Assignments

Select the term that best describes each situation. Use each term no more than once. If you want your employees to resolve conflict openly, what type of norms should you try to influence or create? • Conflict culture • Disagreeable conflict management norms • Passive-aggressive conflict culture • Active conflict management norms • Dominating conflict culture • Culture of inclusion • Passive conflict management norms • Collaborative conflict culture • Agreeable conflict management norms • Avoidant conflict culture

• Active conflict management norms Active conflict management norms resolve conflict openly, whereas passive conflict management norms tend to avoid addressing conflict.

Match each situation with the communication process term that best describes it. During a performance appraisal meeting, an employee drumming his fingers on the table and fidgeting in the chair is told by his manager to relax, the purpose of the meeting is to help him succeed at the company. What is the fidgeting and finger drumming an example of? • Body language • Noise • Message

• Body language During a performance appraisal meeting, an employee drumming his fingers on the table and fidgeting in the chair is using body language to communicate anxiety without saying a word.

Match each description or example with the political tactic that best describes it. You share advance information about the company's upcoming budget with only your two most trusted colleagues. • Controlling information • Controlling lines of communication • Using outside experts • Controlling the agenda • Game playing • Image building • Building coalitions • Controlling decision parameters • Eliminating political rivals

• Controlling information Controlling information restricts information to only certain people, in this case your two most trusted colleagues.

What conflict management norms encourage competition? • Disagreeable conflict management norms • Agreeable conflict management norms • Active conflict management norms

• Disagreeable conflict management norms Disagreeable conflict management norms resolve conflict competitively. Agreeable conflict management norms resolve conflict in a cooperative manner. Active conflict management norms resolve conflict openly.

Match each situation with the term that best describes it. Use each term only once. After the restructuring, there are twenty fewer job titles in your organization. What does this reflect? • Organizational design • Span of control • Centralization • Organizational structure • Hierarchy • Mechanistic organization structure • Organizational chart • Formalization • Organic organization structure • Division of labor

• Division of labor Lower levels in an organization tend to be more specialized than higher levels. The division of labor is reflected in the number of job titles in an organization, or by the extent to which specialist roles exist within each functional area.

What business strategy is best supported by low formalization, low centralization and high specialization? • Innovation • Differentiation • Low-cost

• Innovation An innovation strategy is best supported by low formalization, low centralization and high specialization.

What is the biggest influence on a firm's culture? • Its lowest level employees • Its founder(s) • Its customers

• Its founder(s) An organization's founder(s) and early management team shape a firm's culture.

Select the term that best describes each situation. Use each term no more than once. To try to look good before a performance evaluation you tell your boss only about the things that are going well in your unit and fail to mention the challenges your team is facing. • Selective perception • Misperception • Filtering • Information overload • Organizational barrier • Cultural barrier • Noise

• Filtering Filtering occurs when information is intentionally withheld, ignored, or distorted to influence the message that is ultimately received.

This communication media ranks in the middle in terms of richness, feedback availability, personal focus, and the number of cues it provides. • Face-to-face communication • Formal written correspondence • Telephone

• Telephone Telephone communication ranks in the middle in terms of richness, feedback availability, personal focus, and the number of cues it provides.

If employees and customers are satisfied, _____ can help build loyalty. If not, employees and customers will communicate and amplify every complaint through these networks. • social networks • wikis • portals

• social networks If employees and customers are satisfied, social networks can help build loyalty. If not, employees and customers will communicate and amplify every complaint through these networks.

You realize that your growing company needs to increase the division of labor, standardization of work procedures, and written rules to be more effective. What organizational structure should you adopt? • A lattice structure • A team-based structure • A bureaucratic structure

• A bureaucratic structure As small companies grow, they typically adopt greater standardization and taller structures and develop a bureaucratic structure with greater standardization. In a bureaucratic structure, there is a formal division of labor, hierarchy, and standardization of work procedures, and employee behaviors follow written rules. In a team-based structure, performance team members from different functions are permanently assigned to the project or product team and do not report to a second functional manager. In organizations with a lattice structure, cross-functional and cross-level subteams are formed and dissolved as necessary to complete specific projects and tasks.

Watch the following video about Brian Durkee at Numi Tea and answer the following questions about power, influence, and politics. Ahmed Rahim, the co-founder and CEO of Numi Tea, says that he makes sure the companies he works with understand why they are being asked to work in a sustainable fashion, and that he doesn't just focus on telling them how much money they will make from working with Numi. When companies know the "why" of their work, this gives them the ability to make their own decisions and get excited about what they are doing. This is an example of _____ . •.empowerment • coalition tactics • personal power • position power

•.empowerment When Ahmed explains to other companies why they are being asked to do work in a certain way, he gives them the information they need to do their work more effectively, thus empowering them to make better decisions. Personal and position power come either from a leader's personal characteristics, or his or her position in the organization, while coalition tactics influence behavior with the help of others to convince someone to do something.

