Management Exam
One of the best ethics enforcement tools is
A whistleblower hotline.
Leader-led group training programs can be used to teach "soft" skills such as
Coaching, team-building, customer service, client management.
German society has taken a different approach to employer-employee relations. ________ allowed flexibility in wages and work conditions in exchange for promises for continued employment. Companies honored this in the recession, even paying employees to do public works projects.
Unions
Perceptions of organizational justice affect employee attitudes toward the company. In general, employees want
a workplace characterized by fairness where everyone is treated with equal respect and given equal opportunities.
Qing was upset about meeting with the lawyers. They could see risks everywhere and were very good at arguing their position. She strongly believed in her proposal. But after a long meeting, Qing and the lawyers worked out new contract language addressing each risk that they identified. In the end, the conflict was
beneficial
A company like Wells Fargo that was known in 2016 for pressure tactics and unethical behavior will
have trouble recruiting talented employees.
While job satisfaction focuses on the employee's feelings about his particular role, organizational commitment looks at
how the employee feels about the organization as a whole.
Communication ________ also occur(s) during decoding when the receiver interprets the message differently than the sender intended.
missteps
Joe chooses to write an email to his boss about resources needed to meet a deadline. In the communication process, the email is
the channel
If employers want to select experienced employees for a project, bring them on board without the need to provide training or benefits, and let them go with no drama when the project is completed, then they should look for ________ employees.
Contingent
Leaders pursue change and challenge the status quo, whereas managers
Control and provide stability within the existing circumstances.
To avoid higher fines under US Sentencing Guidelines, senior management must actively support the company's ethics program. This includes
Encouraging employees to raise issues and address ethics issues as they come up.
All of the needs- and process-based theories of motivation can be addressed within most organizations. To satisfy basic needs, best practices recommend paying people
Enough that employees are not distracted by pending mortgage payments or taking a second job to make ends meet.
The EEOC is responsible for interpreting and enforcing the laws against discrimination in the workplace. EEOC stands for
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The degree of importance of an issue for an individual or group is called
Ethical Intensity.
The ERG theory proposes that basic human needs are grouped into what categories?
Existence, relatedness, and growth.
Raj is smart. He doesn't do anything unless he can see the payoff for himself, and he works all the angles. Raj is
Extrinsically Motivated.
The Internet has changed the methods of recruiting job candidates. Social websites like ________ are now common tools for identifying qualified candidates.
Facebook and LinkedIn
McDonald's appeals to customers with low prices, Consumers rate McDonald's food the worst quality among the large fast food chains. In response, McDonald's has made a new commitment to quality. But McD's management must weigh quality against
costs.
Fishermen take pride in staying awake for days while they haul in the catch. But they make more mistakes, losing fingers or hands, while sleep-deprived. The company's HR can improve safety by
requiring employees to use appropriate safety equipment such as goggles, gloves, and safety lines.
Larger companies will nudge employees to save by offering to match ________. For example, an employee contributes 5% of his salary and the company will match it, with another 5%. The total is 10% of earnings, a respectable level. It is equivalent to a 5% raise except the money cannot be spent immediately.
retirement savings
An individual who places high value on security might be considered for a role in
risk analysis and contingency planning
One approach to organization is putting activities that are similar under one person. ________ called this "unity of direction."
Fayol
Facebook needs a catchy slogan for its value statement. One bland statement is "Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you." Which seems to best express Facebook's added value to customers?
"Be Connected. Be Discovered. Be on Facebook."
Fortus makes industrial 3-D printers used in manufacturing prototypes. The printers can be used in a wide variety of industries. Salespeople for Fortus are given ________.
A great deal of freedom in how they approach selling.
The financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated the flaw in a bottom-up detailed approach to calculating risk. There are too many individual judgments that can be biased. Banks and bank regulators instead use a rule of thumb that bank capital should be 8-10 percent of the balance sheet. That is, managers rely on
A heuristic
Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States and has over 2 million employees. To accommodate all the reporting relationships, Walmart has
A tall hierarchy
The first step in the strategy process includes
To define the vision, mission, and values statement of the organization.
What are some of the questions HR needs to be prepared to answer to be a strategic asset to a business?
To what extend does our organization have the appropriate skills, abilities, and knowledge to implement its strategy?
Bureaucracy has taken on negative connotations in popular culture. It is associated with excessive paperwork, apathy and unresponsiveness, slowness in responding to problems, and inflexibility. But most organizations use most or all of the principles, because the principles promote
decisions for efficiency and effectiveness instead of favoritism and incompetence.
One common everyday object, Post-It Notes, is the product of a bootleg project at 3M, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. The company allowed researchers to spend 15% of their time on their own ideas. Dr. Silver was ________ and took the time away from his assigned work to develop the idea.
Empowered
The Gilbreths' work eventually led to the science of
Ergonomics and Industrial Psychology.
According to an article in Forbes, John Gourville, a Harvard Business School professor, said, "Historically, first-degree price discrimination has been very difficult to implement, mostly for logistical reasons. With advances in technology and collecting of big data, then it may...become easier to do." Now Freshplum, an online seller, experiments with price discrimination based on geography, repeat sales, and how a customer reaches the website. Freshplum uses ________ to increase sales.
Evidence-based decision making
What are Frank and Lillian Gilbreth most noted for studying?
