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1. Employee training should emphasize vigilance for Internet scams, as well as simple security measures such as locking
all devices and keeping passwords secret.
a. True
b. False
2. The Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization and Management (PRISM) prevents the National Security
Agency (NSA) from collecting information to track foreign agents.
a. True
b. False
3. Values based on the Qur’an are the most important part of Muslim human resource management systems.
a. True
b. False
4. In the context of HR in Muslim societies, Sharia does not allow stoning to death for fornication and adultery.
a. True
b. False
5. Evidence suggests that telecommuting reduces job satisfaction and productivity.
a. True
b. False
6. Individual incentive plans reward individual performance on a real-time basis.
a. True
b. False
7. In the United States, most faith-based businesses incorporate Christian beliefs into their day-to-day management
practices.
a. True
b. False
8. Performance feedback should focus exclusively on effective performance.
a. True
b. False
9. It is not possible to adapt training methods to ensure that all team members share mental models of how the team
should perform.
a. True
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b. False
10. Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization and Management (PRISM) cannot access information about
American citizens under any circumstance.
a. True
b. False
11. Which of the following is a critical component of a behavior-modification plan?
a. Providing employees with easy and unspecific goals
b. Making sure that desirable conduct is never punished and that undesirable conduct is never rewarded
c. Making sure that behavior is not reinforced using the continuous schedule of reinforcement
d. Ensuring that punishment is not used to eliminate undesirable behavior
12. James, an employee at a hospital, has different duties for each day in a week. On Mondays, he reviews and files
patient charts. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he collects lab specimens from patients. On Wednesdays, he enters lab results
into the computer database. On Fridays, he is in charge of paperwork. In this scenario, which of the following
motivational approaches is being implemented?
a. Employee disengagement
b. Employee offshoring
c. Job outsourcing
d. Job rotation
13. Which of the following is a group-based incentive system?
a. A knowledge-based pay plan
b. A skill-based pay plan
c. A stock-option plan
d. A piece-rate incentive plan
14. _____ is an arrangement in which a group is given responsibility for designing a system to be used in performing an
interrelated set of jobs.
a. Groupshift
b. Groupthink
c. An autocratic team
d. A work team
15. Which of the following arrangements allows organizations to use the services of individuals who may not be able to
work at a given site?
a. Compressed workweeks
b. Telecommuting
c. Social workspaces
d. Flexible work hour plans
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16. Which of the following is one of the most common alternatives to the traditional workweek?
a. A work team
b. Job rotation
c. Job enlargement
d. A flexible work hour plan
17. In the context of the job characteristics approach, feedback is the:
a. number of tasks a person does in a job.
b. perceived importance of a task.
c. extent to which a worker knows how well a job is being performed.
d. extent to which a worker does a complete or identifiable portion of a total job.
18. _____ are gainsharing plans in which teams or groups of employees are encouraged to suggest strategies for reducing
costs, and the gains are distributed according to who suggested the cost-reduction strategy.
a. Profit sharing plans
b. Scanlon plans
c. Merit-pay plans
d. Stock-purchase plans
19. _____ are plans in which employees usually must work 40 hours per week and typically 5 days a week but in which
they have control over the starting and ending times for work on each day.
a. Flexible work hour plans
b. Compressed workweeks
c. Home work programs
d. Part-time work plans
20. In almost every organization offering flexible work hour plans, there is a(n) _____ each day during which every
employee must be at work.
a. down time
b. core time
c. flextime
d. overtime
21. _____ is an alternative work arrangement in which employees may do almost all of their work at home and may even
receive assignments electronically.
a. A flexible work hour plan
b. Social workspace
c. A compressed workweek
d. Telecommuting
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22. Identify a true statement about faith-based businesses.
a. They are not privately owned.
b. They include benefit packages that extend coverage to same-sex partners of employees.
c. They do not provide compensation for their employees.
d. They tend to be closed on Sunday.
23. Which of the following is an advantage of faith-based businesses?
a. They tend to provide reasonable compensation and benefits packages for their employees.
b. They have high sales because they are open seven days a week.
c. They extend benefit packages to the same-sex partners of their employees.
d. They are publicly owned and have high business growth.
24. In the context of the job characteristics approach, the higher a job rates on skill variety, task identity, task significance,
autonomy, and feedback, the _____.
a. lower the degree of control a worker has over how a task is performed
b. higher the level of absenteeism and turnover
c. lower the level of motivation
d. more employees will experience various psychological states
25. _____ is a program developed to improve group- or firm-level performance and is based on a model of motivation
similar to expectancy theory.
a. The productivity measurement and evaluation system
b. The job characteristics approach
c. The employee stock ownership plan
d. The intrinsic model of performance management
26. Identify a true statement about the productivity measurement and evaluation system (ProMES).
a. It incorporates ideas from goal setting to feedback, and it includes incentives for improvement.
b. It posits that the relationship between performance and attaining outcomes is irrelevant in productivity
measurement and evaluation.
c. It focuses on individual-level performance.
d. It relies on intrinsic motivation to motivate employees.