Your coworker Charlie tells you that he thinks that Phil is first in line for the next promotion. • Upward communication • Management by wandering around • Informal communication • Horizontal communication • Formal communication • Social networking • Diagonal communication

• Informal communication Informal communication is anything that is not official. Informal communications include gossip and answering another employee's question about how to do something.

Match each situation with the communication process term that best describes it. To let your employees know the facility's safety performance, you post a graph on the wall every day summarizing accidents and near-misses. The safety performance in the graph is called what? • Body language • Noise • Message

• Message The message is the encoded information being sent, in this case safety performance. Words, graphs, or other media used to send a message are the channel.

You tell your manager an idea you have to be more responsive to customer requests. • Upward communication • Management by wandering around • Informal communication • Horizontal communication • Formal communication • Social networking • Diagonal communication

• Upward communication Upward communication occurs when lower-level employees communicate with those at higher levels—for example, when a subordinate tells a manager about a problem employees are having meeting a customer's request.

If you wanted your organizational unit to create a new product that is essentially an entirely new industry, what type of innovation would you encourage? • A systems innovation • A radical innovation • An incremental innovation

• A radical innovation A radical innovation (sometimes called disruptive innovation) is a major breakthrough that changes or creates whole industries. An incremental innovation continues the technical improvement and extends the applications of radical and systems innovations. A systems innovation creates a new functionality by assembling parts in new ways, as in combining cameras with mobile phones.

Being which type of leader is a source of power because it builds trust and eliminates hidden agendas? • An ethical leader • A collaborative leader • A decisive leader

• An ethical leader Being an ethical leader is a source of power because it eliminates hidden agendas and builds trust.

If you are starting a new company and need employees to do a variety of things while you make most of the decisions yourself, you would use a _____ organizational structure. • prebureaucratic • matrix • functional

• prebureaucratic In new or young organizations, the entrepreneur or founding group makes the decisions, and most communication is one-on-one because of the small organization size. This type of early organizational structure is called prebureaucratic and is highly centralized and lacking task standardization.

Because workgroups develop their own _____ , intranets build a common cultural foundation that can help unify employees in different units and locations around common company values. • subcultures • slogans • customers

• subcultures Because workgroups develop their own subcultures, it is necessary to use tools including intranets to build a common cultural foundation to unify employees in different units and locations around common company values.

When mobile phone manufactures added a camera to the phone, they engaged in _____ . • systems innovation • intrapreneurship • radical innovation

• systems innovation Systems innovation creates a new functionality by assembling parts in new ways, as in combining cameras with mobile phones. Intrapreneurship is entrepreneurial activity that takes place within the context of a large corporation. Radical innovation (sometimes called disruptive innovation) a major breakthrough that changes or creates whole industries, as happened when the mobile phone was invented.

If your organization contracts out all of its functions except for the company name and coordinating the contractors it is a _____ . • virtual organization • community of practice • task force

• virtual organization A virtual organization is one that contracts out almost all of its functions except for the company name and managing the coordination among the contractors. When a specific project or problem needs to be addressed, organizations often create a temporary committee called a task force. Communities of practice are groups of people whose shared expertise and interest in a joint enterprise informally binds them together.

Watch this video in which Mark Allen, clinical information systems manager, and Fritz Kron, regional director for quality, discuss communication at Intermountain Healthcare. Then answer the questions that follow. Assume you are Fritz Kron, a Regional Director for Quality at Intermountain Healthcare. You learn that physicians have been having difficulty discussing health issues with patients, who are all very diverse. This has created problems in the quality of healthcare delivery. Which of the following is the problem you are facing? • Organizational barriers • Cultural barriers • Information overload • Selective perception

• Cultural barriers It is common for healthcare professionals to have to attend to cultural barriers when communicating with diverse patients. That is the case here so the solution is to help physicians better understand how to tailor their messages for patients from different cultural backgrounds. The problem is not information overload, organizational barriers, or selective perception.

You were recently promoted to a Vice President role of a major production subunit of your organization. You are well aware of the importance of the power of your subunit in obtaining valuable resources and influencing the direction of the company. As you prioritize the goals you have for your first year in your new position you decide to take steps to evaluate and enhance the power of your subunit relative to that of the other subunits in the organization. You are worried that some of the economic assumptions of the 5-year plan your organization just developed will be incorrect. Fortunately, you believe that the superior market visibility that your subunit has will help the company successfully manage a volatile economy. What type of power are you addressing? • Substitutability • Uncertainty • Centrality

• Uncertainty Uncertainty has to do with guiding the organization through a period of increased uncertainty. Substitutability happens when a subunit's power is reduced because others inside or outside of the organization can also perform its responsibilities. Centrality refers to how central a subunit's work is and the extent to which it influences the work of many other subunits.

If the things you control are important, rare, and cannot be substituted for something else, what is enhanced? • Your persuasiveness • Your ethics • Your power

• Your power Your power is greater if the things you control are important, rare, and cannot be substituted for something else.

