Final Exam - OB

Teams are characterized by three main types of interdependence that govern the team members' interactions. What is not one of the types of interdependence?

financial interdependence

Due to financial difficulties, the management of Briteway Sav-N-Shop, a chain of retail stores, is planning to cut some of the office staff at its headquarters. Therefore, the chief operations officer instructs Daniel, the human resources director, to develop a system for evaluating workers in terms of their performance. The objective is to divide the workforce into three groups: the top producers, who should be retained at any cost; the lost causes, who will need to be cut; and the mid-level performers, whose jobs are relatively assured—at least for now. This method is known as

forced ranked

When Safe Feet Boots groups its business units according to where they do business—such as the Midwestern division, the Canadian division, the German division, and the West Coast division—it is creating which of the following organizational structures?

geographic

What does the type of team process training known as action learning do?

give the team the opportunity to work on an actual problem within the organization

Attempts to reduce stressors in the workplace are most beneficial when focused on ________ stressors.

hinderance

Much of what we know about organizational behavior is considered universal and "culture free," meaning that managing people presents the same challenges everywhere.

false

Organizational factors that are the most likely to increase political activity are those that lower the level of uncertainty in the environment.

false

Organizations no longer use brainstorming because of the problems associated with it.

false

Positive reinforcement and extinction should be the least common forms of reinforcement to create learning.

false

Relationship conflict is concerned with disagreements among members about the team's task.

false

Research shows that employees with low job satisfaction experience strong positive feelings when they think about their duties or take part in their task activities.

false

Restructuring an organization has a positive impact on task performance because restructuring helps employees view their jobs in new and exciting ways.

false

Social loafing is an aspect of coordination loss.

false

Speed and flexibility of closure is making sense of information and finding patterns. This is a specific facet of the reasoning type of cognitive ability.

false

Strong cultures are always good cultures as they guide their employees toward the most successful organizational outcomes.

false

Tardiness, long breaks, and missed meetings are actions of psychological withdrawal.

false

Team members tend to be most satisfied with their team when the number of members is no more than three.

false

Teams have been around for a long time, but they are no longer widely used in organizations today.

false

Teamwork processes have a moderate positive relationship with team performance and team commitment.

false

The United States is not only the richest country on earth, but it also leads all the nations in levels of life satisfaction.

false

The anticipatory stage of socialization begins the day an employee starts work.

false

The autocratic style of leadership is characterized by high follower control.

false

The bureaucratic structure is more flexible than a matrix structure, allowing it to adjust much more quickly to the environment.

false

The key to understanding the impact of team diversity requires that you consider both the length of time the team has been in existence and the number of team members.

false

The moderate to strong positive correlations between the five core job characteristics and job satisfaction indicate that all employees want more variety and more autonomous and significant jobs.

false

Two aspects of team effectiveness include team performance and team visibility.

false

Type A individuals are more likely to appraise demands as being benign rather than being stressful.

false

Understanding correlation is important because OB questions are "yes or no" in nature.

false

When a company is attempting to change its culture, a CEO whose leadership style closely matches the company's current culture is most effective.

false

With a consultative style of decision making, leaders do not make the ultimate decision.

false

With a delegative style, the leader plays a key role in decision making.

false

Which of the following takes the theories and principles studied in OB and explores the practical applications of those principles in organizations?

human resource management

________ involves behaving in ways that help followers achieve their potential through coaching, development, and mentoring.

individual consideration

________ involves behaving in ways that foster an enthusiasm for and commitment to a shared vision of the future.

inspirational motivation

Computer-generated reports filled with numbers are an example of:

low information richness

Armand runs a small company, and although he is generally happy with his staff, he would like to see them increase their productivity and develop a greater long-term sense of personal identification with the company. The best way for him to achieve that is to

maintain a friendly environment, help them improve their work skills, and make sure they always remember who is boss.

