Management, 3e (Hitt)
Chapter 10 Groups and Teams
1) A group has additional characteristics beyond a team, including a higher degree of
interdependent, coordinated interaction and a stronger sense of members’ personal responsibility
for achieving specified group outcomes.
2) A command group is a type of informal group.
3) A command group consists of a supervisor or manager and all those who report to that person.
4) A task force is a group put together by an organization for a particular purpose, such as to
design a new product or to work on a particular problem, and usually for a limited period of time.
5) Informal groups have little effect on the attitudes and performance of their members in
relation to organization tasks and objectives.
6) During the forming stage of group development, group members build consensus on basic
issues.
7) In the storming stage of group development, there are often conflicts over group goals or the
means to reach them.
8) Social loafing generally increases as group size increases.
9) As group size increases, process costs decrease.
10) Role conflict is a situation in which two members of a group are performing the same role.
11) “Status” refers to a group’s shared standards that guide the behavior of its individual
members.
12) Norms do not necessarily apply to all members of the group.
13) A sudden challenge to the group can create specific and vivid responses that form the basis
for how members should be expected to respond in the future. These are known as imported
behaviors.
14) A highly cohesive group is more likely to reject any deviance from its norms, even if it
represents creative ideas that could ultimately be useful to the group.
15) An autonomous group has no formally appointed supervisor but the members coordinate
their organizational work as if they all report to the same formally appointed supervisor.
16) Global teams known as “equalizers” accept and build upon their differences and use them to
enhance their creativity.
17) In the context of team development, skills refer to highly developed behavioral and cognitive
capabilities that are necessary to carry out team tasks and meet team goals.
18) When dealing with group conflict, a manager should try to increase the ratio of relationship
to substantive conflict.
19) Intragroup conflict occurs within groups whereas intergroup conflict occurs among groups.
20) Richard Hackman suggests that managers should focus solely on output when they are
evaluating group performance.
21) Which of the following is a difference between teams and groups?
A) Teams generally rely on unilateral action and have little coordinated interaction.
B) Members of a team take more personal responsibility for achieving team goals than group
members do.
C) Group members take greater personal responsibility for specified outcomes than team
members.
D) Groups have a a higher degree of interdependent, coordinated interaction.
22) As the basic work units of an organization, ________ are relatively permanent groups and
consist of a supervisor or manager and all those who report to that person.
A) committees
B) command groups
C) project groups
D) task forces
23) Which of the following is an example of a command group?
A) Stan is on the safety committee at D&R.
B) Starcraft Services is shifting to a new office and asks for volunteers to conceptualize and
design the place.
C) Ed is a supervisor for a brick-laying team at a construction site.
D) Bree and her friends from various departments get together to plan a movie night once a
month.
24) Which of the following is true of a command group?
A) It is put together for a definite, limited period of time.
B) Membership is voluntary and not initiated by the organization.
C) It is relatively enduring and group membership changes relatively slowly.
D) It is ad hoc in nature and members report to different supervisors.
25) Which of the following is an example of a supervisory group?
A) project groups in a college
B) a budget committee
C) a car pool group
D) a clerical unit in a company
26) A marketing group for an office supply company meets with their supervisor on the first
Friday of every month to review their advertising programs and promotional activities. This
group is an example of a(n) ________.
A) committee
B) command group
C) project/task force
D) autonomous work group
27) Which of the following is a characteristic of project groups?
A) These are constructed for a specific and limited purpose.
B) These are not originated by the organization.
C) They do not have a defined beginning and a specified ending date.
D) These groups are relatively permanent.
28) Which of the following is an example of a task group?
A) The manufacturing assembly units at JEG, an automotive parts company, see rapid turnover.
B) The project design team at LPR consists of members from three departments.
C) The safety committee at N&S is made up of members from each department in the company.
D) A number of employees at Lemontree watch a movie together every Friday night.
29) ICE, Inc. has called upon a group of the Management Information System handlers to
oversee the design and implementation of a new company-wide information system over the next
two months. This group is an example of a ________.
A) command group
B) project/task force
C) cross-functional team
D) committee
30) Which of the following is true regarding a committee?
A) The members of a committee have different permanent jobs.
B) Membership is voluntary and informal.
C) Committees are relatively permanent.
D) Committees are not originated by the organization.
31) Which of the following is an example of a committee?
A) A six-member team at N&S has been set up to plan the launch of the company’s newest
product.
B) LPR has set up a group to conduct the yearly promotion review function.
C) A group of employees at Lemontree go to lunch together every Monday.
D) The manufacturing assembly units at JEG, an automotive parts company, were recently
reshuffled.
32) ABC Enterprises plans to assign the duty of reviewing its quarterly budget to six of its
employees. These employees will be members of a ________.
A) committee
B) task force
C) work group
D) command group
33) Which of the following is true of an informal group in an organization?
A) It is formed by an organization’s mandate.
B) It has no effect on the attitudes and performances of members at work.
C) Membership is usually temporary and the group is formed for a definite period.
D) Membership is voluntary and members choose to interact with one another.
34) ________ are designated, created, and sanctioned by the organization to carry out its basic
work and fulfill its overall mission.
