Question $17(0\mathrm{.}15$ points$)$

Top Queen, Inc. $($TQI$)$

Top Queen, Inc. $($TQI$)$ is a business$-$clothing store for professional women. The owner of the company has designed the business so that she hardly ever has to be there. There are many departmental managers who hold a lot of responsibility. While they are organized separately by department, each manager knows enough about the other departments to be able to fill in at any time. The department managers also delegate a lot of work further down to their employees as a way to empower them. The owner even delegates store$-$management responsibilities to a different department manager each month. Even though certain people are delegated certain tasks, everyone pitches in$,$ so it is sometimes hard to tell who is really in charge.

The employees are so comfortable with each other that many go out and participate in activities together on the weekends, even when they are not working. However, the owner realizes that she does not want to participate in these events because she does not want to seem that she is favoring certain people over others.

Refer to Top Queen, Inc. It seems that TQI managers could be considered all of the following except

a$)$ staff managers.

b$)$ functional managers.

c$)$ line managers.

d$)$ owners.

e$)$ department managers.