27. The management of Jeremynt Inc., a public relations firm, gives each of its teams the responsibility of increasing its
productivity through measures developed by the team members and approved by the respective managers. The company
then measures the team-level productivity, and the cost savings resulting from the improvements in productivity are split
with its employees. In this scenario, Jeremynt Inc. is most likely using a group incentive system called _____.
a. profit sharing
b. a fixed incentive plan
c. a sales commission
d. gainsharing
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Chapter 14 – Managing and Enhancing Performance: The Big Picture
28. Which of the following statements is true in the context of performance-based rewards?
a. The most general form of the merit-pay plan is to reward the individual performance of employees on a real-time
basis.
b. Performance appraisal has the most meaning to employees if it is subsequently connected with a reward such as a
salary increase.
c. Incentive compensation systems are among the most recent forms of performance-based rewards.
d. Incentive compensation systems work best in situations that involve ambiguous performance indicators.
29. Identify a true statement about performance feedback.
a. It should be targeted on an individual him- or herself.
b. It should follow a non-developmental approach.
c. It should involve a one-way communication, with the manager as the initiator.
d. It should focus on both effective and ineffective performance.
30. _____ are compensation plans that formally base at least some meaningful portion of compensation on the relative
value of an employee’s contributions to the organization.
a. Fixed incentive plans
b. Merit-pay plans
c. Stock-option plans
d. Stock-purchase plans
31. Which of the following statements is true of stock-based incentive programs?
a. They are more typically used with hourly employees rather than executive employees.
b. They are effective only so long as the price of the stock remains constant.
c. They are individual incentive systems.
d. They have special problems, since employees’ incentives are tied to the price of the stock.
32. Who among the following managers is most likely to be effective at providing performance feedback?
a. Meena, who focuses on providing details to her subordinates on how they have been evaluated
b. Daniel, who focuses on providing developmental feedback targeted at his subordinates’ behavior
c. Emily, who focuses exclusively on the effective performance of her employees
d. Farhan, who focuses on each employee’s character
33. The typical form of the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) involves a company:
a. offering restricted stock plans to all its employees, which are really used as a retention tool rather than as a
performance incentive.
b. taking out a loan, which is then used to buy a portion of the company’s stock in the open market.
c. offering shares of stock to its employees only if they remain with the company for a specified period of time.
d. providing its employees with an option to buy its stock in the future at a predetermined fixed price.
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34. Goal theory suggests that:
a. all goals are created equal.
b. impossible goals are the most effective in motivating employees.
c. employees are most motivated by vague and unspecific goals.
d. employees will exert the greatest effort when they have specific, difficult goals to work toward.
35. The employees of Starknoah Inc. are required to work a full 40 hours for 5 days a week. However, the employees have
the flexibility to choose their starting and ending times for work each day. The only constraint in this arrangement is that
all the employees are required to be at work between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. In this scenario, which of the following
alternative work arrangements is Starknoah Inc. using?
a. Telecommuting
b. Freelancing
c. Flexible work hour plans
d. Part-time work plans
36. Which of the following is the most basic form of incentive compensation?
a. Merit pay
b. A sales commission
c. Profit sharing
d. A stock-option plan
37. _____ is awarded to employees on the basis of the relative value of their contributions to the organization.
a. A stock option
b. Merit pay
c. Base pay
d. A sales commission
38. In the context of performance-based rewards, the most general form of the merit-pay plan is to:
a. pay some portion of the company’s profits into a profit-sharing pool.
b. share the cost savings from productivity improvements with employees.
c. provide annual salary increases to employees based on the relative value of their contributions to the organization.
d. reward the individual performance of employees on a real-time basis rather than increasing their base salary at the
end of the year.
39. In the context of work teams, if work is designed to be done by teams, _____.
a. there is less likelihood of shirking
b. it is easy to motivate employees who exert exceptional effort
c. all rewards must be based on team performance
d. it is easy to reward individuals in true teamwork settings
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40. Which of the following statements is true of enhancing organizational performance?
a. Performance appraisal and performance management interventions have been proven to improve firm-level
performance drastically.
b. The most basic level of performance is at the team level.
c. Performance in any organization exists at multiple levels.
d. There is strong evidence to support the idea that improving individual-level performance will directly lead to
firm-level performance.
41. Sean, the owner of a hardware store, pays incentives to the members of his sales team based on their ability to sell
products to industrial buyers. Each salesperson receives 20 percent of the amount earned from his or her total sales. In this
scenario, which of the following incentive systems is Sean most likely using to reward his employees?
a. Gainsharing
b. Profit sharing
c. A piece-rate plan
d. A commission
42. Home work programs include arrangements that are often referred to as _____, which manufacture small and not very
complex items.
a. housing industries
b. chartered businesses
c. cottage industries
d. regulatory businesses
43. _____ was developed to increase the total number of tasks workers perform based on the assumption that doing the
same basic task over and over is the primary cause of worker dissatisfaction.
a. Job enlargement
b. Job rotation
c. Employee disengagement
d. Employee offshoring
44. Which of the following is a difference between the job characteristics approach and job specialization?
a. Job specialization considers task identity and task significance core dimensions in job design, whereas the job
characteristics approach does not.
b. The job characteristics approach takes into account the work system and employee preferences, whereas job
specialization does not.
c. The job characteristics approach has been proven to increase turnover, whereas job specialization has been proven
to decrease turnover.
d. Job specialization has been proven to increase work quality, whereas the job characteristics approach has been
proven to decrease work quality.
