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Chapter 11: Communication in the Workplace
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Match the proper term to this definition: a metaphor that is extremely common
because most people feel that work is not only undesirable but actually oppressive.
a. Instrument of domination metaphor
b. Machine metaphor
c. Family metaphor
d. Culture metaphor
2. Which metaphor of organizations mentioned in the text is most related to the
transactions of communication?
a. Instrument of domination metaphor
b. Culture metaphor
c. Family metaphor
d. Machine metaphor
3. Match the proper term to this definition: the preparation for becoming a worker in the
form of socialization that takes place in a child’s early life through family interaction and
exposure to the media.
a. Vocational anticipatory socialization
b. High code adoption
c. Spillover effect
d. Sedimentation
4. Match the proper term to this definition: the process by which repeated everyday
practices create a “structure” for performance in the future.
a. Sedimentation
b. Structuration
c. High code adoption
d. Continuation of identity
5. Intimacy and support are more characteristic of which type of goals?
a. Achievement goals
b. Relational goals
c. Efficiency goals
d. Instrumental goals
6. A theme being laid down into the organization by the workers’ talk and everyday
relational practices is referred to as ______.
a. sentimentality
b. harassment
c. sedimentation
d. vocational anticipatory socialization
7. The text describes three ways in which, when you are at work, you are in a different
frame where you enact relationships and perform identities connected to work. Which of
the following is NOT one of those ways?
a. Workplace formality/hierarchy
b. Workplace identities
c. Workplace routine
d. Workplace goals
8. Match the proper term to this definition: not a property of an organization, but an
interpersonally and relationally transacted product of communication based on the
relationships between people.
a. Core competencies
b. Continuation of identity
c. Organizational climate
d. Vocational anticipatory socialization
9. In order to become a member of any workplace you give up lots of your freedom in
order to devote most of your time to working for your employer, when you would rather
be doing something else. This is an example of which of the following?
a. Meaning making
b. Connectedness–separateness dialectic
c. Continuation of identity
d. Relational goals
10. What factors do traditional conceptions of organizations usually overlook?
a. Physical structures
b. Relationships
c. Hierarchies
d. Bureaucracies
11. The stress of Leroy’s project deadline at work caused him to be short-tempered with
his wife at home. What is the name for this type of reaction?
a. Spillover effect
b. Isolation effect
c. Hawthorne effect
d. Relationship effect
12. According to Zweig, which aspect of a worker’s relationship with an organization is
rarely found in other, personal relationships?
a. Expectations of role performance
b. Expectations of some forms of surveillance and intrusion
c. Expectations of mutual benefit
d. Expectations of an ongoing relationship
1. CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY. Positive influences of relationships at work include
______.
a. support for personal matters
b. workplace benefits
c. friendship with the boss
d. support for workplace performance
2. CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY. Many workplaces require dressing a particular way.
Which are occupations that might have such a requirement?
a. Pilots
b. Nurses
c. Restaurant servers
d. Hotel workers
3. CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY. Friendships in the workplace can have a positive
impact but can also have negative consequences. Which are among those challenges?
a. People are taken away from the work they should be doing, spending more time
talking about their personal lives.
b. There is an expectation for friends to do favors for one another that might require a
person to violate organizational rules.
c. The instrumental goals could dominate the relational goals.
d. Friends do not always get along, which could disrupt the work of others in the
organization.
4. CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY. Many people develop friendly relationships with one
another when they are at the same level. But if one person gets promoted and becomes
the boss, what are some of the issues that could arise?
a. Personal information acquired during the friendship could become a source of
conflict.
b. It could have an adverse effect on the other members of the same team.
c. Workers will tend to become suspicious that the boss will show favoritism toward
friends.
d. There could be an undesirable effect on morale.
5. CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY. Before clocks became important for employers to count
the number of minutes workers were at work, the predominance of agricultural work was
based on which approach(es) to time?
a. Rainfall
b. Crop cycles
c. Availability of daylight
d. Seasons
6. CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY. Which are forms of communication that can create
hostile relationships?
a. Bullying
b. Derogatory talk
c. Negative performance evaluation
d. Backstabbing gossip
7. CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY. Which statements are true about the ways in which
organizations as workplaces are transacted in discourse?
a. Relationships are the true driving force of any organization.
b. Problems and successes in the workplace both have a relational basis.
c. Relationships outside of the workplace frequently impact work performance and
relationships within the workplace.
d. All of your activities in the workplace occur in the context of relationships
Difficulty Level: Medium
True/False
1. The “workplace” is best viewed as a relational enterprise that involves meaning
making, rhetorical visions, and everyday communication.
2. The “Protestant work ethic” is the lack of drive to achieve success through hard work.
3. “Bonding weekends” and “team-building exercises” are workplace activities generally
valued and anticipated by employees.
4. A machine metaphor represents organizations as standardized by repetition,
specialization, or predictability.
5. The “structuration theory” views organizations primarily in terms of the patterns of
relationships among the members of the organization.
6. The workplace frame is one in which instrumental goals tend to dominate over
relational goals.
7. Workplace culture, workplace groups, and workplace communities consist of thinking,
reflective people who monitor their own behavior and try to reinvent a new style each
day.
8. Most organizations try to create an atmosphere of friendliness and the valuing of
customers by the use of such phrases as “Your call is very important to us.”
9. Clear relational connection and positions of power in the workplace are rarely
established through the ways in which people talk with one another.
10. People derive much of their sense of identity from their job.
1. A child can learn about the mysteries of the workplace from parents and other family
member by what specific medium?
2. What is the term for the time a person is actually counted as being at work and
therefore is paid for doing such work?
3.What is a term used when employers use electronic performance monitoring as a
legitimate way for an organization to keep an eye on what its workers do?
4. Some workplaces might aim to use industrial time–such as “clocking in”–as a way to
have perfect control over workers’ personal time. How might workers form a relational
base and come together in a sense of community to resist management’s efforts?
5. What is another term for any unwelcome sexual advance or conduct on the job that
creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment?
6. Give two examples of how the workplace constrains the kinds of identity you can
perform and require that you develop or adopt a professional working identity.
7. What is the term used to signify distance between workers and management and
establish clear relational connections among people in the workplace?
8. What is the term used when, in the workplace, you adopt a new “working identity” by
adapting your communication to represent the behaviors, courtesy, and interaction
styles that are appropriate for people to present to others?
9. What is meant by the term meaning making?
1. Describe how differences in power in personal relationships outside of the workplace
are unique from differences in power within workplace relationships.
2. Select one television show or movie and describe how it might socialize a child to
think of work in a particular way.
3. There are many ways in which people tend to learn and think about the workplace.
Describe some of those ways.
4. Describe how organizations produce and reproduce themselves over time through
conversations between the individuals within the organization.
5. Describe how an organization can benefit from positive relationships among the
workforce.
6. Describe how you might learn to distinguish clearly between the front and back
regions when it comes to “playing around” in the workplace.
7. Describe the difference between instrumental goals and relational goals.
8. Explain how knowing and using specialized language in the workplace gives you
special positioning and expert involvement?
9. Explain how listening to adults talk about the work they do influences a child’s attitude
toward the workplace.
10. Describe the difference between some forms of “intrusion” that are regarded as
acceptable in the workplace, and some that are seen as a violation of personal liberty.