To most effectively use _____ , administer appropriate punishment promptly and consistently, avoid appearing hostile, and give punishment in private. • coercive power • legitimate power • reward power

• coercive power To most effectively use coercive power, it is important to administer punishment promptly and consistently, avoid appearing hostile, and give warnings and punishment notifications in private. Showing disrespect and public humiliation are not appropriate. To use legitimate power effectively, it is important to follow the proper channels of communication and to be responsive to subordinates' concerns. To most effectively use reward power, offer attractive rewards, make reasonable requests, and ensure that the rewards you offer are viewed as ethical and not as bribes.

There are three elements of managing organizational culture. Two are taking advantage of the existing culture and teaching the organizational culture. What is the third? • Changing the organizational culture • Investing in the organizational culture • Planning the organizational culture

• Changing the organizational culture The three elements of managing organization culture are (a) taking advantage of the existing culture, (b) teaching the organization culture, and (c) changing the organization culture.

The structure of a firm using this production technology is often tall and thin, or even an inverted pyramid. • Continuous production • Unit production • Mass production

• Continuous production The structure of a firm using continuous production is often tall and thin, or even an inverted pyramid. When a firm uses continuous production, machines constantly make the product and employees monitor the machines and plan changes. At the bottom of the organization, continuous production requires a more mechanistic structure and low levels of supervision because machines do most of the work.

Your manager asks you to give him a project update by the end of the day. • Horizontal communication • Upward communication • Downward communication

• Downward communication Downward communication occurs when higher-level employees communicate to those at lower levels the organization—for example, from a manager to a subordinate. Downward communication typically consists of messages about how to do a job, performance goals, the firm's policies, and how the company is performing. Upward communication occurs when lower-level employees communicate with those at higher levels—for example, when a subordinate tells a manager about a problem employees are having meeting a customer's request. Horizontal communication occurs when someone in an organization communicates with others at the same organizational level.

Strong cultures clarify appropriate behavior, are widely shared, and are _____ . • internally consistent • easy to change • constantly changing

• internally consistent Strong cultures clarify appropriate behavior, are widely shared, and are internally consistent.

Having more than _____ direct reports is typically considered too many to effectively manage. • nine • four • seven

• nine There is no consensus on the ideal span of control, although having more than nine direct reports is often considered too many to effectively manage.

If you find yourself working as a manager in a company with performance-reducing values, you should _____ . • try to change the organization's culture • change your values to be performance-reducing • complain to your boss

• try to change the organization's culture The best thing to do if your company's values are performance-reducing is to try to change the values to be performance-enhancing.

Watch this video about Recyline and answer the questions about organizational culture that follow. When Eric Hudson founded Recycline, he says he wanted to create an "anti-common business environment" and he wanted to let go of "the basic stiff culture of what I saw in business at that time." These statements reflect which way a leader can influence an organization's culture? • Role-model behaviors that reinforce values. • Develop a clear sense of mission and values. • Use daily routines to demonstrate values. • Select employees who share desired values.

• Develop a clear sense of mission and values. Eric Hudson's ideas about his company reflect his vision for the company's mission and values. They tell employees what will be noticed, measured, and controlled in the organization.

Watch this video in which Mark Allen, clinical information systems manager, and Fritz Kron, regional director for quality, discuss communication at Intermountain Healthcare. Then answer the questions that follow. Assume you are Fritz Kron, a Regional Director for Quality at Intermountain Healthcare. You learn that physicians have been having difficulty discussing health issues with patients, who are all very diverse. This has created problems in the quality of healthcare delivery. How would you resolve this problem? • Help physicians understand how to tailor their messages for patients from different cultural backgrounds. • Find ways of minimizing the amount of information physicians have to attend to. • Reduce the layers in the communication hierarchy. • Get physicians to attend to things outside their expectations.

• Help physicians understand how to tailor their messages for patients from different cultural backgrounds. It is common for healthcare professionals to have to attend to cultural barriers when communicating with diverse patients. That is the case here so the solution is to help physicians better understand how to tailor their messages for patients from different cultural backgrounds. The problem is not information overload, organizational barriers, or selective perception.

Select the term that best describes each situation. Use each term no more than once. You are more likely to read all of your emails when there are only a few in your inbox. When you have dozens of messages, you are more likely to prioritize them and read only the most important ones right now. • Selective perception • Misperception • Filtering • Information overload • Organizational barrier • Cultural barrier • Noise

• Information overload Information overload occurs when we have so much information that it is impossible to process all of it. When faced with too much information, we have to use some sort of filtering strategy to reduce it to a manageable amount.

If you have high referent power, which upward influence tactic should you use? • Exchange • Ingratiation • Rationality

• Ingratiation An employee with referent power might use ingratiation because his or her compliments would be more highly valued by you, increasing his influence. Rationality would be most effective for someone with expert power, and exchange only works if you have something of value to the other person.