Time and motion studies
What is SWOT used for?
To analyze a business situation
A military organization is very structured. Ranks are very clear, defining who can give and who must take orders. This is an example of
Vertical Management
Kelly, a pediatrician who opened her own office three years ago, knows that conditions may change as plans are implemented. Growth may not be as strong as history suggests. In an economic recession, people cut back on doctor's visits. A local employer may fail and lay off employees who are also customers. Dr. Kelly knows that
planning requires making some assumptions and forecasts about the future.
Southwest Airlines gives its employees considerable spending authority to fix a problem. When a flight was delayed, the pilot ordered lunch for the passengers and paid with his Southwest credit card. This represents
Not - Centralization.
A competitive analysis of Google and Microsoft would look at their ________ . Both pay high salaries and offer great benefits. But their incentive structures are different. Google encourages collaboration and Microsoft encourages competition. Google's employees have been more innovative than Microsoft's.
Not - Culture strategy. Not - Employee Morale Maybe - Personnel strategy
Staples, the office supply store, owns Quill, which specializes in selling to more than 1 million small and mid-sized U.S. businesses. For example, Quill offers medical supplies to doctors' offices. Staples has found it pays to departmentalize by
Not - Product
Scientific management principles
Favored a division of labor so that workers became more efficient.
Volkswagen's values statement is "responsibility and sustainability," yet VW used a software "cheat" to sell diesel cars that violate pollution standards. If the former CEO, Martin Winterkorn, had followed his values, he might have saved the company from
Huge fines and a damaged reputation
One disadvantage of group decision making is that many members involved in group decisions find the meetings to be
Inefficient and wasteful.
A company is like a body with guts, a heart, and a nervous system. ________ is the nervous system, concerned with business signals and recording facts and processing them.
Information Management
Discrimination lawsuits that go to court are very expensive, averaging over $200,000, so a well-crafted ________ can save an employer a great deal of money.
Job description
Which statement reflects a common problem with plans?
Mid- and lower-level managers may feel that they must follow a plan even when their experience shows it is not working.
On the TV show Shark Tank, pitcher Donny McCall presented his company Invis-A-Rack, which produces a cargo equipment holder for trucks. McCall was able to outsource the manufacturing, the distribution, and the accounting functions. This type of a company is called
Modular
Mayo predicted that a group with ________ behaviors and ________ social bonds would have very little chance of succeeding at the task.
Negative, Few
Management is much harder than Taylor, Mayo, or Follett would have us believe. Instead of one correct way to manage, the best solution depends on the situation, and management must
Not - Experiment more to find the best approach
Dorrance, the coach of the UNC women's soccer team, has an eye for recruiting outstanding talent. In business language, this is called
Not - Team Development
The general environment analysis is composed of broad societal dimensions influencing the industry or firms within it. The acronym for these dimensions is
PESTEL
Resources are always scarce in organizations, and managers need to make sure the resources they have are used effectively. ________ helps managers determine where resources are most needed so they can be allocated where they will provide the most benefit.
Planning
Management activities are often grouped into four categories. These are
Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling
Which of the following is one of Taylor's Four Principles of Scientific Management?
Scientifically select and then train, teach and develop the workman.
Boeing is rolling out a new marketing campaign. The new campaign will start in time for the airlines' annual planning process, in the second half of the year. Boeing's marketing plans are
Short term
Society and culture have great impacts on the business environment. These factors include demographics like population growth, age distribution, and attitudes toward safety and health consciousness. The macro term for these factors in the PESTEL analysis is
Social
A shoe manufacturer has created a decision tree with costs of different marketing strategies and the two possible outcomes from each strategy. What other data does the company need to include in the decision tree to calculate the expected values for each choice?
The probability of each outcome.
A local family-run Greek restaurant has been a part of the community for twenty years. Their mission is to provide local, fresh, healthy, nutritious, and great-tasting food at reasonable prices in a clean, friendly, convenient environment. Their son studied business in college. When he returned to run the restaurant, he wanted to make the business more community-minded and environmentally responsible. What are some additions that could be implemented which are aligned with this company's values?
They give excess food to the local homeless shelter.
Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776. A key example in his book was a pin "manufactory." "The important business of making a pin is ... divided into about eighteen distinct operations," he wrote. Ten men were able to make 240 times as many pins as each working separately might accomplish. This is how Smith explained
Division of labor and specialization.
"Controller" is the job title for someone who is responsible for high-level accounting, managerial accounting, and finance activities. A controller needs
Feedback loop
Top managers are the public face of the management team and represent the business in legal, economic, and social forums. Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick resigned because he could not fill this ________ role.
Figurehead
Creating resources that meet the VRIO criteria are strategically important to a firm because:
Firms that possess these types of resources may be able to experience a sustained competitive advantage.
When a decision is made as a group, all the members will
Have a far greater understanding of the issues and the reasons behind the decision.
Joe is an exceptional systems engineer who hopes to work at the Techtonic Group. He is handicapped and uses a wheelchair. Techtonic does not have wheelchair ramps and some doorways are not wide enough for a wheelchair. The HR department should
Install wheelchair ramps and widen the doorways.