Financial planners for investment firms have to choose and apply formulas to help their clients plan for their financial future. Which of the following abilities is required?

mathematical reasoning

Which of these takes all the correlations found in studies of a particular relationship and calculates a weighted average of them?

meta-analysis

A personal written note is an example of:

moderate information richness

Power and influence have a ________ effect on job performance and organizational commitment.

moderate positive

Teamwork processes have a ________ effect on team performance and a ________ effect on team commitment.

moderate positive; strong positive

Which of the following is a psychological withdrawal behavior?

moonlighting

If an authority recognizes that a moral issue exists but is then unable to determine whether a given course of action is right or wrong, the authority is having trouble with ________, the second step of the four-component model of ethical decision making.

moral judgment

Which of the following is a feature of social exchange relationships between organizations and employees?

mutual investment

A common form of training called ________ teaches attendees about the organization.

newcomer orientation

A desire to remain a member of an organization due to a feeling of obligation is called ________ commitment.

normative

Many companies pay all or part of an employee's tuition for Master's degree programs. If an employee has taken advantage of this, it can increase the employee's level of ________ commitment.

normative

________ equity is when you compare yourself to others doing the same job in other company, with similar levels of education, seniority, and performance.

occupational

Among the important points about counterproductive behaviors is the fact that

people who engage in one form of counterproductive behavior also engage in others.

What type of orientation is focused on demonstrating competence, so that others will not think poorly of them?

performance-avoid orientation

Efforts to improve the quality of life in the communities in which organizations work is typically an effort that comes under the citizenship component of corporate social responsibility.

true

Social learning theory argues that people in organizations have the ability to learn through the observation of others.

true

Some employees do not want frequent promotions because promotions bring more responsibility and increased work hours.

true

Subcultures unite a smaller subset of the organization's employees.

true

Supportive practices are one way of helping employees cope with stressful demands.

true

Task interdependence is one of the most important characteristics that distinguish true teams from mere groups of individuals.

true

Task performance is moderately higher in teams in which members work closely together than when members work independently.

true

Team viability refers to the degree to which team members come from similar backgrounds.

true

Teams get potentially more effective as task interdependence increases.

true

The legal component of corporate social responsibility argues that the law represents society's codification of right and wrong and must, therefore, be followed.

true

The most common kind of restructuring in recent years has been a "flattening" of the organization.

true

The negative consequences that occur when demands tax or exceed a person's capacity or resources are called strains.

true

The strength of a correlation can be inferred from the "compactness" of its scatterplot.

true

There is no guarantee that personality tests used by companies are actually valid assessments.

true

There is no single best way for the self-management of teams.

true

To counter the effects of a bad product, effective management of OB can help improve the product incrementally over the long term.

true

Traditionally, mediation is used first and then arbitration if parties are unable to come to an agreement. However, some research suggests flipping the order may lead to better results.

true

Traits are more predictive of leader emergence than they are of leader effectiveness.

true

Transactional leadership represents the carrot-and-stick approach to leadership.

true

Transactive memory refers to how specialized knowledge is distributed among members in a manner that results in an effective system of memory for the team.

true

Transformational leaders heighten followers' awareness of the importance of certain outcomes while increasing their confidence that those outcomes can be achieved.

true

Wasting resources is the most common form of production deviance.

true

When employees feel they fit with their organization's culture, they are much more likely to develop an emotional attachment to the company.

true

When goal commitment is high, assigning specific and difficult goals will have significant benefits for task performance.

true

Repeated use of coercive power could actually decrease organizational commitment levels.

true

Research suggests that employees underestimate how powerful a motivator pay is to them.

true

Role ambiguity is an example of a work hindrance stressor.

true

Service jobs in which employees often make direct contact with customers are high in emotional labor.

true

In the storming stage of team development, feelings of solidarity develop as members work toward team goals.

false

Job performance is the collected well-known or habitual responses by employees to predictable task demands.

false

According to the Rule of One-Eighth, which of the following scenarios is the most common?

The CEO of Starbridge, Inc., read books about how putting people first builds profits but did not believe them.

Leader-member exchange theory argues that new leader-member relationships are typically marked by a role-making phase.

false

How does a restructuring usually affect employees in the short term?

Trust will decline quite a bit.

Low-power distance cultures tend to accept the fact that power is usually distributed unequally within organizations.

false

Many employees can engage in job enrichment, where they shape, mold, and redefine their jobs in a proactive way.

false

Matrix structures utilize one type of structure at a time.

false

Conscientiousness has a moderate positive effect on performance.

true

Consultation occurs when the target is allowed to participate in deciding how to carry out or implement a request.

true

Correlations can be positive or negative and can range from

-1 to 1

The management approach ________ involves collecting performance information not just from the supervisor but from anyone else who might have firsthand knowledge about the employee's performance behaviors.

360 degree feedback

What happens in mediation?

A third party facilitates the dispute resolution process but has no formal authority to dictate a solution.

Cultural values provide societies with their own distinctive personalities.

true

Which of the following is an example of a Type A Behavior Pattern?

During weekly meetings, Sharona talks over other people and is always in a hurry to get back to her desk and get back to work.

What is the biggest weakness of a functional structure?

Employees do not communicate as well across functions as they do within functions.

Malik believes in making decisions based on the method of experience. Considering this, which of the following actions would he most likely take?

He would buy the Shashin copy machine because he liked his previous machine, which was made by Shashin.

________ are written predictions that specify relations between variables.

Hypotheses

Which of the following is true with regard to outcome interdependence?

In an organization with compensation that has high outcome interdependence, a higher percentage of employees' pay will depend on how well their team does.

________ involves behaving in ways that challenge followers to be innovative and creative by questioning assumptions and reframing old situations in new ways.

Intellectual stimulation

Which of the following statements is true?

Job satisfaction is moderately correlated with citizenship behavior.

A study shows that the high turnover rate at a company is caused only by the domineering attitude of a middle manager. What criteria of causal inference does this example show?

No alternative explanation exists for the correlation.

Which of the following statements concerning negotiation styles is true?

Over time, leaders can develop a reputation for how they negotiate.

Which of the following statements is true of restructuring?

Stress is common during restructuring.

Which of the following is true regarding individuals with high cognitive ability?

The relationship between high cognitive ability and task performance is observed in the academic context as well as in the work context.

"Playing politics" or "covering one's backside" has a negative effect on employees' job performance, because it hampers their

ability to focus

With ________, the leader arranges to monitor mistakes and errors dynamically and takes corrective action when required.

active management-by-exception

Which of the following is a tactic designed to discourage adaptation to the organization's culture?

allowing anyone to become a member of the organization without meeting specific requirements

Which of the following is a feature of economic exchange relationships between organizations and employees?

an explicit repayment schedule

A stress audit is often used to

assess the level and sources of stress in the workplace.

The matrix structure gives each employee ________ chains of command.

at least two

People who experience higher levels of ________ tend to have higher levels of job performance.

challenge stressor

Which of the following represents the three general categories into which abilities can be grouped?

cognitive, emotional, and physical

Which of the five different styles of conflict resolution is considered a win-win approach?

collaborating

Which influence tactic involves a leader helping complete a task, providing required resources, or removing obstacles that make task completion difficult?

collaboration

Which of the following tactics is designed to encourage adaptation to the organization's culture?

constantly reminding newcomers that they are now part of a group and that this new group helps define who they are

What is described by adjectives, such as traditional, informal, and assertive?

culture

Quantitative ability includes the mathematical capabilities of number facility and mathematical reasoning.

true

Under management by objectives (MBO), employees meet with their manager in order to

develop a set of mutually agreed-upon objectives that are measurable and specific.

Most merged companies operate under a ________ for an extended period of time.

differentiated culture

When the emotions of one person affect the emotions of another person, it is called

emotional contagion.

Shari works at a fast-food restaurant, which requires her always to be cheerful even when customers are rude or impatient. Shari's job involves a large amount of

emotional labor

Which of the following explains the term causal inferences?

establishing that one variable truly does result in another

Abilities are strictly a function of genetics.

false

According to the resource-based view of organizations, a firm's resources include only financial and physical resources, such as buildings, machines, and technology.

false

Affective commitment exists when there is a sense that staying is the "right" or "moral" thing to do.

false

Challenge stressors have a moderate negative relationship with organizational commitment.

false

Coalitions are among the most effective influence tactics.

false

Collaboration is seen as the least effective form of conflict resolution where nobody is a winner.

false

Cultural values are shared beliefs about desirable end states or modes of conduct in a given culture. However, culture cannot influence the expression of traits.

false

Detectives found two sets of skid marks and tire tracks at an accident scene. More importantly, the single car on the scene was white but there were marks of blue paint in the car's impact zone. A headlight left behind at the scene identified the second car as a Ford. The detectives were now looking for a blue Ford with damage to the front of the car. This conclusion is an example of deductive reasoning.

false

Emotional support refers to the help people receive that can be used to address the stressful demand directly.

false

Employees falling under the category of "lone wolves" tend to respond to negative events with voice because they have the desire to improve the status quo and the credibility needed to inspire change.

false

Employees in the category of apathetics demonstrate active, constructive behavior. They exert a high level of effort to keep their jobs.

false

Evaluating an employee's performance based on results alone provides the best picture of which employees are worth more to an organization.

false

Explicit knowledge is more difficult to communicate, and is gained with experience.

false

Extraversion has the strongest impact on task performance.

false

Extrinsic theory acknowledges that motivation depends not only on a person's beliefs and circumstances, but also on what happens to other people.

false

Formal mentoring programs have always existed in companies, but their use is increasing.

false

Hannah's manager just took credit for her hard work—again! Hannah is so angry that she throws her coffee cup across her office, sends a terse e-mail to a client, and is rude to her assistant for the rest of the day. Hannah demonstrates a low level of "use of emotions," one of the factors in emotional intelligence.

false

Hindrance stressors have a strong positive relationship with job performance.

false

If technologies need to be changed often to suit consumer needs, the decisions should be centralized.

false

In the context of the Big Five taxonomy, openness to experience is positively related to performance across all occupations.

false

In the decision making process, satisficing is choosing the best alternative.

false

Some people learn differently, as a function of the goals and activities that they prioritize. What type of orientation is focused on demonstrating confidence so that others think favorably of them?

performance-improve orientation

What are the three levels of cross-training depth?

personal clarification, positional modeling, and positional rotation.

Moods can be categorized by

pleasantness and activation.

What team state refers to a team's belief and confidence that it can be effective across a variety of situations and tasks?

potency

________ is the energy rooted in the belief that work tasks contribute to some larger purpose.

psychological empowerment

What is the most serious form of physical withdrawal?

quitting

Which of these terms refers to the degree to which energies used for coping with work demands are replenished from a period of rest or relief from work?

recovery

What type of power involves the desire of others to identify and associate with the leader.

referent power

Operant conditioning is also known as:

reinforcement

Your professor shared the four step training method that he used in industry. What is not one of the four steps?

reward

Depth perception, night vision, and speech recognition are all types of

sensory abilities

In organizational behavior research, a correlation of .50 is considered ________, given the sheer number of things that can affect how employees feel and act.

strong

Job satisfaction has a ________ correlation with affective commitment.

strong positive

Motivation has a ________ effect on job performance.

strong positive

When examining job performance, behaviors that contribute positively to the organization fall into which two broad categories?

task performance and citizenship behavior

High cognitive ability has a strong correlation with increased

task performance, especially in complex and demanding jobs.

What is not an element of taskwork processes?

team characteristics

________ helps to determine the likelihood that the team can work together effectively into the future.

team viability

The weak negative correlation between task performance and counterproductive behavior can best be explained by the fact that

the best workers are the ones most likely to get away with counterproductive actions.

By providing ________, organizations aim to increase job-related competencies and skills that help employees to cope with stressful demands.

training interventions

A challenging assignment given to a knowledgeable and skilled person would be likely to trigger an intense positive mood.

true

A high degree of goal interdependence exists when team members have a shared vision of the team's goal and align their individual goals with that vision as a result.

true

Ability refers to the relatively stable capabilities people have to perform a particular range of different but related activities.

true

As companies become larger, they tend to use a combination of specialization, formalization, and centralization to control their activities, thereby becoming more mechanistic in nature.

true

Attraction and selection processes do not always align employees' personalities with organizational culture.

true

Christy is attending a business meeting at a client's office. Some of the attendees are formally dressed; others are in shorts and T-shirts. The table is round instead of rectangular, so there is no "head" position to indicate who is leading the meeting. There is no set agenda to identify what the important topics will be. Christy's personality is most likely to drive how Christy behaves in this situation.

true

Citizenship behavior is defined as voluntary employee activities that may or maynot be rewarded.

true

Cognitive ability tends to be more strongly correlated with task performance than with citizenship behavior or counterproductive behavior.