_____ efforts must focus on positioning the organization for the future. • Restructuring • Task force • Community of practice

• Restructuring Restructuring efforts must focus on positioning the organization for the future. Restructuring also must address the real cause of whatever the organization wants to change. When a specific project or problem needs to be addressed, organizations often create a temporary committee called a task force. Communities of practice are groups of people whose shared expertise and interest in a joint enterprise informally binds them together.

People who are higher in which personality trait are more likely to engage in impression management behaviors? • Extroversion • Self-monitoring • External locus of control

• Self-monitoring People who are higher in the personality trait of self-monitoring, which reflects having a high concern with others' perceptions of us and adjusting our behavior to fit the situation, are more likely to engage in impression management behaviors.

Watch the following video about Brian Durkee at Numi Tea and answer the following questions about power, influence, and politics. If Brian Durkee, the director of operations at Numi Tea, were to engage in going along to get ahead, which of the following actions would he be most likely to take? Check all that apply. • Agreeing with the ideas of Ahmed Rahim, the CEO of Numi Tea. • Participating in image building activities. • Keeping quiet at a meeting where new strategy ideas were being discussed. • Controlling the agenda for his team meetings closely.

• Agreeing with the ideas of Ahmed Rahim, the CEO of Numi Tea. • Keeping quiet at a meeting where new strategy ideas were being discussed. Going along to get ahead involves not taking political action in an organization, but instead, going along with the ideas of others who have political power. For this reason, if Brian were to keep quiet at a meeting where important strategy issues were being discussed, or if he agreed with whatever his boss, Ahmed, recommended, he would be using a going along to get ahead strategy. If he controlled the agenda for team meetings closely, or if he participated in image building activities, he would be involved in general political behavior.

At the end of the meeting you tell your staff that they need to "get this done", but they have no idea what you expect them to be doing to "do this" so nothing happens. • Organizational barrier • Ambiguity of meaning • Ambiguity of intent

• Ambiguity of intent Ambiguity of intent means the receiver is uncertain about the message's consequences. The clearer a message, the less chance ambiguity will cloud its meaning. Ambiguity of meaning occurs when the receiver is not sure what the sender meant. Organizational barriers to communication come from the hierarchical structure and culture of the organization. Numerous hierarchical levels or department specializations can make communication across levels and departments difficult.

Some organizations, including Yum Brands and KFC, give fun employee recognition awards including rubber chickens. What are the rubber chickens an example of? • An assumption • An espoused value or norm • An enacted value or norm • An artifact

• An artifact Artifacts are physical manifestations of the culture including awards such as the rubber chicken. Espoused values or norms are explicitly stated by the organization. Enacted values or norms are those that employees exhibit based on their observations of what actually goes on in the organization. Assumptions are organizational values that have become so taken for granted over time that they become the core of the company's culture.

Your new boss says, "I do not want to hear any conflicts or disagreements with my decisions." • Avoidant conflict culture • Culture of inclusion • Dominating conflict culture

• Avoidant conflict culture An avoidant conflict culture can be created by bosses not wanting to hear any conflicts or disagreements with decisions, policies, or practices. An organization's culture of inclusion reflects the extent to which majority members value efforts to increase minority representation, and whether the qualifications and abilities of minority members are questioned. Dominating conflict cultures are active and disagreeable—open confrontations are accepted as well as heated arguments and threats.

Watch this video in which Mark Allen, clinical information systems manager, and Fritz Kron, regional director for quality, discuss communication at Intermountain Healthcare. Then answer the questions that follow. Use your knowledge of communication management to answer the following questions. Assume you are Mark Allen, the Clinical Information Systems Manager at Intermountain Healthcare. You are working with a team of physicians, nurses, administrators, and other healthcare providers to improve the quality of healthcare at Intermountain Healthcare. You decide to implement a skill development program on written communication skills. Which of the following are skills you might consider developing in a workshop if you are focusing exclusively on improving written communication skills (as opposed to other forms of communication)? Check all that apply. • Back up assertions by supporting points with statistics, examples, citation of authorities, and anecdotes. • Follow up on unusual or inconsistent communication, such as changes in tone, vocabulary, and body language • Edit and revise to correct grammar and spelling errors. • Get to the point and use common language rather than using jargon or difficult verbiage.

• Back up assertions by supporting points with statistics, examples, citation of authorities, and anecdotes. • Edit and revise to correct grammar and spelling errors. • Get to the point and use common language rather than using jargon or difficult verbiage. Backing up assertions, using common language, and editing and revising are all aspects of effective written communication. Following up on unusual or inconsistent communication, such as changes in tone, vocabulary, and body language is an important aspect of active listening, not written communication.

Why does persuasion get people to do things differently? • Because they want to • Because they think they should • Because they have to

• Because they want to Because persuasion gets people to do things differently because they want to, not because they have been ordered to, it is a more effective way to lead. We are more motivated when we do things by choice rather than by force or sense of obligation.