In the stock brokerage business, Schwab, Fidelity, and others offer back-office work as a service. Financial advisers can leave the large firms like Merrill Lynch and go out on their own. These advisers have created
Modular Organizations
Mary Parker Follett anticipated the work of Elton Mayo at a high level. She recognized the importance of
informal processes within organizations
A nurse handling the diverse needs of patients in the intensive care unit may score high on ________, whereas new nurses aiding in the same department may feel that they perform only busy work.
Task significance
Gantt promoted a task-and-bonus pay plan that modified Taylor's "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work" premise. If a worker took more than the standard time, his pay was docked. If he took less time, he was paid for the additional pieces of work and a bonus of up to 20% more. This was also known as
The progressive rate system
Yahoo was an enthusiastic adopter of ROWE—results-oriented work environment—where employees are paid for results and not hours. In this spirit, Yahoo adopted ________, so that employees could work from home or shift their hours.
Flexible work arrangements
USAA sells car, house, and mortgage insurance. State law requires Insurance companies to separate their capital reserves for these businesses, and the legal requirements for selling each product differ. Most insurance companies organize around
Products like house and car insurance.
Businesses can achieve competitive advantage in a number of different ways. For example, their product may provide
Superior Performance
Taylor and Weber agreed on hiring the right worker for the job. Employee selection and promotion should be based on experience, competence, and technical qualification demonstrated by examinations, education, or training. There is no nepotism. Weber called this
The Formal Selection Process Rule
You now work at EFG Co. building their relational database. You have hit the ground running and are two weeks ahead of schedule. If you keep up this pace, you will be rewarded with a $2000 bonus for getting the project done far ahead of schedule. This is an example of what key element area of HR?
Compensation
Some office supply stores have increased profits by selling more than paper and ink cartridges. They manage the customer's supplies, checking inventories and replacing used materials in the customer's office. This systems approach considers
Not - An untapped profit center based on charging the customer for inventory management.
Michael Porter defined classified competitive strategies based on a grid of price strategy and target markets. Redbox, a major DVD rental company, uses vending machines placed outside grocery stores and other retail outlets to rent DVDs for $1. There are ways to view movies even cheaper, such as through the flat-fee streaming video subscriptions offered by Netflix. But among firms that rent actual DVDs, Redbox offers unparalleled levels of low price and high convenience. What is Redbox's strategy in this grid?
Not - Overall low cost
The practice of predictive analytics should be disciplined. That is, not only should guesses be made about the likelihood of future outcomes based on present trends, but also those predictions should be supported by
Parallels from past experience
The alternative to viewing management as a process is to focus on
People
Bharti Airtel is the largest cellular provider in India, with more than 300 million customers as of 2014. It also supplies broadband and telephone services, as well as many other telecommunications services to both domestic and corporate customers. Bharti Airtel is considering a customized version of the Google search engine, which will enhance broadband services to customers. The tie-up with Google will bolster the Airtel brand and also provide advertising opportunities in India for Google. A SWOT analysis was done. This partnership represents ________.
Not - A Threat Maybe - A strength
Michael Porter defined classified competitive strategies based on a grid of price strategy and target markets. Tesla manufactures electric cars. What is Tesla's strategy in this grid?
Focused Differentiation
The CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, recommends CEOs repeat themselves often and only then will people begin to internalize what you're saying. This is one of the ________ roles of managers.
Informational
Management by objectives is Peter Drucker's version of goal setting. His concept is that employees commit to goals. A manager should review progress toward individual goals with each employee and then
Jointly discuss the implications
Google's mission statement is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." When the CEO, Sundar Pichai, espouses this, he performs the management function of
Leading
A baseball team is deciding where to celebrate their tournament victory. They decide between two restaurants by voting, and the one with the most votes wins. This is an example of:
Majority Rule
The financial crisis of 2008 revealed a huge failure at the major banks. The banks did not know their risk positions in credit-default derivatives. It often took months to process contracts and reconcile with counterparties. This type of activity falls under
Operations Management
If you stop and take the time to ask yourself if you are being realistic about your skills, perceptions, and judgements, you are more likely to avoid which bias?
Overconfidence bias
The systems approach to management looks at companies as
Processes with inputs and outputs
Scientific Management focused on productivity and reducing costs by developing efficiency. Its critics took issue with scientific management's emphasis on
Quotas and Standards that were the same for all workers
Amazon relies on FedEx, UPS, the USPS, and others to deliver packages to consumers. These delivery companies are Amazon's
Supply Chain
Max Weber believed in well-defined organization, called the Hierarchical Management Structure. Humanistic management did not disagree but recognized the power of
The informal Structure
Amazon, the largest online retailer, has experimented with physical stores and recently bought Whole Foods. Whole Foods has almost 500 stores and gives Amazon facilities for rapid physical expansion. The general insight here is that
To survive today, organizations need to be present in both the online and physical markets.
Richard Branson of Virgin Enterprises says, "The people out on the front line, they know when things are not going right and they know when things need to be improved. And if you listen to them you can soon improve all those niggly things which turns an average company into an exceptional company." Branson believes in
Managing people well to create a competitive advantage
One major role of firms is to manage risk. Consumers do not want to pay for products of unknown quality or where the delivery date is questionable. Managers also worry about unexpected changes in supplies or markets. Strategic management seeks to adapt to and benefit from change. For strategists, this ________ is both a challenge and an opportunity.
Uncertainty
In 2017, the CEO of Netflix hired you as a strategic consultant to investigate music sales. What would you include as part of your VRIO analysis for Netflix?
