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Chapter 01 What is Organizational Behavior? Answer Key
True / False Questions
1.
Strategic management focuses on the product choices and industry characteristics that
affect an organization’s profitability.
2.
The theories and concepts found in OB are drawn from two disciplines: human resources
management and strategic management.
1-2
3.
The integrative model of organizational behavior suggests that individual mechanisms
result in organizational and group mechanisms that, when combined with individual
characteristics, lead to individual outcomes.
4.
The two primary outcomes of interest to OB researchers, employees, and managers are
job performance and job satisfaction.
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5.
Much of what we know about organizational behavior is considered universal and “culture
free,” showing that managing people faces the same challenges everywhere.
6.
The integrative model of OB presents five individual mechanisms that directly affect the
individual outcomes: motivation; learning and decision making; job performance;
leadership styles and behaviors; and ethics.
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7.
Job satisfaction reflects employees’ psychological responses to job demands that tax or
exceed their capacities.
8.
Trust, justice, and ethics capture what employees feel when thinking about their jobs and
doing their day-to-day work.
9.
The Container Store, a retailer based out of Texas, is considering a performance-based
incentive system for its employees in which workers’ pay will be based on their
productivity. This is an example of a system designed to address employee motivation.
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10.
Learning and decision making deal with how employees gain job knowledge and how they
use that knowledge to make accurate judgments on the job.
11.
Job satisfaction has no effect on job performance but does affect organizational
commitment.
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12.
Like individual characteristics, group mechanisms shape satisfaction, stress, motivation,
trust, and learning.
13.
The integrative model of OB acknowledges that employees typically work in one or more
work teams, which may be led by a formal or an informal leader.
14.
The topics of leader power and negotiation summarize how individuals attain authority
over others.
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15.
To counter the effects of a bad product, effective management of OB can help make the
product get better, incrementally, over the long term.
16.
According to the resource-based view of organizations, a firm’s resources include
resources related to organizational behavior, such as the knowledge, ability, and wisdom
of the workforce.
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17.
The resource-based view suggests that a resource is more valuable when it is common
and easily available.
18.
People create a history—a collective pool of experience, wisdom, and knowledge that
benefits the organization.
19.
Big decisions are visible to competitors and observable by industry experts.
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Blooms: Understand
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 01-03 What factors affect the two primary OB outcomes?
Topic: Organizational behavior (OB)
20.
Resources like culture, teamwork, trust, and reputation are termed “socially complex”
because it is not always clear which organizations do (and do not) possess them, though it
is clear how they came to develop.
21.
Good employees are both rare and inimitable.
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22.
There is no research evidence that supports the relationship between good OB practices
and performance, but it makes good sense that they should be related.
23.
Because good employees tend to move from one organization to another, they do not
create a resource valuable enough for creating competitive advantage.
24.
Firms that do not undergo an IPO typically have shorter histories and need an infusion of
cash to grow or introduce some new technology.
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25.
The Rule of One-Eighth suggests that about 88 percent of existing companies actually do
what is required to build profits by putting people first.
26.
OB research suggests that there are several OB practices that each can increase
profitability, that is, they serve as “magic bullets” for organizations.
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27.
The integrative model of OB was designed with the Rule of One–Eighth in mind.
28.
It is often easy to “fix” companies that struggle with OB issues.
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29.
The method of intuition suggests that people hold firmly to some belief because it seems
obvious or self-evident.
30.
According to the method of experience, people hold firmly to some belief because
scientific studies have tended to replicate results using a series of samples, settings, and
methods.
31.
The method of authority suggests that people hold firmly to some belief because some
respected official, agency, or source has said it is so.
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32.
Theory is defined as a collection of assertions—both verbal and symbolic—that specify
how and why variables are related, as well as the conditions in which they should (and
should not) be related.
33.
Analyses are written predictions that specify relationships among variables.
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34.
A correlation describes the statistical relationship between two variables.
35.
The best way to understand correlation between two variables is to look at a scatterplot.
36.
The strength of a correlation can be inferred from the “compactness” of its scatterplot.
1-16
37.
Understanding correlation is important because OB questions are “yes or no” in nature.
38.
Causal inferences means establishing that one variable really does cause another.
39.
Meta-analyses cannot form the foundation for evidence-based management.
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40.
Evidence-based management is a perspective that argues that scientific findings should
not form the foundation for management education.
41.
Proponents of evidence-based management argue that human resources should be
transformed into a sort of R&D department for managing people.
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Multiple Choice Questions
42.
_____ is a field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving the
attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations.
1-19
43.
Which of the following attributes have been identified as some of the worst behaviors
exhibited by coworkers?
44.
Which of the following takes the theories and principles studied in OB and explores the
“nuts and bolts” applications of those principles in organizations?
1-20
45.
Which of the following focuses on the product choices and industry characteristics that
affect an organization’s profitability?
46.
When a firm expands into a new product segment, it is known as _____.