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Contemporary Organizational Behavior (Elsbach)
Topic Summary 9 Groups and Teams
1) Groups and teams differ primarily on which factor?
A) Shared responsibility for goals
B) Basic unit of coordinating work in organizations
C) Accomplish tasks that can’t be effectively performed by an individual
D) Operate within organizations
2) Which of the following statements about groups and teams is correct?
A) A team is always a group but a group isn’t always a team
B) A group operates independently but a team almost always operates in the larger
organizational context
C) A team will have an assigned leader but a group will have an emergent leader
D) A group’s function is social while a team’s function is work
Difficulty: Hard
3) Which of the following is not a factor that relates to group effectiveness?
A) Purpose and type
B) Context and composition
C) Internal factors
D) Experience and leadership
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4) What are two external factors associated with success in groups?
A) Production and action
B) Coaching and support
C) Training and leadership
D) Effective communication and good interpersonal dynamics
5) A demolition crew’s job is to bring down old buildings. The employees work together in a
coordinated effort to clear the site of the building within the time specified in their contract. This
demolition crew is an example of what type of team?
A) Executive
B) Deconstruction
C) Project
D) Production
Difficulty: Medium
6) Firefighters have to work together using their highly specialized skills to respond to each
unique emergency situation effectively. Firefighters are an example of what type of team?
A) Project
B) Action and performance
C) Short-term
D) Parallel
Difficulty: Medium
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7) In what way are production teams and service teams similar?
A) They both focus on improving ongoing aspects of the business
B) They both focus on improving aspects of employee interactions
C) They both focus on meeting short-term goals of the business
D) The names can be used interchangeably
8) What are the three major types of coaching?
A) Initial, ongoing, turnover
B) Process, behavioral, developmental
C) Storming, norming, performing
D) Positive, neutral, negative
Difficulty: Easy
9) What kind of group is composed of members who differ on gender, education level, functional
specialty, and age?
A) Analogous
B) Heterogeneous
C) Homologous
D) Homogenous
Difficulty: Medium
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10) Which of the following is not an organizational source of support for groups?
A) Diversity
B) Coaching
C) Rewards or recognition
D) Increasing autonomy
11) The ability to function as a team member is a competency that is ________.
A) Innate
B) Natural
C) Learned
D) Emergent
12) Individuals change their behavior to conform to group norms because norms serve an
important ________ and ________ function.
A) Group; social
B) Psychological; social
C) Interactive; influential
D) Physiological; belonging
Difficulty: Hard
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13) If a team lead wants their group members to share ideas more freely and share in a sense that
their teammates will follow through with their commitments, which interpersonal or maintenance
norm should they develop within the team?
A) Task
B) Accountability
C) Creativity
14) According to Tuckman’s model, what changes at each level of group development?
A) Feelings of interconnectedness
B) Group norms
C) Group satisfaction
D) Leader workload
15) Which of the following is a major criticism of Tuckman’s five-stage model of group
development?
A) It only explains the psychological factors that impact group development
B) It doesn’t describe how psychological norms develop in groups
C) Group development doesn’t conform to a specified timeline
D) Groups may get stuck at the Storming stage
Difficulty: Medium
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16) Which of the following does Tuckman’s five-stage model explain particularly well?
A) Explain how psychological norms develop in a group
B) Explain how behavior changes over time spent working together
C) Predict behaviors and contributions of group members at different points in the project
D) Explains how group members influence one another over time
17) According to the punctuated equilibrium model, in which step/phase is group productivity
the highest?
A) Norming
B) Adjourning
C) Phase 1
D) Phase 2
18) Which decision making process is structured to work best for employees working remotely?
A) Virtual decision making
B) Delphi technique
C) Brainstorming asynchronously
D) Nominal group technique
Difficulty: Medium
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19) Which effect predicts that you will make riskier or more conservative decisions in a group
than you will on your own?
A) Polarization
B) Peer pressure
C) Groupthink
20) You strongly disagree with the course of action your group has decided on but when you
speak up in the first meeting, you are hushed. Your group never explores alternate plans or
attempts to identify flaws in the plan they have chosen. After being hushed, you don’t feel that
you can express your dissent, and even if you do, it won’t matter because you’re sure you won’t
be heard. The group seems to be suffering from ________.
A) The fallacy of principle belief
B) Poor communication
C) Groupthink
D) Primary choice favoritism
21) Because of their structure and the lack of regular meetings, ________ becomes even more
important for virtual teams than for more traditionally structured teams.
A) Face-to-face meetings
B) Frequent virtual communications
C) Extraversion
D) Psychological safety
Difficulty: Medium
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22) Why do the social loafing and free rider effect say that the same individual will do less work
in a group than on their own?
A) The more talented people in the group don’t want them to drag them down so they push them
aside
B) There is no one else to take responsibility or be held accountable for your work when you are
working on your own
C) Everyone does less work in a group than on their own because there are more people to
distribute the tasks
23) A group that embraces the individual diversity of its members and encourages each member
to contribute their own ideas is least likely to experience which effect?
A) Peer pressure effect
B) Polarization effect
C) Common-knowledge effect
24) History has numerous examples of groupthink occurring with catastrophic consequences.
What was the common factor to be found missing in many major disasters involving groupthink
such as the Shuttle Challenger explosion?
A) Peer pressure
B) Polarization
C) Brainstorming
D) Critical thinking
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25) A graphic art firm that designs billboards assigns one team to work on each client contract.
What type of team does this firm use?
A) Management
B) Project
C) Implementation
D) Production