A) Formal groups
B) Informal groups
C) Friendship groups
D) Voluntary groups
35) A(n) ________ is one whose members choose to interact voluntarily with one another, not by
organizational mandate.
A) command group
B) supervisory group
C) informal group
D) formal group
36) Sometimes, companies hire intact groups away from other companies instead of developing
their own new group, in order to jump start some new initiative. This practice is known as
________.
A) line-out
B) line-up
C) lift-out
D) lift-off
37) Which of the following accurately depicts the sequence of the stages of group development?
A) storming, forming, norming, and performing
B) storming, norming, forming, and performing
C) forming, storming, norming, and performing
D) forming, norming, storming, and performing
38) During the “forming” stage of group development, the group members usually ________.
A) get acquainted with each other
B) express their differing opinions
C) build consensus on basic issues
D) carry out cooperative actions
39) Amy has put together a team of eight employees to conduct a review of the company’s safety
practices. This function is new to most group members and nearly all of them have come up to
Amy personally to clarify their doubts about how the group will function and what their
responsibilities will be. What stage of group development is Amy’s team in?
A) norming
B) performing
C) forming
D) storming
40) During the ________ of group development, members cautiously exchange information and
conflicts begin to emerge.
A) forming stage
B) storming stage
C) norming stage
D) performing stage
41) Beth has just briefed her group of nine about their roles and responsibilities, but she notices
that the members are not yet very comfortable exchanging information with each other. She also
observes that the members frequently end up arguing with each other because each has a
different idea of how the group should function. Beth’s group is in the ________ stage of group
development.
A) storming
B) norming
C) performing
D) forming
42) During the ________ stage of group development, a consensus about the group’s issues
begins to appear and the members start identifying with the group and its goals.
A) storming
B) performing
C) norming
D) forming
43) During the performing stage of group development, ________.
A) the members take actions as a coherent entity
B) the members learn what is expected of them
C) the members get acquainted with each other
D) the members begin to express their different opinions
44) The optimal size for a group in the workplace ________.
A) refers to the largest number of people who can do the task
B) has a neutral effect on each member’s level of participation
C) varies based on the types of tasks facing the group
D) increases exponentially as the organization grows
45) When a group’s size increases, the sense of personal responsibility for its output or
performance on the part of each individual member tends to decrease. This phenomenon is
known as ________.
A) social loafing
B) social conformity
C) group cohesion
D) group conflict
46) Social loafing in work groups ________.
A) decreases as the size of the group increases
B) increases as the size of the group decreases
C) increases when individual contributions are easy to identify
D) decreases when individual contributions are easy to identify
47) The N&S design team recently took on eight more people to cope with a sudden influx of
work. However, the management noticed that productivity did not increase significantly after the
new members joined, and even decreased in some cases. This can be attributed to ________.
A) the negativity effect
B) social loafing
C) effort optimism
D) cognitive biases
48) Groups composed of individuals who are very dissimilar to each other are known as
________.
A) heterogeneous groups
B) analogous groups
C) homologous groups
D) homogeneous groups
49) Which of the following is an observable attribute of diversity?
A) tenure
B) ethnicity
C) values
D) skills
50) ________ is an underlying attribute of diversity.
A) Gender
B) Race
C) Skills
D) Age
51) Which of the following is a potential affective consequence of diversity within groups?
A) innovation
B) amount and quality of new ideas
C) decreased frequency of communication
D) satisfaction
52) Which of the following is a potential cognitive consequence of diversity within groups?
A) amount and quality of new ideas
B) identification with the group
C) increased frequency of communication outside the group
D) conflict within the group
53) ________ refers to a situation in which the expected behaviors for a group member are not
clearly defined.
A) Role overload
B) Role ambiguity
C) Role conflict
D) Role insufficiency
54) ________ emerges when a member has to fulfill two or more contrasting sets of
expectations.
A) Role insufficiency
B) Role conflict
C) Role overload
D) Role ambiguity
55) Alice is a barista at a coffee shop in her town. Though the baristas are expected to be friendly
and interact with customers, Alice finds it difficult to spend enough time with individual
customers when she is also required to serve a minimum quota of customers during her shift.
Alice is experiencing ________.
A) role reversal
B) role conflict
C) role ambiguity
D) role overload
56) The standing or prestige that a person has in a group, which can be based on a number of
factors such as perceived leadership abilities, seniority, or special skills, is known as ________.
A) status
B) role
C) legacy
D) norm
57) Which of the following statements is true regarding status issues in groups?
A) Status differences have no influence on the interactions within a group.
B) Higher-status members tend to receive fewer communications than lower-status members.
C) Higher-status members often defer to lower-status members when groups are making
decisions.
D) A group’s decision-making ability is inhibited if the status differences within the group are
too extreme.
58) A ________ is a standard, shared by the group, that guides the behavior of its individual
members.
A) cachet
B) norm
C) legacy
D) status
59) Which of the following is true regarding norms?
A) All norms apply equally to all members of a group.
B) An individual’s actions are more predictable in the absence of norms.
C) Norms tend to increase ambiguity for the members of a group.
D) Norms provide members with cues about how to behave.