Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
Chapter 9: 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
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
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. How is the workplace frame different from other frames?
a. The focus on relational goals
b. The formality/hierarchy distinction
c. The use of informal language
d. The expectation of an ongoing relationship
13. ______ theory points to the regularities of human relationships that act as rules and
resources drawn on to enable or constrain social interaction.
a. Structuration
b. Organizational Communication
c. Workplace Goals
d. Work/Life Balance
14. The notion of ______ time is the time a person is actually counted as being at work
and therefore is paid for doing such work.
a. structured
b. organizational
c. workplace
d. industrial
15. A personal problem at home negatively affecting someone’s performance at work is
known as the ______ effect.
a. spillover
b. isolation
c. Hawthorne
d. relationship
16. An example of ______ is when a child watches a television show about firefighters
and proclaims to want to be a firefighter.
a. vocational anticipatory socialization
b. high code adoption
c. spillover effect
d. sedimentation
17. The generation of individuals born from 2005-present are known as the ______.
a. Baby Boomers
b. Generation X
c. Millennials
d. Generation Z
18. The generation of individuals born from 1982-2004 are known as the ______.
a. Baby Boomers
b. Generation X
c. Millennials
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
d. Generation Z
19. The generation of individuals born from 1943-1960 are known as the ______.
a. Baby Boomers
b. Generation X
c. Millennials
d. Generation Z
20. The generation of individuals born from 1961-1981 are known as the ______.
a. Baby Boomers
b. Generation X
c. Millennials
d. Generation Z
Multiple Response
1. SELECT 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. SELECT 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. SELECT 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. SELECT 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. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Before clocks became important for employers to count
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
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. SELECT 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. SELECT 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
True/False
1. The “workplace” is best viewed as a relational enterprise that involves meaning
making, rhetorical visions, and everyday communication.
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
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.
11. For children who have not yet experienced the workplace, these kinds of stories,
comments, and conversational pieces are formative.
12. The workplace frame is one in which instrumental goals tend to dominate over
relational goals.
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
13. Relational goals are focused on tasks and achievement of organizational objectives.
14. Formality/hierarchy creates distance between workers and management and
establishes clear relational connections among people.
15. Professional face involves the behaviors, courtesy, and interaction styles that are
appropriate for people to present to others in a workplace.
16. Organizational climate is not a property of organizations but an interpersonally and
relationally transacted product of communication based on the relationships between
people.
17. Beyond learning workplace norms specific to a particular organization, people at
work can be a source of information about the actual job we are doing and can provide
insight into how to improve our performance.