Watch this video in which Mark Allen, clinical information systems manager, and Fritz Kron, regional director for quality, discuss communication at Intermountain Healthcare. Then answer the questions that follow. Use your knowledge of the different concepts related to the communication process to classify the following statement or situation according to the appropriate definition. Mark Allen, the Clinical Information Systems Manager, decides to use a brochure and presentations to deliver information about the importance of professionalism in team environments. • Encoding • Channel • Decoding • Feedback

• Channel Channel is the medium used to send the message to the receiver, including voice, writing, graphs, videos, intranets, the Internet, television, and body language. In this case, the channels are the brochure and the presentations.

Which of the following are true? Check all that apply. • Political behaviors are most likely to occur when there is a reasonably low degree of ambiguity or uncertainty in the work environment. • Conflict is at the core of organizational politics. • Political skill involves having interpersonal influence and social astuteness. • Effectively influencing others through persuasion, generating support, and inspiring trust are the core of effective politics.

• Conflict is at the core of organizational politics. • Political skill involves having interpersonal influence and social astuteness. • Effectively influencing others through persuasion, generating support, and inspiring trust are the core of effective politics. Effective politics involves effectively influencing others through persuasion, generating support, and inspiring trust. Political skill involves interpersonal influence and social astuteness. The core of organizational politics is conflict, which must be effectively managed if political behavior is to be controlled. High uncertainty or ambiguity in the work environment is most likely to trigger political behaviors.

Match each description or example with the political tactic that best describes it. You try to get your team to agree that whatever decision is made about the new team workflow must improve productivity by at least 10%. • Controlling information • Controlling lines of communication • Using outside experts • Controlling the agenda • Game playing • Image building • Building coalitions • Controlling decision parameters • Eliminating political rivals

• Controlling decision parameters Controlling decision parameters involves trying to influence decisions before they are made. In this case, setting a parameter of a minimum 10% productivity improvement will influence the upcoming decision by ruling out certain alternatives that fall short of this standard.

Select the term that best describes each situation. Use each term no more than once. If you want to improve your organization's retention of minority employees and improve these employees' performance, what type of culture should you try to influence? • Conflict culture • Disagreeable conflict management norms • Passive-aggressive conflict culture • Active conflict management norms • Dominating conflict culture • Culture of inclusion • Passive conflict management norms • Collaborative conflict culture • Agreeable conflict management norms • Avoidant conflict culture

• Culture of inclusion An organization's culture of inclusion reflects the extent to which majority members value efforts to increase minority representation, and whether the qualifications and abilities of minority members are questioned. A strong positive culture of inclusion is pro-diversity and enables minority employees' success and retention.

You meant to let your subordinate know that she is doing a great job, but somehow she interpreted your message to mean that she was not doing well. • Decoding • Feedback • Encoding

• Decoding Decoding is the interpretation and translation of the message back into something understood by the receiver. The decoded information is hopefully the same as the information the sender intended to communicate, but this is not always the case. Encoding occurs when the message sender converts a thought, idea, or fact into a message composed of symbols, pictures, or words. Feedback is a check on the success of the communication.

Select the term that best describes each situation. Use each term no more than once. As a manager, you believe that the best way to run a team is to encourage open communication through heated, honest arguments. What type of culture should you try to create? • Conflict culture • Disagreeable conflict management norms • Passive-aggressive conflict culture • Active conflict management norms • Dominating conflict culture • Culture of inclusion • Passive conflict management norms • Collaborative conflict culture • Agreeable conflict management norms • Avoidant conflict culture

• Dominating conflict culture Dominating conflict cultures are active and disagreeable—open confrontations are accepted and encouraged as well as heated arguments and threats.

Watch this video in which Mark Allen, clinical information systems manager, and Fritz Kron, regional director for quality, discuss communication at Intermountain Healthcare. Then answer the questions that follow. Mark Allen, a Clinical Information Systems Manager at Intermountain Healthcare, must work with others to coordinate communication processes across 22 hospitals and over 300 clinics. If the senior executives at Intermountain Healthcare create new written protocols for healthcare delivery and then communicate these protocols across all hospitals and clinics then this is an example of what communication concept? • Informal communication • Downward communication • Horizontal communication • Upward communication

• Downward communication The correct answer is downward communication. Downward communication occurs when higher-level employees communicate to those at lower levels the organization. Upward communication occurs when lower-level employees communicate with those at higher levels. Horizontal communication occurs when someone in an organization communicates with others at the same organizational level. Communication can be formal or informal. Formal communications are official, organization-sanctioned communications, often involving written communication that provides a permanent record of the exchange. Formal and informal communications can be upward, downward, horizontal, or diagonal. Informal communication is anything that is not official.