Netflix's name is a valuable resource. Widely recognizable, the brand recognition could be leveraged to capture a portion of the streaming music market.
Robin is a personal banker. Her work with high-net-worth customers is both challenging and rewarding. When she became pregnant, her boss decided she did not fit the image the bank wanted to project. Her boss replaced her with a younger woman. Is Robin protected?
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.
A budget is both a projection and a control. A manager may need to go over budget to meet sales goals or spend less than budgeted. A manager should communicate any changes to his manager, but in some organizations, the best budget is the one that
Most closely projects actual expenses and revenue.
________ is primarily referring to an organization's industry, and the downstream and upstream markets related to it.
A situational analysis
When it comes to negative public relations, it's pretty tough to top the sight of a United Airlines passenger being dragged, bloodied and screaming, from a flight. United Airlines management failed to plan for a situation where a passenger refused to get off the plane, and employees made an ad hoc decision to use force. Afterwards, United changed its policies so that employees could follow a better solution in the ________ plans.
Standing
An ________ is a method for a company to assess its market position relative to its competitors.
Industry Analysis
Researchers at the University of Washington found "that a later start time leads supervisors to perceive employees as less conscientious." Regardless of actual performance, "These perceptions in turn lead to lower performance ratings for employees with late start times." For employees ________, this is a warning about the risks.
Using flexible work arrangements
The work of ________ and ________ forms the basis of organization designs today. The principles of bureaucracy govern most large organizations, from multinational organizations, to armies, hospitals, and universities.
Weber and Fayol
Researchers at ________ sought help after their studies, based on scientific management procedures, produced inconsistent results. Elton Mayo designed new studies where research conducted non-directive interviews.
Western Electric near Chicago
Many companies forbid smoking at work. This is an example of a
Regulation
The Securities and Exchange Commission requires companies listing on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market to have codes of ethics. A code of ethics is
A policy statement of a company's values, responsibilities and conduct expectations.
As companies get older, the people identify with their department rather than the whole company. To improve integration across departments, management will shift to a problem solving-based approach, created across various business functions. In Greiner's model, this is the
Collaboration phase.
When people are involved in developing plans, they become more ________ .
Committed to the plans
An organization with a clear mission is one that is easy to understand and manage. A ________ unifies employees and helps them understand the organization's direction.
Common purpose
Organizational structure, or how individual work and teamwork within an organization are coordinated, is important because: Choose ALL that apply.
Achieving organizational goals and objectives cannot be accomplished without coordinated efforts. It describes how individuals actions are linked together and defines formal communication channels.
In a decision tree with costs or net income and probabilities, each path of decisions and outcomes can be summarized in
An expected value
College basketball players make many quick decisions in the course of a game. They do not stop to analyze the alternatives, weigh criteria, or calculate optimal solutions. They have trained to develop ________ .
An intuitive decision style
Strategic management
Considers the entire organization and how the pieces fit together
Max Weber believed that bureaucratic management was the only logical and efficient way to manage an organization. Many organizations do follow bureaucratic principles, but Valve's Gabe Newell disagrees. His company has almost no management, and employees are expected to pursue their own projects. ________ shares this view that there are no universal management theories.
Contingency Management
Walmart serves cost-conscious customers. To keep prices low, it needs efficient operations. It is not particularly worried about adaptability and flexibility. Walmart uses
Not - A network organization with decentralized decision making
An analyst who gives presentations to potential clients but is not informed of the prospects' decisions has low
Not - Skill Variety
Descriptive analytics are
The first step in making sense of the reams of data.
A highly competitive market suggests that the competitors are aggressively trying to take market share from their rivals. One of the simplest ways to do this is to lower prices. This ________ hurts the profitability of the whole industry.
Competitive Rivalry
Warren Buffett, a famous investor, has some guiding rules. One is "Invest within your circle of competence," meaning if you don't understand the business, don't invest. He sold positions in Freddie Mac because he did not understand or like financial derivatives. He called derivatives "weapons of mass destruction." In the context of strategy, financial firms that use derivatives are
Complex
Bright Learning Co. has a problem. Some people want to move the headquarters to a place with nicer weather and others do not. There are many factors to consider, and different people will weigh the factors differently. To reach a common decision, they should
Define the problem, identify criteria, weight the criteria, generate alternatives, evaluate each alternative against the criteria, and make a decision
All of the following are difficulties with a matrix structure, EXCEPT:
Employees find that there is little to no interpersonal conflict with leaders or team members.
E-commerce includes online and smartphone sales. The younger the shopper, the more likely he or she is to conduct "business" using a smartphone. E-commerce refers to
Exchanges or transactions that occur electronically
General Motors would like an estimate of the chance that Tesla will bring the cost of batteries down from $300 per kWh to $70. Dr. Tetlock has developed a process whereby selected teams are better estimators of future probabilities than experts. General Motors is willing to pay Dr. Tetlock for his teams' ________ .
Forecasts
Chloe is the billing and accounting department manager in a large organization. The CEO is shifting the tall hierarchal structure to reduce the number of middle managers. Chloe is now the team leader for 15 people instead of the manager of 5. The team members have taken some of Chloe's previous responsibilities. What benefits will Chloe see from this new structure?
Greater productivity, innovation and better customer service.
There is a price to pay in using controls. What are examples of the price of controls being imposed?
