2010年12月ACCA考试考官报告(P3)(4)

　　问题三描述了由专制独裁的负责人管理的一家小型电子元件进口公司。

Question Three described a small electrical component importer owned and managed by a dominant,autocratic manager.Candidates were asked,for fifteen marks,to analyse this company using the cultural web or any other appropriate framework.Clearly candidates had to know the constituent parts of the cultural web (or an appropriate alternative) to successfully answer this question.Candidates who had such knowledge usually gained a pass mark on this part of the question.

The second part of question three asked candidates to explain how an understanding of organisation configuration could have helped predict the failure of the company accountant’s proposal to formalise structure,controls and processes.The question also specifically referenced Henry Mintzberg’s configuration stereotypes,in the belief that this would help candidates identify which part of the Study Guide was appropriate to this part of the question.As mentioned in the introduction,very few candidates answered this well,with perhaps less than one in ten familiar with the work of Mintzberg,despite its explicit reference in the Study Guide.However,even without this specific knowledge,candidates failed to pick up on the key words of structure,controls and processes.Candidates could have focused their answer on these,recognising that the proposals of the company accountant,based on her experience in a large tax authority,were a very poor match for the centrally controlled,flexible,informal environment of a small organisation.Taking such an approach could have gained five or six marks,which would have changed many marginal fail answers into marginal passes.Most candidates who failed this question did so because of their very poor performance in the second part of the question.