Watch the following video about Brian Durkee at Numi Tea and answer the following questions about power, influence, and politics. Use your knowledge of different influence tactics to classify the following example. (Note: Not all of these descriptions portray situations encountered at the Numi Tea. Certain statements may be fictional and provided strictly for the purposes of answering the question). Suppose that Ahmed Rahim, CEO of Numi, wants a company that he contracts with to start using a new type of equipment. He tells the company's owner that he will pay her 3% more in the future if she makes the switch. • Coalition tactics • Consultation • Exchange • Ingratiation

• Exchange This is an example of exchange, where one person offers to give another person something of value in return for cooperation. In this case, Ahmed assumes that the Chinese business owner will be motivated by getting more money in the future.

Match each situation with the term that best describes it. Use each term only once. Because you are known as the most knowledgeable sales manager in the area of new customer development, your coworkers often defer to you when making decisions. What type of power do you have? • Personal power • Legitimate power • Reward power • Coercive power • Expert power • Informational power • Referent power • Persuasive power

• Expert power People respond to expert power because of their belief in the person's knowledge, skills, or expertise. In this example, you have specialized knowledge of certain customers, giving you expert power among other employees.

After Will was late for the third time in a month you formally wrote him up and asked him to sign a letter agreeing to be on time or risk losing his job. • Upward communication • Management by wandering around • Informal communication • Horizontal communication • Formal communication • Social networking • Diagonal communication

• Formal communication Formal communications are official, organization-sanctioned communications. They can be upward, downward, horizontal, or diagonal. Formal communication channels typically involve some sort of written communication that provides a permanent record of the exchange.

Match each description or example with the political tactic that best describes it. When your boss asks you to get feedback from at least three coworkers about your new product idea, you ask your three closest friends. • Controlling information • Controlling lines of communication • Using outside experts • Controlling the agenda • Game playing • Image building • Building coalitions • Controlling decision parameters • Eliminating political rivals

• Game playing Game playing involves many activities including leaking information and getting only friends to provide feedback to favorably skew the results.

Match each situation with the term that best describes it. Use each term only once. Because you have worked at three of your competitors and still have a lot of friends at them, your coworkers often come to you to learn about what is going on at these companies. What type of power do you have? • Personal power • Legitimate power • Reward power • Coercive power • Expert power • Informational power • Referent power • Persuasive power

• Informational power Control over desired information is informational power. In addition to experts with specialized knowledge, who have expert power, some employees have or are able to control access to desired information and can exert power over others by providing or withholding information that others need, giving them informational power. In this example, your extensive personal network gives you access to information about your competitors that few others have.

_____ enables users to see who is logged on and to chat with them in real time rather than emailing and waiting for a response. • Instant messaging • Telework • Voice mail

• Instant messaging Instant messaging enables users to see who is logged on and to chat with them in real time rather than e-mailing and waiting for a response. Voice mail is similar to e-mail but instead of writing, a spoken message is digitized and sent to someone to be retrieved and listened to later. Telework is work conducted in a location other than a central office or production facility with communications between coworkers and supervisors occurring via electronic communication systems.

Read the following brief case study and answer the question that follows. You have recently been assigned responsibility for restructuring your organization. Your company has grown considerably over the past five years, and company leaders recognize that change is needed. The company was founded ten years ago and this is the first time any attention has been paid to how employees are grouped. You understand the importance of the decisions that you are about to make and sit down at your desk to reflect on what the company needs going forward. You decide to group employees based on what they know. What basis for grouping employees will you use? • Work process • Knowledge and skills • Output

• Knowledge and skills In grouping by employee knowledge and skills employees are grouped by what they know. For example, pharmaceutical organizations have departments like oncology and genetics. When grouped by output, employees are grouped based on the products or services they work on. Work process groups organize employees based on the activities they do.

Which of the following are true? Check all that apply. • Managers can create effective communities of practice if they follow the best practice guidelines. • If lower-level employees see their bosses actively participating in a community of practice, they are more likely to participate. • Communities of practice are shown on organizational charts. • Restructurings should take place as frequently as possible to enhance performance and minimize turnover.

• Managers can create effective communities of practice if they follow the best practice guidelines. • If lower-level employees see their bosses actively participating in a community of practice, they are more likely to participate. • Communities of practice are shown on organizational charts. If lower-level employees see their bosses actively participating in a community of practice, they are more likely to participate. Although these communities rarely show up on organizational charts and may not even be formally recognized by executive leadership, companies recognize their benefits and are increasingly promoting and enabling them. Managers cannot create effective communities of practice, only the conditions necessary for them to exist. Restructuring should take place as infrequently as possible to create stability, enhance performance, and minimize employee stress and confusion.

Match each situation with the communication process term that best describes it. Because of her bias against younger workers, the manager was slow to realize that the concerns her young subordinate was expressing about the safety process were valid. • Body language • Noise • Message

• Noise Noise is anything that blocks, distorts, or changes in any way the message the sender intended to communicate. Noise can be something physical in the environment, like people talking, or it can occur because the sender or receiver are distracted and are unable to concentrate on the message being sent or received. Stereotypes, biases, and one's mood or psychological state can all serve as noise that distorts a message.

