32. Christine is a manager at a consumer electronics retailer. She often works 12–15 hour days and pushes herself and the
employees she oversees to work towards perfection. They feel that in order to succeed, they must adopt the same work
behaviors, despite feeling stressed and burnt out. Work behavior of the employees is most influenced by
a. their personal characteristics.
b. the organizational culture.
c. supervisory-management personnel.
d. work group membership.
33. The increase in workplace incivility particularly threatens which of the essentials of good interpersonal relations?
a. Teamwork and group relations
b. Assembly productivity
c. Appropriate use of workplace technology
d. Relationships between supervisors and subordinates
Case 1.1
John and Mabel’s company, High-Tech Solutions, is a medium-sized high-tech firm with a core employee group of highly
skilled professionals. Around this core is a group of twice as many part-time contract programmers and other computer
professionals. As they win programming contracts, they hire contract workers. When work slows, they let the part-timers
go but keep their core group. Their target industries are facing increasing government scrutiny and possible regulation due
to the number of firms that are doing poor work and causing long-term problems for customers.
John believes that, when hiring for either the core group or for the part-time work force, they must consider not only each
candidate’s technical work skills and competency but also several other factors as well: the candidate’s emotional control,
team orientation, self-awareness, and self-esteem, and what the company has to offer the candidate in terms of family
support. Mabel agrees to a degree. She thinks that the key to productivity and quality is hiring the right people, but she
wants to focus more on technical competencies and less on the other areas John mentions.
High-Tech Solutions uses teams extensively. Employees are trained in how to work in teams, handle conflict, work
cooperatively, etc. Joan, a five-year veteran at High-Tech, plays softball in a church league with several of her coworkers.
She has asked for investment advice from a couple of the work-group members who are heavily into the stock market.
She, in general, highly enjoys her work because of the relationships she has with her coworkers. In sharp contrast, one of
the new employees is having a hard time with her supervisor. She wants greater independence and more affirming
feedback. The supervisor wants to be sure the new employee can do her job, so he is supervising closely and is giving a
lot of corrective feedback.
34. Refer to Case 1.1. By focusing on the competencies of the worker, with which behavior-influencing force is Mabel
concerned?
a. Family influence
b. Personal characteristics
c. Work group influence
d. Job influence
35. From an interpersonal relations perspective, major forces that influence work behavior include
a. the general state of the economy.
b. the organizational culture, supervisory-management personnel, and group cohesiveness.
c. the physical characteristics of the workplace environment.
d. the technological methods and infrastructure used to accomplish an organization’s work processes.