Financial cost of introduction and implementation of controls
An email sender must first ________ his thoughts into words that will be interpreted by the receiver. These two steps are often a source of misunderstanding.
Encode
E.H. Schein's three levels of corporate culture are
Artifacts, Values, and Assumptions.
In active listening, the listener should paraphrase what he has heard and then
not - start his own response
President Trump has demonstrated the pros and cons of ________. He directly reaches 30 million followers on Twitter, but his random thoughts are shared with the public.
Instant communication
Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, there will be a question raised any time an employee aged ________ years old or over is terminated.
40
The compliance steps of the US Sentencing Guidelines include
A code of ethics or statement of values.
Mustafa can't understand why his team members are angry at him. His team members say he did not share crucial information about legal risk in his activity. Mustafa's behavior is
A communication breakdown
Frank needs some help with the credit approval process in a computer equipment firm. He wants to hire his friend's niece because she needs a job. Barbara, the HR manager, tells him the first step is
A job analysis to understand exactly what is required to do the job well
Donald Grinder wrote in The Police Chief magazine that officers should possess courage, competence, compassion, commitment, restraint, respect, and integrity. "Now more than ever, it is imperative for police managers to make connections with their employees, understand their backgrounds, uncover their talents, and place them in positions where they can excel," he wrote. Grinder recommends
A people-oriented culture for police.
Mustafa and Jeff argued about budget and spending on a new printer. Jeff finally conceded in the hope that Mustafa would be more flexible. The conflict was settled by
Accommodating
The US Sentencing Guidelines essentially offer incentives for detecting and preventing crime, provided that any offense is reported to the authorities, and no high-level employee has committed the offense. Companies do this by creating
An active ethics program
________ focuses on employees' perceptions of the quality of the interpersonal treatment.
Interactional Justice
Maslow's hierarchy of needs suggests that an organization begins motivating employees by providing a safe workplace, job security, and a living wage. That is by addressing
Basic needs.
Intrinsic motivation exists within a person. Sources of this type of motivation might include
Beliefs, sense of accomplishment. or personal pride.
Most companies use some top-down controls, such as rules, regulations, and formal authority, to guide performance. Top-down controls are also known as
Bureaucratic controls.
The markets depend on audits, outsiders who check the accounting of publicly held companies. Likewise, the market uses ________ audits to confirm that companies are not just "greenwashing" their activities. Greenwashing means spinning a story of social responsibility around something that may be inconsequential or even harmful.
CSR
In 1999, a ________ caused the failure of a NASA satellite. Lockheed Martin, who built the craft, typically expresses force in pounds, but it was standard practice to convert force to newtons for space missions. One pound of force is about 4.45 newtons. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab assumed the conversion had been made, and didn't check!
Communication error.
Warren Buffett and Berkshire-Hathaway have a reputation for fair dealing and a hands-off approach to management. Because of this, company founders who are planning for retirement will negotiate with him. Other investors may not even hear that a firm is for sale until the sale is announced. Berkshire Hathaway's culture has created a ________.
Competitive advantage
When CEO Robert Nardelli took over Home Depot in 2000, there was little central control. Store managers acted independently and costs were higher than competitors like Lowes. Nardelli changed the culture to focus on central control and cutting costs. To control costs, store managers were not allowed to choose products for local customers. Employees lost their customer-focused attitudes, and customer service suffered. To repair this, the next CEO, Frank Blake, sought to restore the "Orange Apron" culture. What does this example best illustrate?
Corporate culture is created through a collaborative effort that involves not only upper management but also managers and employees.
Donna runs a chain of barber shops. She cannot be everywhere at once or make every decision. She estimates revenue and gives each manager a budget for spending. This way, each manager can make the local decisions about staffing and supplies. Donna
Delegates spending authority.
In employee-focused leadership, the leader's focus is on
Developing employees and inspiring them to follow the vision the leader has provided.
What traits have strong relations with leadership?
Drive, Desire to Lead, and Integrity
Which is a reason for managers to understand personalities and work behaviors?
Effective leading requires an understanding of employees' personalities, attitudes, and values.
One reason managers need to act ethically is that
Employees follow leader's behavior, either ethical or unethical.
Job rotation has a number of advantages when managers implement it in organizations. It is an effective way for:
Employees to gain new skills because of cross-training in new tasks.
Kahneman found that the way a problem was stated could change preferences. When the choices were presented in positive terms, the participants preferred the more certain choice. When the choices were presented in negative terms, participants preferred a gamble, the chance of avoiding the loss. Participants were guilty of
Framing Bias
Google's industry, online search, is competitive, and customers can switch easily if another search tool, like Microsoft's Bing, better serves their needs. Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, says, "We think that company culture and ________ can't be separated. You have to have the culture, and you need to get it right."
Innovation
Some companies have moved to a la carte benefits. If an employee wants more vacation time and less retirement savings, then the employee decides where to allocate the benefit funds. The choices are typically
Health care, vacation days, and matching retirement savings.
Carnegie Mellon University has the best master's program in financial engineering. The Wall Street banks should
Hire from Carnegie Mellon and other top schools for a range of approaches.
The four types of tools a transformational leader uses to inspire followers include
Idealized influence, inspirational motivation, and individualized consideration
Professor Claris does not give any tests in her class. She believes education should be an adventure, knowledge for its own sake, not a hurdle to jump. All students receive an "A" in her course. The students are happy, but the dean and the accreditation board are not. They would say:
If performance is not measured, we cannot know whether standards have been met.
