Instructor Resource
Thomas/Peterson, Cross-Cultural Management, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
D. Behavior expectation
52. ______ occur when group members fall into two, nonoverlapping cultural categories, as opposed to
many cultures and individuals sometimes identify more strongly with their cultural subgroup than with
the task group as a whole.
A. Subgroups
B. Overlaps
C. Faultlines
D. Diversity
53. ______ cause cultural subgroup favoritism and negatively affects information flow across subgroup
boundaries.
A. Faultlines
B. Diversity
C. Overlaps
D. Homogeneity
54. Half of the members of Lisa’s work group are older American, while the other half of the group is
made up of younger women immigrants. It is likely a(n) ______ will form in this group.
A. overlap
B. faultline
C. hybrid
D. favoritism
55. The norms of the ______ culture, made up of selected norms of the group members, override the
conflicting norms brought to the group by individuals.
A. hybrid
B. overlap
C. subgroup
D. conflict
56. Because the nature of the interaction of ______ is through the tools that they use, who the
members are as people is of little importance to the functioning of the group.
A. subgroups
B. crews
C. hybrids
D. faultlines
57. Which of the following does NOT affect the preference for face-to-face communication as compared
to use of electronic media for work groups?
A. The goals of the parties communicating
B. How easy the electronic media are to use
C. Location of face-to-face meeting
D. The complexity or ambiguity of the task that they are doing
58. Where there is a lag between one message being sent and another received, communication is
______.
A. synchronous
B. ambiguous
C. complex
D. asynchronous
59. Culture might be a less ______ dimension in virtual groups because of the lack of evidence of cultural
differences.
A. complex
B. diverse
C. salient
D. ambiguous
60. The fact that members of virtual teams may have little in the way of shared ______ makes the
development of team identity more difficult.
A. diversity
B. context
C. respect
D. complexity
61. The degree of ______ and urgency influence the frequency of communication required in virtual
teams.
A. task interdependence
B. task strategy
C. tolerance of ambiguity
D. interaction norms
62. ______ knowledge is more easily transferred in the absence of shared background and experience in
virtual teams
A. Continuous
B. Virtual
C. Task
D. Explicit
63. Which of the following is NOT one of the key organizational factors that influence the ability of work
groups to handle technological and geographic issues?
A. Extent to which individual rewards come from the group
B. Status afforded the group
C. Level of management support
D. Internal leadership of the group
64. The success of globally dispersed teams is likely to be greater when management has fostered an
organizational culture that supports ______.
A. external focus
B. diversity
Instructor Resource
Thomas/Peterson, Cross-Cultural Management, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
C. flexibility over control
D. group cohesiveness
65. One study of culturally diverse teams found that the extent to which individuals derived their ______
from the team was positively related to both team performance and team member attitudes.
A. rewards
B. focus
C. commitment
D. confidence
66. Team members in ______ cultures are likely to be more comfortable with team-based rewards,
which depend on the level of individual contribution.
A. individualist
B. collectivist
C. internal focus
D. external focus
67. Team members in ______ cultures are likely to be more comfortable with team-based rewards in
which all group members share equally in group rewards.
A. individualist
B. virtual
C. collectivist
D. hybrid
68. The status of work groups might have a great influence on the feelings of self-worth, confidence,
group potency, and desire to work in the group for ______.
A. collectivists
B. individualists
C. virtualists
D. internalists
69. The status of work groups might have a little influence on the feelings of self-worth, confidence,
group potency, and desire to work in the group for ______.
A. individualists
B. collectivists
C. externalists
D. virtualists
70. ______ training is important when work group activities and tasks cannot be specified in advance
and when individuals can have different assumptions about how the work group should operate.
A. Communication
B. Confidence
C. Interaction skills
D. Cross-cultural
71. ______ training has been found to be effective in improving interaction processes, trust, and
commitment in virtual team environments.
A. Interaction skills
B. Confidence
C. Cross-cultural
D. Communication
72. ______ training has the objective of bringing the expectations of individuals from different cultural
backgrounds in line with the reality of working in a multicultural context.
A. Cross-cultural
B. Interaction skills
C. Communication
D. Confidence
73. The argument for ______ work groups stems from the idea that the benefits of group work are
related to the delegation of a substantial amount of authority to the work group or team.
A. self-managing
B. virtual
C. performance
D. hybrid
74. ______ activities by a work group involve experimentation, innovation, and divergent thinking.
A. Convergent
B. Exploration
C. Cultural
D. Divergent
75. ______ activities by a work group involve production, efficiency, and convergent thinking.
