Imagine a group of volunteers who meet regularly to solve problems related to the
quality of people’s work and the conditions under which people perform their jobs.
Such a group would be referred to as a:
A) team-building group.
B) sensitivity training group.
C) work team.
D) quality circle.
The open systems model of OB assumes that ________.
A) organizations exist in a vacuum
B) organizations are contingent
C) organizations are self-sustaining
D) organizations operate in discrete intervals
Which of the following companies had its founder serve time in prison after being
found guilty of insider trading?
A) Adelphia
B) Arthur Andersen
C) Martha Stewart
D) WorldCom
Cultivating the patience to take new and different approaches when dealing with others
who are different would require ________.
A) cognitive evaluation
B) established accountability
C) flexibility and adaptability
D) facilitation skills
Programs that allow employees to reduce the amount of time they work by a certain
amount with a proportional reduction in pay are known as:
A) V-time programs.
B) U-time programs.
C) compressed workweeks.
D) flextime programs.
Table 5.1
Will is experiencing stress at work because he is not clear about what to do in his new
job, what his work priorities should be. His boss is out due to major surgery, and no one
else knows what his job is. Jane is a typical 2010 woman; good career, married, and
with a small child. As her career advances she is experiencing more and more stress
because her husband wants her home more. Her parents are proud of her career success,
yet they keep saying things like, “No sense having children if you’re going to let
someone else raise them.” Tom is in a matrix reporting relationship with several other
people. His boss has authority over the whole matrix; Tom does not, yet Tom is
responsible for the performance of the people in the matrix. He isn’t sure who he can
tell what to do and who he has to let his boss tell. A deadline is approaching, and Tom is
stressed out. Tom’s boss, John, is also stressed. He isn’t clarifying who reports to whom
because he worries about everyone and doesn’t want to let go of watching over them.
He thinks that he may have to terminate Jane because her home situation is interfering
so much with work that it is creating problems for the project. He is agonizing over this.
Having been fired once in his career, he knows how painful it can be.
Refer to Table 5.1. Jane’s stress seems most likely to be caused by:
A) quantitative overload.
B) role conflict.
C) sexual harassment.
D) role ambiguity.
Research shows:
A) that job satisfaction and the financial performance of an organization are unrelated.
B) good financial performance in an organization promotes high levels of job
satisfaction.
C) employee job satisfaction has no effect on financial performance.
D) absenteeism is higher than average in companies with good financial performance.
The decision-making model that simply considers alternatives as they appear and
accepts the first alternative that meets the criteriafor acceptability is the:
A) traditional analytical model.
B) rational-economic model.
C) administrative model.
D) image theory model.
Table 15.2
For a management class, a group of students is considering how to structure a proposed
company. Their original idea was a design that would give complete responsibility for
the development and marketing of a product to one unit. Tax considerations are a
concern as well, and they want a structure that would help the accountants track them
better through specific cost centers. They decide not to use this design because of the
duplication of effort and the probability that it would be difficult to attract and retain
talented employees. In their second design they want to stress the opportunity for
employees to specialize, gain economies of scale, and conserve resources by
eliminating duplication of effort. They reject that design because it is too cumbersome
and slow to respond to the changes in the marketplace. Then one member of the group,
Jack, suggests that they eliminate chains of command and spans of control and go to
empowered teams. He argues that this will increase creativity and responsibility among
employees. A fellow student argues that it won’t work in the real world because
managers won’t give up that much authority. “Ok,” a third student, Jane, offers, “let’s try
this idea but build around a hub. The hub will be the core business and the spokes will
be groups of specialists that can be added to or subtracted from as the market changes.”
They settle on a structure with two lines of authority, one by task specialization and the
other by product line. This gives them economies of scale and flexibility but some
stress over reporting authority. Nevertheless, it gives them the best of what they want.
Refer to Table 15.2. Their first design is an example of a:
A) functional organization.
B) matrix organization.
C) product organization.
D) modular organization.
The tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is readily available
to them, although it might not be accurate, is called:
A) a bias toward implicit favorites.
B) an escalation of commitment.
C) a representativeness heuristic.
D) the availability heuristic.
When a person adjusts to a foreign culture he/she tends to:
A) experience frustration and confusion after being in the culture for a few months.
B) immediately experience frustration and confusion.
C) pass from understanding to frustration and confusion after about six months in a
culture.
D) begin to experience optimism and excitement about the new culture only after a few
months in that culture.
According to situational leadership theory, leaders must be able to:
A) set appropriate goals and inspire others to attain them..
B) control valued rewards and believable punishments.
C) diagnose a situation and identify the appropriate behavioral response.
D) choose the proper strategy for decision-making.