Luke, an HR manager at Ford, argues that health insurance should cost more for smokers or overweight people. Those are personal choices and we shouldn't all pay more fees to cover their cost. Matthew says no. Other people have less obvious health risks. We should hang together, instead of dividing up the insurance pool. What principles might cause them to disagree?
Luke believes in individual rights and responsibilities. Matthew may be concerned with the greater good.
Mike's trading desk uses a delta-hedging strategy to reduce risk, which means they may need to adjust positions after larger rate market movements. Generally, traders arrive early, between 7 and 8 a.m., well ahead of economic announcements scheduled at 8:30 a.m. This isn't a formal rule. New traders gradually see the benefit and adjust their arrival time. This is an example of
Maybe - A normative control.
NPR's Planet Money reports that "Fifty years ago, nearly a third of U.S. workers belonged to a union. Today, it's one in 10." For corporations in general, fewer unionized workers means which of the following?
More ability to hire contingent and part-time workers, pay lower wages, ship jobs overseas to cut costs, and increase profits.
________ are essays describing employee performance. These are generally written by the employees' direct managers, though they are sometimes written by the employee himself or herself. On the one hand, narrative essays take time and energy away from the manager's (or employee's) daily tasks. On the other hand, they can provide the most detailed and meaningful evaluations, as they are flexible enough to describe individuals' strengths, challenges, obstacles, and opportunities.
Narrative Techniques
Management creates performance measures to see how the company is doing. Profit and revenue are typical measures. When management includes broader strategic measures such as quality, customer retention, and learning, then they have created
Not - A balanced scorecard.
The Bureau of Labor calculates statistics "quit" levels by industry. The Accommodation and Food Services industry had the highest rate in May 2017 at 4.7%. At that rate, 56 percent of the employees quit within a year. The causes may be
Not - A better opportunity, a layoff, a family move, or job dissatisfaction.
What is an example of a measure for the internal analysis area of the balanced scorecard?
Not - Gross margin
Volvo tried ________ in the 1960s, and quality skyrocketed, according to then-president Pehr Gyllenhammar (who retired in the 1990s). This approach dramatically boosted quality (and often raised productivity as well) by pushing power down, replacing inspection with responsibility, and having people work in teams. Volvo found that production under teams stayed constant, largely due to systems constraints, but that the time and capital invested to make the switch was more than paid off in cost savings from reduced turnover and absenteeism.
Not - Job enlargement maybe - Job rotation
Equity theory proposed that individuals who are over-rewarded would experience guilt and would try to restore equity. Research showed that
Not - Many over-rewarded individuals identified the area of unfair advantage and corrected it. Not - Many individuals experience distress as a result of being over-rewarded. Maybe - This Argument was not supported
If the majority of workers at a facility choose union representation, then the union negotiates for the employees. If the union representative negotiates a raise for its members, then
Not - Only union members get a raise
SAMATEK is an information technology services company. Other companies hire them for their services rather than maintaining their own IT departments. Woo-jin was speaking with Zeek, the receptionist at a new customer's company, about SAMATEK services. He mentioned how scalable they were, explaining that once they were set up, the company's computers would never go into yo-yo mode. He also emphasized how SAMATEK was reliable in both cyberspace and meatspace. Woo-jin laughed but Zeek didn't even crack a smile. What communication barrier did this conversation run up against?
Not - information overload
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator classifies personalities into 16 types. The test is
Not supported by statistical testing.
Only about ________ of US employees are engaged and thriving in their work.
One-third 1/3 33%
________ is the process through which an organization influences its members and subunits to act in ways that lead to the realization of organizational goals and objectives.
Organizational Control
________ can help a new employee to gain confidence and feel useful because he or she knows the company's system, people, and expectations.
Orientation and training
Often, ________ are not included on all-staff memos, invited to events, or offered the same bonuses or perks offered to full-time employees. This creates a sort of caste system that can be frustrating and demoralizing.
Part-Timers
Applications from Internet job sites flood companies with more applications than they can process manually. In response, companies rely more on
Personal referrals
What is the role of personality tests in filtering out less ethical job candidates?
Personality tests or situation-specific questionnaires can be used to select and hire ethical employees.
Bob visited the offices of MASS, a successful insurance company in Boston. MASS needs people who are good with numbers. When Bob visited, he noticed that the analysts wore conservative suits and their desks were laid out in a large space like a warehouse, without cubicles, walls, or decorations. The ________ seemed like a clue to a miserly culture.
Physical spaces and decor.
George is fun to be around but loses interest in his work without regular dialogues about it. As a portfolio risk analyst, his tasks can be tedious and detail-oriented. To keep George motivated, his manager can
Plan weekly meetings for the staff to discuss their work.
McClelland's research showed that success in management could be predicted, to some extent, based on an employee's needs. Candidates who "need" ________ were more likely to become managers.
Power
You have an employee who enjoys motivating and influencing others. This same employee saw ways to make the department more efficient and created processes to make that happen. This employee is most likely motivated by ________, according to McClelland's acquired needs theory.
