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ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Enabling success: organising

Halden Foods, a regional bakery group, has a managing director who personally approves all supplier contracts, pricing changes and hiring decisions across its 12 sites. Site managers report delays and low motivation. Which of the following is the most likely consequence of this degree of centralisation?

Heavy centralisation typically causes slower decisions and weaker local responsiveness, because every approval must pass through the top. Local managers lose discretion and motivation. Weak policy consistency and faster local response are features associated with decentralisation, not centralisation.

  1. ASlower decision-making and reduced local responsivenessCorrect
  2. BGreater duplication of functions across sites
  3. CWeaker control over consistency of policy
  4. DFaster response to local customer needs

Explanation

Centralised decision-making concentrates authority at the top, so decisions queue at one point and local managers have little discretion, which slows responses and lowers motivation. Option C describes a typical decentralisation risk, not a centralisation one. Option D is the opposite of what centralisation usually produces.

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