Table 14.2
As an innovation consultant, you work with a number of firms. Better Mousetraps
builds inexpensive but sophisticated mousetraps. They have very capable designers and
engineers who are highly motivated by a personal desire to rid the world of mice, yet
innovation is low. The CEO asks you to conduct some creativity training. You lead the
key designers through a process for coming up with new ideas by reframing common
problems in unique ways to come up with multiple or alternative solutions. Along with
the training, you interview the designers and engineers and discover that they are not
clear on what the CEO wants. You also find they perceive a corporate bias towards the
status quo, not an encouragement to innovate.
Refer to Table 14.2. What creativity component seems to be weak at Better
Mousetraps?
A) Domain-relevant skills
B) Creativity-relevant skills
C) Intrinsic task motivation
D) Affective identity
________ is an organizational impediment to decision-making where moral and ethical
limitations impact the decision.
A) Heuristics
B) Bounded rationality
C) Bounded discretion
D) Political “face saving” pressure
Getting someone to do what you want by putting that person in a good mood is called:
A) personal appeal.
B) ingratiation.
C) inspirational appeal.
D) emotional persuasion.
In terms of core self-evaluations, the person’s belief about his or her capacity to perform
specific tasks successfully is:
A) self-esteem.
B) generalized self-efficacy.
C) locus of control.
D) emotional stability.
Which of the following laws was the most recent law enacted bearing on ethical
behavior?
A) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
B) Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations
C) Sarbanes-Oxley
D) Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations
The smallest or least important power base for CEOs is:
A) management decision control.
B) expertise and knowledge.
C) personality and leadership skills.
D) support from the financial community.
Research on the use of teams shows that:
A) manufacturers like GM experience high levels of success with teams.
B) teams have succeeded in the service industry as well as manufacturing.
C) there isn’t a clear and convincing case for the overall effectiveness of teams.
D) All of these are true.
Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y approach is an example of a:
A) classical organizational theory.
B) neoclassical organizational theory.
C) contingency theory.
D) systems theory.
As shown in the continuum of strategic alliances, the relationship between value-chain
partners is ________.
A) robust yet transient
B) mutually beneficial
C) strong and close
D) weak and distant
Which is not an example of an outcome in an equity theory analysis?
A) salary
B) recognition
C) fringe benefits
D) units produced
When an American believes that everyone in the world should speak English, he/she is
being
A) parochial.
B) ethnocentric.
C) convergent.
D) divergent.
The identification of possible solutions to the problem comes in the:
A) predecision stage.
B) alternative generation stage.
C) problem definition stage.
D) problem framing stage.
Studies show that corporate presidents tend toward ________.
A) an analytical decision style
B) no one dominant decision style
C) a conceptual decision style
D) the directive decision style
Table 8.1
Introduction to Business class is to observe the use of groups in a large manufacturing
business. The students notice that most groups are arranged by reporting relationships.
Bill discovers a group of managers who have been placed together to study and
recommend a course of action on a flextime schedule for employees. Jane finds that the
executives of the company have formed a team consisting of themselves, some middle
managers, and a few hourly employees to work on improving work processes and
efficiency within the company. This group has been in existence for 5 years and is
going strong.
Refer to Table 8.1. Jane’s group appears to be what type of group?
A) Task group
B) Formal command group
C) Ad hoc committee or task force
D) Self-managing group
In Japan, a Keiretsu is:
A) similar to a Guanxi in China.
B) a large, unified conglomerate.
C) a strategic alliance
D) a spin-off.
Table 11.3
The employees are in a contract negotiation with your company and you represent
management. You are concerned with maximizing the results for both sides, while the
union is focused on getting the best wages and working conditions possible, regardless
of the cost to you. During a coffee break the union negotiator tells you he understands
where you are coming from but there’s only so much money to go around, and his
people want as much as possible. Back at the table, you ask the union negotiator if he
would put the retirement plan and health care plan on the table as well so you could
make an offer to increase their wages. He refuses. Three months go by with no
progress. You suggest arbitration by a third party. The union agrees only if both sides
must accept what the arbitrator offers. You agree.
Refer to Table 11.3. You have a/an ________ orientation to the bargaining process.
A) integrative
B) individualistic
C) win-win
D) win-lose
Which of the following strategies would Frederick Taylor recommend to improve
productivity?
A) Paying workers a salary or hourly wage.
B) Improving worker job satisfaction.
C) Implementing a program of careful selection and training of all employees.
D) Expanding job responsibilities for each worker.
The desire to achieve success to avoid appearing incompetent is:
A) learning goal orientation.
B) performance goal orientation.
C) avoidance goal orientation.
D) Machiavellianism.
Research of group versus individual decision-making seems suggests that:
A) groups are almost always superior to individuals, regardless of the decision.
B) individuals are almost always superior to groups, regardless of the decision.
C) the superiority of group or individual decision-making depends on the nature of the
task.
D) there is no measurable difference between decisions made by groups or individuals.