Power
Greg created an instructional game for employees to demonstrate how financial markets work. The game was a multiple stage lottery. Half the players "lost" at each round and dropped out. After each round, winners could bargain, selling their tickets or combining tickets into pools. Although luck was a factor, skill or a willingness to take risk soon dominated. The losers thought it was unfair. The winners argued it was fair under
Procedural justice. The rules were the same for everyone.
Human resource management responsibilities include
Recruitment and selection, training and development, and compensation.
________ is the motivation theory that behavior is a function of its immediate consequences.
Reinforcement Theory
As a manager applying reinforcement theory, what methods would you use to increase the frequency of a desired behavior?
Reward the desired behavior and thereby reinforce it.
________ is the act of filtering what we hear or see to gratify our own needs or fears.
Selective perception
A new product task team met for the first time. Tony, the team leader, was particularly stressed that day from work and home issues, and he answered questions gruffly. Tony's gruff manner, thick New York accent, and age (over sixty years old) were interpreted by some team members to mean that Tony was closed-minded to new ideas and would be difficult to work with. Over time, the team asked fewer questions or offered few new ideas. Tony became gruffer because of his frustration with the team's lack of participation. Tony felt pressure to move the project forward, so he pushed ahead with his own ideas. Team members grumbled to themselves that he was exactly what they first thought. This is an example of:
Stereotyping
Jax manages a team of ten telemarketers. The composition of his team is as follows: three people are brand new; five have been at the company for two years; two have been there five years and are top sales earners. With his new members, Jax provides daily direction and support. His top earners run with the goals that they set, planning how to reach them on their own and reporting back to Jax when they reach their targets. The other five team members Jax coaches and trains every two months. What leadership style is Jax implementing with his team?
Situational leadership
When Joel and Frank pulled on a rope alone, each exerted a force of 100 pounds. Next, they were asked to pull together. Each is given enough room on the rope to avoid accidental coordination problems. But when they pull together, their combined effort is 160 pounds. This may be due to
Social loafing
Merely the presence of a goal is not motivation enough. According to the goal-setting theory, a goal must be SMART. This stands for:
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound
Managers determine what the various parts of the organization must do for the organization to be successful in the near future (one year or less). To manage implementation of short-term plans, management needs
Tactical Controls.
An example of a proactive feed-forward control is
Taking your car in for regular oil changes and maintenance checks.
As a manager, how can you influence your employee's expectancy perceptions positively?
Talk with employees and discover what they value. and use those rewards for good performance.
President Trump created a ________ to prioritize building projects the U.S. He appointed specialists to study this problem.
Task Force
During ethics training, management will typically lead a discussion of a scenario. Discussing the responses gives managers the opportunity
To demonstrate how employees should respond in ethical situations they will likely face on the job.
Walmart said that inept shelf-stocking cost the company $3 billion in 2014. This is a clear sign that employees are not receiving appropriate
Training
What is an example of a measure for the learning and growth area of the balanced scorecard?
Training dollars per employee
Unions get much of their legal power from the Wagner Act of 1935, passed during the Great Depression. The Act set up
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees the rules and policies related to collective bargaining
Which of the following statements about the communication process is the most accurate?
The direction of communication can move vertically, horizontally, and diagonally in an organization.
Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey refers to CSR as conscious capitalism. He believes capitalism, or a free market system, is better than other systems but that business leaders need to be "conscious" of
The interests of all major stakeholders--customers, employees, investors, communities, suppliers, and the environment.
The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, said in 2009 that banks serve a social purpose and are "doing God's work. We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It's a virtuous cycle." On the other hand, Goldman Sachs earned around $12 billion and would hand out more than $16 billion in year-end bonuses. The average employee earned $500,000 for the year. Despite the rhetoric, Blankfein's leadership was probably
Transactional
Warren Buffett, the leader of Berkshire Hathaway, has devoted fans outside of the firm. Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting has become a "pilgrimage" for people who believe in capitalism. Buffett exemplifies
Truthfulness, optimism, and what many consider the "honest" way to achieve investing success.
The ________ in expectancy theory means the value the employee puts on the reward.
Valence
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks the number of quits. In May 2017, the rates were 2.2% per month. The annual figure is near 26 percent. At this rate, the average person changes jobs every 4 years. Quits represent
Voluntary Terminations
When HR sets salary ranges, one factor is competitive analysis. This means
What people in similar jobs are making
What would be considered "hygiene" factors as described by Herzberg?
Your office building is right next to the dump, so some days it is hard to concentrate over the smell
If a communication channel is rich with information, it will:
convey more nonverbal information
Joe has hired part-time employees to help with an accounting project, but he is baffled by how to manage them. They are not trained in company policies and procedures and will be gone in a few months. Joe is finding that part-time help can be ________.
a liability
A job requiring attention to detail, accuracy in following set rules, and set monthly deadlines is a good job fit for:
a person who is efficient with systems and accurately meets routine deadlines, and thrives on routine.
Within an organization, Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides:
a systematic way of thinking about the different needs employees may have at any given point.
When Home Depot needed to re-establish a customer service culture, they instructed employees on how to behave, how quickly to speak to customers, and what to say. Home Depot accelerated the culture change with
a training program.
What is an example of shadowing?
accompanying a colleague as he calls on clients.
The level of cohesiveness on the team primarily determines whether team members accept and conform to norms. Team cohesiveness is the extent that members are
attracted to the team and motivated to remain in the team.
