outside the team for skills or knowledge
, ✔✔Team role restrictions in an effective team (Belbin) - ✔✔- Only one leader and/or
shaper
- Equal number of plants and evaluators
- Equal numbers of company workers and team workers
- Not too many finishers (probably one is enough)
✔✔Leadership effectiveness: Authority - ✔✔Having sufficient rights to control and judge
the actions of subordinates
✔✔Leadership effectiveness: Autonomy - ✔✔Giving subordinates necessary and
reasonable freedom of action to carry out their roles
✔✔Leadership effectiveness: leadership - ✔✔exercising the power conferred by right in
such a way as to win a willing and positive response from subordinates
✔✔Four basic leadership styles (Likert) on the authoritative - participative continuum -
✔✔Exploitative authoritative (decisions imposed, motivated by threats, centralised
decision making, little superior/subordinate communication, lack of teamwork)
Benevolent authoritative --> Consultative (increasing trust in subordinates' ability, more
participative motivation style, increasing delegation, increasing communication,
increasing teamwork)
Participative (complete trust and discussion, motivated by rewards - goals agreed, high
degree of delegation, frequent communication, superior and subordinates act as a
team)
✔✔Likert's four characteristics of effective managers - ✔✔1. Employee centred rather
than work-oriented
2. Set high standards but flexible in terms of method
3. Natural delegators with high levels of trust
4. Encourage participative management
✔✔Organisational structure - ✔✔Formed by the grouping of people into departments or
sections and the allocation of responsibility and authority
Sets out how the various functions are formally arranged
✔✔Building blocks of organisational structure - ✔✔Operating core (directly involved in
obtaining inputs and converting them into outputs)
Middle line (Conveys goals set by strategic apex and controls the work of the operating
core)
Strategic apex (Ensures the organisation follows its mission. Top managers. Manages
org relationship with environment)
Support staff (ancillary services e.g. PR, legal, cafeteria, security. Function
independently of operating core)
Technostructure (Analysts determine and standardise work processes and techniques.
Planners determine and standardise outputs. Personnel analysts standardise skills)