A. Exploration
B. Divergent
C. Convergent
D. Exploitation
76. Exploration activities by a work group are encouraged by ______ performance criteria.
A. homogenous
B. shallow
C. broad
D. hybrid
77. On MacKenzie’s team, the group goals have transcended the individual differences of group
members. The goals are now ______ goals.
A. task
B. divergent
C. superordinate
D. focus
True or False
1. Work groups are social systems that have boundaries with members who have different roles and are
dependent on each other.
2. Group members bring two types of resources to groups: personal attributes, including personality,
values, and attitudes, and their skills and abilities, both technical and social.
3. If a group is structured as a crew, it focuses on the completion of a specific project, typically within a
limited time frame.
4. If a group is structured as a crew, it focuses on the tools required to perform a task, and the
appropriate use of the tools specifies the interaction among group members.
5. If a group is structured as an organizational team, it focuses on the interrelationships among the
group members.
6. In the storming stage of group development, group members just begin to think of themselves as part
of a group and might be uncertain about the group and how they fit into it.
7. In the norming stage of group development, the group agrees on the expectations that specify the
acceptable behavior (norms) of the group.
8. In the performing stage of group development, the efforts of the group shift to accomplishing the task
at hand.
9. Minority–majority groups consist of groups in which one or a few members are different on the
dimension of interest.
10. Cultural diversity has been shown to have both positive and negative effects on work group
effectiveness.
11. The success of globally dispersed teams is likely to be greater when management has fostered an
organizational culture that supports flexibility over control and an external focus over an internal focus.
12. Work groups with high degrees of interpersonal interaction, such as teams, will be more susceptible
to both the process losses and process gains produced by cultural differences among members.
13. Multicultural work groups often take longer to reach their potential than do homogeneous work
groups.
Instructor Resource
Thomas/Peterson, Cross-Cultural Management, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
Completion (Fill in the Blank)
1. ______ focus on the completion of a specific project, typically within a limited time frame. The
members are selected primarily based on the task-related skills required by the group.
2. ______ focus on the tools required to perform a task, and the appropriate use of the tools specifies
the interaction among group members. Tools are defined broadly to include a wide variety of
implements or devices.
3. ______norms in work groups specify such things as what methods and channels of communication
are important and the level of individual effort expected, and they also provide group members with
explicit guidance as to how to accomplish the task.
4. ______ can also represent preferences among different effectiveness criteria, so that groups can be
said to have a service climate or a safety climate that influences its performance in terms of service or
safety.
5. ______ occurs when the norm for group consensus overrides the motivation to realistically appraise
alternative courses of action.
6. ______ occurs when individuals reduce their effort on group tasks expecting that other members will
do the work for them.
7. In the ______ model of group development, the group sets its direction at the first meeting and this
pattern of behavior and approach to the task become firmly adhered to for the first one-half of the
group’s existence.
9. ______ groups consist of groups in which one or a few members are different on the dimension of
interest.
10. ______ occur when group members fall into two, nonoverlapping cultural categories, as opposed to
many cultures and individuals sometimes identify more strongly with their cultural subgroup than with
the task group as a whole.
Essay
1. Describe the three work group structures that need managing in intercultural organizational groups.
Ans: Task forces focus on the completion of a specific project, typically within a limited time frame. The
members are selected primarily based on the task-related skills required by the group.
Crews focus on the tools required to perform a task, and the appropriate use of the tools specifies the
2. Describe how group behavior is influenced by the organization to which the group belongs.
3. Describe how the cultural composition of work groups affects the way they function.
Instructor Resource
Thomas/Peterson, Cross-Cultural Management, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
Ans: The cultural backgrounds of a work group’s members affect the way they function through three
general types of mechanisms:
• Cultural norms: the orientations of the specific cultures represented in the group toward the
functioning of groups
4. How do the group task and the structure of the group influence the extent to which cultural
composition has an effect in work groups?
Ans: Group tasks that allow little employee discretion are not sensitive to variations among group
members, and are not controlled by the group offer very limited opportunities for the characteristics of
group members to influence outcomes. Therefore, routine production tasks generally offer less
opportunity for the effects of cultural composition (either positive or negative) than would creative idea
generation and decision-making tasks.
5. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of global virtual teams.
Ans: Answer should mention communication, task management, and relationship building and conflict
management.
The use of electronic media allows firms to build work groups with optimum membership without
regard for the restrictions of time and space. However, the ability of these work groups to work