When Ernesto needed to learn what his employees really think about his company's new pension plan, he approached Vonnie, a long-time secretary in the legal department with contacts throughout the organization. Ernesto's action is best described as:

a. Pruning the grapevine.
b. Spying.
c. Working the grapevine.
d. Using people and loving things.

The correct answer is the option C: working the grapevine.

Explanation:

To begin with, in the field of management, the term of ''grapevine communication'' refers to the informal dialogue in its purest form in the workplace and whose main purpose is to establishes relations through communications between superiors and employees that do not follow any type of structured system.

To continue, Ernesto is working the grapevine when he is trying to communicate with Vonnie in order to understand better what his employees think about the new pension plan.

in 2001, dell computer became the world’s largest personal computer vendor, continuing to

gain market share and post profits in an industry struggling with slumping sales and billions of

dollars in losses. dell sells 90% of its pcs directly to the final customer, largely bypassing the

reseller channel that accounts for most of the world’s pc sales. this direct customer relationship

is the key to dell’s business model, and provides distinct advantages over the indirect sales

model. dell’s direct relationship with the customer allows it to tailor its offerings to customer

needs, offer add-on products and services, and use the internet to offer a variety of customer

services. in addition, dell’s pcs are built to customers’ specifications upon receipt of an order,

giving dell additional advantages over indirect pc vendors who must try to forecast demand and

ship products based on those forecasts. dell’s direct sales and build-to-order model has achieved

superior performance in the pc industry in terms of inventory turnover, reduced overhead, cash

conversion, and return on investment (kraemer, et al., 2000).

explanation: