Management & Org Behavior Quiz #1 (chapters 1 2 3)

When considering workforce demographics, hiring managers must remember that the fastest-growing age group will be workers who are

75 years old and older.

"Jack, Clara is your best worker even though she is relatively new, and she has a great attitude," said Daphne, Jack's manager. "I advise you to stop yelling at her and nitpicking her work." In the context of McGregor's Theory X, what might happen if Jack does not heed Daphne's advice?

Clara will begin acting in a lazy and unmotivated fashion, requiring tight supervision (self-fulfilling prophecy).

__________ is the immediate environment surrounding a firm, including suppliers, customers, rivals, and the like.

Competitive environment

__________ is the information necessary to decide how to best manage the competitive environment.

Competitive intelligence

__________ refers to reductions in the average cost of a unit of production as the total volume produced increases.

Economies of scale

__________ refers to searching for information that is not immediately evident and sorting through that information to interpret what is important.

Environmental scanning

__________ introduced the scientific management approach in response to the failure of systematic management to bring about widespread production efficiency.

Frederick Taylor

Which statement about the contribution made by Jack Welch toward management thought and practices is true?

He is widely viewed as having mastered "all of the critical aspects of leadership: people, process, strategy and structure."

All of the following are key components of the "current landscape in business" EXCEPT

Isolationism

__________ is the set of practices aimed at discovering and harnessing an organization's intellectual resources, fully utilizing the intellects of the organization's people.

Knowledge management

_________________ is the process of working with people and resources to accomplish organizational goals.

Management

__________ is assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals.

Organizing

__________ managers are senior executives responsible for the overall management and effectiveness of an organization.

Strategic

__________ is a management approach that attempted to build into operations the specific procedures and processes that would ensure coordination of effort to achieve established goals and plans.

Systematic management

__________ is one of the key elements that makes the current business landscape different from those of the past.

Technological change

Which statement about the sources of competitive advantage is true?

The best managers and companies deliver all six competitive advantages.

A manager who follows __________ assumes workers are lazy and irresponsible and require constant supervision and external motivation to achieve organizational goals.

Theory X

During the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th century, managers who could make minor improvements in management tactics were noteworthy. Why?

They produced impressive increases in production quantity and quality.

__________ are the strongly held and taken-for-granted beliefs that guide behavior in a firm.

Unconscious assumptions

__________ are the underlying qualities and desirable behaviors that are important to an organization.

Values

__________ are the first level of organizational culture.

Visible artifacts

Managers who subscribe to McGregor's Theory X must watch out for__________, which can have several negative implications for managers, employees, and organizations.

a self-fulfilling prophecy

Sanga is a middle-level manager who is known for his efficiency; however, he is not necessarily effective. But, Rachelle, another middle-level manager, is known for her effectiveness, rather than her efficiency. Therefore, Rachelle is more likely to

achieve organizational goals.

The key attributes of a(n) __________ are flexibility, risk taking, and entrepreneurial.

adhocracy

The use of contingent workers in the U.S. labor force due to unpredictable labor demand is an illustration of

buffering.

Caralee presented to her boss the possibility of building a new manufacturing plant to serve a new, hot market. Her boss replied, "Caralee, I can't support that. Three multinational firms, who are world-class in terms of global reach, influence, stability, and financial depth, will be competing for that market. Not only would we be a new entrant to the playing field, the barriers to entry are just too high for us. We are small and financial resource-limited, so we would be challenged to meet the market's __________ requirements."

capital

A popular low-cost airline, Savor Airways, has gone out of business. Although the service and price provided by the airline was what customers wanted, the larger airlines were able to drive the low-cost airline out of business through an aggressive price war. Which component of the competitive environment does this illustrate?

competitors

A university is struggling financially, and has just formed a board of trustees and invited 25 of its wealthiest alumni to join the board. What process is being adopted by the university?

cooptation

Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ have emerged as serious and successful content providers, attracting viewers away from traditional networks such as ABC, CBS, and NBC. The success of these nontraditional providers demonstrates the power in the competitive environment held by new competitors, or new entrants to the marketplace. To effectively compete with these new entrants, executives at traditional networks will take advantage of barriers to entry, such as

distribution channels.

The president of Key Pharma, acting as the corporation's __________, attended the opening of a customer's new office complex.

figurehead

A company is experiencing an increase in competition, and at the same time it is building more production facilities in Southeast Asia. In this scenario, the top management team is most likely to

give lower-level managers the authority to make decisions to benefit the firm.

Taylor's theory is criticized because it

ignored job-related social and psychological factors by emphasizing only money as a worker incentive.

A feature of organizational behavior is that

in the past few years, many of the primary issues addressed by organizational behavior have experienced a rebirth with a greater interest in leadership.

A company uses __________ when it acts on its own to change some aspect of its current environment.

independent strategies

Amazon is not necessarily known for its development of new products. However, Amazon has transformed the way that products are purchased and delivered. Thus, Amazon has leapfrogged its competition through its

innovation.

Natasha is very good at inspiring the people in her department to learn new skills and to perform better than expected on the job. As a manager, what is Natasha especially good at doing?

leading

Peter Senge of MIT Sloan School of Management has made several significant contributions to the areas of organizational

learning and change.

The use of quantitative management is limited because

many of the decisions managers face are nonroutine and unpredictable.

One of the major contributions of Peter Drucker was the

need for organizations to set clear objectives and establish the means of evaluating progress toward those objectives.

Brian is a general manager for a tool-manufacturing firm. He is considering some changes to the production floor, which include layout adjustments and the purchase of new equipment to improve efficiency. He also wants to promote one of his employees to team leader. Which function of management is Brian performing?

organizing

Building a dynamic organization is the goal of which function of management?

organizing

"Recently, I spent a great deal of time looking at how to define jobs to most efficiently utilize the employees in those jobs," said the CEO of Baker Products. "And now I need managers to be responsible for the various job groupings." The CEO is describing the management function of

organizing.

The CEO said, "Every six months or so, my senior management team and I meet to discuss the goals that will be achieved over the next year, three years, and beyond. We then make sure we are clear on who will take responsibility to see that appropriate actions are undertaken to achieve our goals within the time frame we set." The CEO is describing the management function of

planning

WorldMart Inc. periodically reviews the goals of the company. During the process, the managers of the company analyze their current strategies as compared to their competitors' strategies, determine goals that they will pursue, and decide upon specific actions for each area of the company to take in pursuit of these goals. With these actions, the managers are engaged in the management function of

planning.

A division manager for Rinte Corporation told his subordinate, "Samantha, because this is your first year of budget planning for your department, I need you to __________, defining a best-case, a worst-case, and a plausible-case business, or middle-ground business, outlook. The plausible-case business outlook will be what you will use for budget planning."

produce different scenarios

Operational managers play a crucial role in an organization because they

provide the link between management and nonmanagement personnel.

Horace subscribes to the management theory that everyone works better when they have the right tools for the job and know what to do with them, which in turn keeps customers happy. Which theory does Horace embrace?

sociotechnical systems theory

Around 400 BC, __________ recognized management as a separate art and advocated a scientific approach to work.

the Greeks

Technology both complicates things and creates new opportunities. The challenges come from

the rapid rate at which technology changes.

Toward the end of the Industrial Revolution, in the late 19th century, several university programs offering management and business education were founded, including the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Establishment of these programs

was an acknowledgment of management as a formal discipline.