Watch the following video about Seth Goldman, the founder of Honest Tea, and use your knowledge of organizational structure and design to answer the associated questions. Seth Goldman, the TEO of Honest Tea, talks about starting his company with 5 products, and today having over 35 package varieties. He mentions tea, juice drinks, sodas, and restaurant tea products. You might expect that Honest Tea's different customers will have different preferences for their drinks. If this is the case, Honest Tea should set itself up with what kind of a structure? _____ • A flat structure with very few managers and very few departments. Employees should make most business decisions • A functional structure, which groups employees who do the same kind of work together into departments • One that is highly centralized, with all of the key business decisions being made at the top of the company • One that has different business units for different parts of the market

• One that has different business units for different parts of the market If you assume that the customers for Honest Tea's different products have different needs, then it makes sense to create a business unit for each of the different products. That will enable employees to focus on a particular type of customer, and make the changes customers want more quickly and easily. Highly centralized, very flat, and functional organizations don't differentiate work based on product or customer.

Match each situation with the term that best describes it. Use each term only once. If you wanted to change aspects of your company's culture and structure to better execute your strategy, what should you attend to? • Organizational design • Span of control • Centralization • Organizational structure • Hierarchy • Mechanistic organization structure • Organizational chart • Formalization • Organic organization structure • Division of labor

• Organizational design Organizational design is the process of selecting and managing aspects of organizational structure and culture to enable the organization to achieve its goals.

_____ is the core of what coordinates, controls, and motivates employees to cooperate toward the attainment of organizational goals. • Organizational structure • Formalization • Hierarchy

• Organizational structure Organizational structure is the foundation of what coordinates, controls, and motivates employees to cooperate toward the attainment of organizational goals. Span of control, formalization, and division of labor all have strong influences on employee motivation and behavior. Hierarchy outlines supervision relationships by giving some employees authority over others. It also establishes the tallness or flatness of an organizational chart. Formalization reflects the extent to which organizational rules, procedures, and communications are written down.

Match each situation with the term that best describes it. Use each term only once. You have a subordinate who performs best when he does things because he agrees with your ideas. What type of power should you use to motivate him? • Personal power • Legitimate power • Reward power • Coercive power • Expert power • Informational power • Referent power • Persuasive power

• Persuasive power Persuasive power is due to the ability to use logic and facts to persuade others to adopt one's ideas or perspectives. Your subordinate works best when he shares your ideas, so you should use persuasive power to increase the alignment between his and your ideas and goals.

Your client sales team must stay in constant communication and regularly adjust to the decisions made and the information provided by the other team members. • Two-way communication • Reciprocal interdependence • Sequential interdependence

• Reciprocal interdependence Reciprocal interdependence requires constant communication and mutual adjustment for task completion, such as a cross-functional research and development team, or an event planning team, and creates the highest potential for conflict. Sequential interdependence, like in an assembly line, requires tasks to be performed in a certain order. This increases the need for communication as individuals or groups are dependent on other individuals or groups for the resources they need to complete their own tasks. Once a receiver provides feedback to a sender, the sender and receiver have engaged in two-way communication.

Select the term that best describes each situation. Use each term no more than once. A manager with a finance background may be more likely to see the problem as finance-based, while a manager with a production background may be more likely to see it as production-based. • Selective perception • Misperception • Filtering • Information overload • Organizational barrier • Cultural barrier • Noise

• Selective perception We selectively see and hear based on our expectations and beliefs. This is called selective perception. Each manager selectively perceived information that is consistent with his or her expertise and expectations, and does not pay as much attention to other types of information.

You call a meeting of your product development team to begin work on a new market opportunity. Your team members include people from a wide variety of organizational functions, all of whom must work together effectively to get the new product developed on time and on budget. You are about to start your first meeting and want to get off on the best note possible as this is a big investment for your company. At the end of the meeting you ask your subordinate to get you some market information "quickly". You meant today, but she thought you meant within a few days. • Semantics • Jargon • Organizational barrier

• Semantics Semantics reflects the fact that words can mean different things to different people and that this can introduce noise into communications. Jargon, or technical language, can create ambiguity when the receiver does not understand it. Organizational barriers to communication come from the hierarchical structure and culture of the organization.

Match each situation with the term that best describes it. Use each term only once. You have ten direct reports. What does this reflect? • Organizational design • Span of control • Centralization • Organizational structure • Hierarchy • Mechanistic organization structure • Organizational chart • Formalization • Organic organization structure • Division of labor

• Span of control The number of people reporting directly to an individual is that person's span of control. Narrower spans of control are necessary for novel and complex tasks. Wider spans of control give subordinates greater autonomy and responsibility for self-management, and are best for routine, production-type work.