true

Communities of practice are groups of employees who work together and learn from one another by collaborating over an extended period of time.

true

Emme thought her college studies had prepared her fully for her new job as an accounts receivable clerk. She is completely surprised by the amount of responsibility that has immediately been given to her and the number of skills she is expected to already have. Combined with the pressure she is under to make bank deposits and send all the invoices and statements to clients, she is feeling quite stressed. Emme is experiencing work-related challenge stress.

true

Employees gauge distributive justice by asking whether decision outcomes, such as pay, rewards, evaluations, promotions, and work assignments, are allocated using proper norms.

true

Employees who feel a sense of equity on the job are more likely to engage in citizenship behaviors, particularly when those behaviors aid the organization.

true

Employees with transformational leaders have higher levels of job satisfaction than other employees.

true

Evidence exists that emotional intelligence may give individuals the gift of influencing others, which cab be abused (gossiping, harassment, and even theft).

true

Expectancy represents the belief that exerting a high level of effort will result in the successful performance of some task.

true

For a leader, internalization is the best outcome of influence tactics.

true

Hannah has been asked to give the opening speech at her global company's annual sales convention. She has successfully given speeches in the past, and her friends have all told her she would be great. These have resulted in a high sense of self-efficacy, and she accepts the assignment.

true

Hindrance stressors such as role ambiguity, conflict, and overload not only cause strain but also decrease commitment and job performance.

true

Impact reflects the sense that a person's actions "make a difference."

true

In sequential interdependence, members in different stages of the sequence perform tasks independently of members in other stages of the sequence.

true

In the context of trust and job performance, the ability to focus reflects the degree to which employees can devote their attention to work, as opposed to engaging in workplace politics or saving themselves from problems like abusive supervision.

true

Increasing the time spent on training the leaders can help maximize their effectiveness.

true

Information richness is the amount and depth of information that gets transmitted in a message.

true

Ingratiation is among the moderately effective influence tactics of a leader.

true

Inspirational motivation involves behaving in ways that foster an enthusiasm for a shared vision of the future.

true

It can be challenging to accurately assess the contribution of each member in a team.

true

Job characteristics theory argues that variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback result in high levels of the three psychological states (meaningfulness of work, responsibility for outcomes, and knowledge of results), making work tasks more satisfying.

true

Job satisfaction has a moderate positive effect on job performance and a strong positive effect on organizational commitment.

true

Job satisfaction is higher and stress is lower when there is a good person-organization fit.

true

Job satisfaction is weakly correlated to life satisfaction, or the degree to which employees feel a sense of happiness with their lives.

true

Leadership is the use of power and influence to direct the activities of followers toward goal attainment.

true

Low levels of informational justice can make an organization vulnerable to wrongful termination claims.

true

Malnutrition, exposure to toxins such as lead, and prenatal exposure to alcohol are some risk factors related to low cognitive abilities.

true

Many layoff survivors experience a great deal of guilt and remorse following a layoff.

true

Many restructuring efforts are designed to remove one or more organizational layers to reduce costs.

true

Many small companies naturally evolve into functionally based structures as they grow larger.

true

Moral intensity captures the degree to which an issue has ethical urgency.

true

OB research suggests that there is no one thing that, in and of itself, can increase profitability.

true

Observable artifacts supply the primary means of transmitting an organization's culture to its workforce.

true

One of the most inexpensive and effective ways of reducing early turnover among new employees is through the use of realistic job previews.

true

Organic organizations are typified by a structure that relies on low levels of formalization, weak or multiple chains of command, low levels of work specialization, and wide spans of control.

true

Organizational commitment is the desire on the part of an employee to remain a member of the organization.

true

Organizations that have mercenary cultures are likely to be very political.

true

Perceived organizational support reflects the degree to which employees believe that the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being.

true

Personality captures what people are like, as opposed to ability, which captures what people can do.

true

Willow chose the new product team very carefully, recruiting only the best performers from marketing, operations, finance, and HR. She expected this group to design and develop a stellar new product in record time. She cannot understand why this team, composed only of superstars, has not lived up to her expectations. Willow's group lacks synergy.

true

Written comprehension is the ability to understand written words and sentences.

true