45. In the context of cybersecurity, which of the following statements is true of Planning Tool for Resource Integration,
Synchronization and Management (PRISM)?
a. It can intentionally access information about American citizens.
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b. It can access information about American citizens when information is collected incidentally as part of a sweep of
information about a foreign operative.
c. It helps the Secretary of Homeland Security facilitate national efforts to protect sensitive information from
cyberthreats.
d. It is a tool used to ensure good cyberhygiene in terms of computer-usage policies.
46. In the context of evaluating performance-enhancement programs, _____ is a human resource indicator.
a. stock price
b. return on investment
c. general labor cost
d. market share
47. _____ is a team- and group-based incentive system designed to split the cost savings from productivity improvements
with employees.
a. Gainsharing
b. Profit sharing
c. A fixed incentive system
d. A sales commission
48. Mechateron Inc., a mechanical products manufacturing company, pays its employees $1 for every 10 fiberglass pipes
they weld. In this scenario, which of the following performance-based reward systems is Mechateron Inc. most likely
using?
a. A fixed incentive system
b. A piece-rate system
c. Profit sharing
d. Gainsharing
49. Marcia, a senior accountant in an insurance company, has a two-year-old son who needs her frequent attention. In
order to spend more time with him, she takes her office work home with her and completes it on her personal computer.
She returns to office for important meetings or to collect more work. In this scenario, which of the following alternative
work arrangements is Marcia using?
a. Compressed workweeks
b. Flexible work hour plans
c. An electronic cottage
d. A self-directed work team
50. _____ is an alternative to job specialization that takes into account the work system and employee preferences.
a. The job enlargement approach
b. Employee disengagement
c. The job characteristics approach
d. Employee outsourcing
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51. Which of the following statements is true of firm-level performance?
a. It determines a company’s stock price.
b. It does not generate profits.
c. It is exclusively used to indicate the chances of a firm’s short-term survival.
d. It does not play a role in improving organizational performance.
52. Which of the following statements is true of a stock-purchase plan?
a. It is offered only to the senior managers and the top executives of a company.
b. It is used more as a performance incentive than as a retention tool.
c. It is an individual incentive system.
d. It is applicable to employees only if they remain with the company for a specified period of time.
53. _____ are arrangements in which an employee works the required number of hours but does so in fewer than 5 days.
a. Flexible work hour plans
b. Part-time work programs
c. Freelancing work programs
d. Compressed workweeks
54. Romero Inc. manufactures paper products. One set of workers at Romero Inc. has the full-time job of sorting scrap as
it enters the facility. The quality of sorting is regularly monitored by checking the quality of the paper products, and
necessary instructions are given to the scrap sorters. In the context of the core dimensions of the job characteristics
approach, Romero Inc. stresses on _____.
a. skill variety
b. task identity
c. autonomy
d. feedback
55. Under _____, an organization pays an employee a certain amount of money for every unit she or he produces.
a. a piece-rate incentive plan
b. the merit-pay plan
c. the Scanlon plan
d. a fixed incentive plan
56. Which of the following is a difference between gainsharing and profit-sharing incentive systems?
a. Gainsharing is a group incentive system, whereas profit sharing is an individual incentive system.
b. Gainsharing involves distributing savings among all the employees in a company, whereas profit sharing involves
distributing savings among the members of a specific team.
c. Gainsharing involves sharing cost savings from productivity improvements with employees, whereas profit
sharing involves distributing a portion of the company’s gains to all employees.
d. Gainsharing is independent of a team’s performance, whereas profit sharing is specific to the contributions of a
work group.
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57. In the context of evaluating performance-enhancement programs, _____ is an explicit financial indicator.
a. return on investment
b. general labor cost
c. turnover rate
d. accident rate
58. Which of the following statements is true of skill- and knowledge-based pay?
a. They reward employees for increased performance.
b. They reward employees for increasing their capacity to perform well in the future.
c. They are based on an organization’s present needs.
d. They are traditional group incentive systems that focus on short-term goals.
59. Identify a true statement about compressed workweeks.
a. They require employees to work at least 5 days a week.
b. They exempt employees from working the required number of hours a week.
c. They may affect some social aspects of a job.
d. They are related to decreased accidents in all settings.
60. Which of the following statements is true in the context of trends in HR?
a. Employee benefits are the least likely to be affected by cost-cutting requirements.
b. Silicon Valley companies spend far less on employee benefits than do average U.S. employers.
c. The class system in the modern workplace is changing from a two-class system to a three-class system.
d. Businesses in Silicon Valley are offering increasingly lavish, unusual, and expensive benefits to their employees.
61. Explain the concept of alternate work sites.
62. Explain privacy and cybersecurity in the 21stcentury.
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63. What is the productivity measurement and evaluation system (ProMES)?
64. Explain the significance of performance feedback in performance management.
65. Explain team and group incentive plans.
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