Watch the following video about Seth Goldman, the founder of Honest Tea, and use your knowledge of organizational structure and design to answer the associated questions. Suppose that Seth Goldman, the TEO of Honest Tea, had decided to set up his company with four departments: sales, marketing, finance, production. This is a functional structure. Problems with this type of structure can include: Check all that apply. • A reduction in economies of scale, because some departments must be duplicated • Power struggles that result when employees have two different bosses • The development of silos, where employees focus only on their department, and not on the company as a whole • Poor communication across departments

• The development of silos, where employees focus only on their department, and not on the company as a whole • Poor communication across departments If Seth Goldman sets up his company with departments that are separated by the work employees do, he has created a functional structure for the organization. Problems with functional structures include the fact that different departments may not communicate with each other, and there may not be clear responsibility for delivery of the company's product or service. In addition, departments can become siloed, with employees only paying attention to their job function, and not to the rest of the company. A reduction in economies of scale is a disadvantage for divisional organizations, while power struggles between two bosses occur in matrix organizations.

When communicating, managers must choose the media that best matches what? • The desired speed of the communication • The cost of the communication • The information richness required of the task or communication

• The information richness required of the task or communication When communicating, managers must choose the media that best matches the information richness required of the task or communication.

Which of the following are true? Check all that apply. • Changing a firm's culture is usually a fast and easy process. • All firms have cultural values consistent with high performance. • The most important organizational mechanism affecting the socialization of workers is the behavior they see experienced employees exhibit. • Changing from a traditional organization to a team-based organization is an example of an organization culture change.

• The most important organizational mechanism affecting the socialization of workers is the behavior they see experienced employees exhibit. • Changing from a traditional organization to a team-based organization is an example of an organization culture change. The behavior of experienced workers has the biggest influence on the socialization of newcomers. Changing from a traditional to a team-based organization is a type of organization culture change. Not all firms have cultural values that are consistent with high performance. Research suggests that while some firms have performance-enhancing values others have performance-reducing values. Changing a firm's culture is a long and difficult process.

Some companies give all new hires e-mail etiquette training that covers the basics including how to communicate quickly but with courtesy, what not to put in writing, and the importance of proofreading e-mails before sending them. • Active listening • Jargon • Written communication

• Written communication Managers frequently need to communicate in writing via emails, memos, letters, and reports. Effective business writing is not just about grammar and punctuation—the style and tone also have to be appropriate for the audience. Becoming actively involved in the process of listening to what others are saying and clarifying messages' meaning is active listening. Jargon, or technical language, can create ambiguity when the receiver does not understand it.

Watch the following video about Seth Goldman, the founder of Honest Tea, and use your knowledge of organizational structure and design to answer the associated questions. Suppose that Seth Goldman, the TEO of Honest Tea, had decided to set up his company with four departments: sales, marketing, finance, production. This is _____ structure. • a functional • a divisional • a lattice • a matric

• a functional If Seth Goldman sets up his company with departments that are separated by the work employees do, he has created a functional structure for the organization. Problems with functional structures include the fact that different departments may not communicate with each other, and there may not be clear responsibility for delivery of the company's product or service. In addition, departments can become siloed, with employees only paying attention to their job function, and not to the rest of the company. A reduction in economies of scale is a disadvantage for divisional organizations, while power struggles between two bosses occur in matrix organizations.

Watch this video about Recyline and answer the questions about organizational culture that follow. Ben Anderson states that "...we need people who are adaptable and entrepreneurial." The fact that he is stating this publically makes it _____ for Recycline. • an espoused value and norm • an enacted value or norm • an artifact

• an espoused value and norm Ben Anderson's public statement about the kind of employees Recycline needs is an espoused value or norm. Ben is publicly stating something that is important to the company. Enacted values and norms are not statements. Rather they are behaviors that show what a company values. And artifacts are physical manifestations of culture, such as an office layout or lobby decorations.

After your coworker asks if she can format a project differently from what your boss wanted, you say, "Do whatever you want—I won't get in your way." You exhibited the _____ response to an influence attempt. • compliance • passive resistance • commitment

• compliance The compliance response involves going along with what the influencer wants without being personally committed. Passive resistance requires rejecting the influence attempt, although still going along with the request. Commitment involves endorsing and becoming an actively involved participant as a result of the influence attempt.

Personal influence gives a manager _____ , which is based on the characteristics of that individual and stays with the individual regardless of where that person works. • personal power • legitimate power • coercive power

• personal power Personal influence gives a manager personal power, which is based on the characteristics of that individual and stays with the individual regardless of where that person works. Legitimate power is a form of position power based on a person's holding a managerial position rather than anything the manager is or does as a person. The ability to punish subordinates is coercive power. This power comes from the organization, not the individual.

Avoiding conflict is a form of _____ . • political behavior • nonpolitical behavior • positive ethics

• political behavior Avoiding conflict is a form of political behavior. Because employees who "don't rock the boat" are not viewed as threatening opponents, they may be welcomed into the "in-group" and receive valued outcomes simply for not interfering with a politically acting individual's or group's agenda. Inaction, or going along to get ahead, can be a reasonable and profitable approach to take in order to advance one's own self-interests when working in a political environment.