Frank is the expert on the credit pricing process. He knows all the ins and outs. His employees just follow his process and are very efficient. His leadership style is
autocratic
Companies recruit candidates who are most likely to fit their culture. Studies have found that a good fit between a candidate's personality and the company's culture leads to better retention. Companies can also use ________ to maintain their culture.
hiring decisions and training
A car dealer has set a goal for its sales team to sell 60 cars this month. The sales manager also wants to make sure every member of the team is contributing, so she sets individual goals for each team member to sell a certain number of cars. If the team meets its goal, team members will get a bonus on top of their commissions for the month—but only if they also met their individual goals. The manager wants to encourage teamwork and minimize social loafing by ________.
clearly tying individual goals to team goals.
If a team is too large,
communication becomes more challenging
When a company is in a good state, the stakeholders are affected positively. For example,
communities benefit when their citizens are employed.
A company required every employee to wear their employee badge all day and use it to enter the building, and also to use the break room and bathroom. When company policies were changed surrounding use of various facilities, it was discovered that the company had collected individuals' habit data in a chart. It identified, by name, how long each employee used the various facilities and when. This did not sit well with employees, and word got out to the press, who put negative social pressure on the company. This example illustrates what cost of a control for that organization?
damage to company culture and reputation
Managers can help subordinates develop by
delegating responsibility rather than fixing problems before they arise
Fannie Mae, a finance company, hired highly skilled immigrants to fill programming jobs. All spoke English but some had heavy accents. To native speakers, the accents slowed discussions significantly. This illustrates how differences in background can lead to
difficulty with communication.
Many experts, including the Boston Consulting Group, recommend ________ as a long-term strategy. They use a broader meaning which includes personality, cognitive style, education, social background, and more.
diversity
At W.L. Gore, a company that makes Gore-Tex and 1,000 other products, any employee can propose a new product. The employee must put together a plan and find sponsors within the company. The sponsors act as a team. The advantage of this is
effectively combining the diverse skills of employees.
When Joseph is upset, he tends to distort or ignore what others are saying. If a speaker is upset, they may present the message ineffectively. This is the definition of:
emotional disconnets
Before it went bankrupt in 2008, Lehman Brothers was leveraged over 30 to 1, meaning they had more than $30 in assets to $1 in equity. It also meant that if their asset values declined 3.3%, the loss would wipe out their equity. This level of leverage was probably
high for the industry.
David's Healthcare of Austin, TX has ranked in the American College of Cardiology's top 10 percent since 2010 for its "door-to-balloon" time in treating the most severe form of heart attack known as STEMI (in which the coronary artery is completely blocked off by a clot). The "door-to-balloon time" refers to the amount of time between a heart attack patient's arrival at the hospital and the point when the patient receives intervention, such as a balloon angioplasty. This is an example of what control benefit?
improved quality control
Bob has been writing a long article for the weekly news magazine. He has cited many of his references. But after the article runs, a colleague notices a similarity to someone else's published work. What principle might help him decide how to proceed?
legal requirements, because a copyright issue could turn into a legal issue.
Altec Electronica Chihuahua is a Mexican producer of electronic products. The company's fragile electronics replacement parts were often damaged as they moved to customers. Altec designed a reusable packaging that protected the parts. Altec expects to see
lower product returns.
The benefits of a healthy culture and atmosphere within an organization are significant. A healthy environment results in
more productive employees.
A major publisher uses a virtual team to assemble an engineering textbook. They hire editors from a content development firm and technical writers from the best university in India to develop exercise questions. The team members
never meet
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of J.P. Morgan bank, wanted to clarify his position on "racism and intolerance" after events in Charlottesville, VA. He sent a message to all employees, saying in part, "Racism, intolerance and violence are always wrong. The equal treatment of all people is one of our nation's bedrock principles. There is no room for equivocation here. ... It is a leader's role, in business or government, to bring people together, not tear them apart." This is an example of ________ communication.
not - External
Wiley Coyote is a new manager at Acme Manufacturing and finds they have added $1 million in debt recently. This is a big number, and Wiley does not like debt. What should he do next?
not - Implement a budget
The first step in good communications is to clearly and concisely ________, whether written, spoken, graphic, or numerical.
not - convey data to the answers
If you are actively listening, you are probably following what rules?
noting cues, paraphrasing and restating what was said.
Glassdoor, the job search site, releases an annual list of the "Best Places to Work," which is based on employee reviews on the website. The stocks of companies that appear on the list have ________ the S&P500 in the year following the announcement. Companies that look after employees also do well for stockholders.
outperformed
Informal communication systems can refer to social networks or the grapevine. Informal communication systems are
outside of the formal system.
OSHA has a web calculator called "$afety Pays." It calculates the immediate costs and delayed costs of workplace injuries. For example, the immediate cost of hearing loss is $44,000, but the lost productivity totals $700,000. Research shows that investments in safety
pay for themselves many times over
In the ________, consensus and cooperation have been well-established and the team is mature, organized, and well-functioning. There is a clear and stable structure, and members are committed to the team's mission. Problems and conflicts still emerge, but they are dealt with constructively.
performing stage
Two investment managers disagree over whether to trust Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs has been called a "giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." One manager has received good advice from the firm. The other has caught the firm salesman using tricks on three separate occasions. Their disagreement is
substantive
Greg is a bright student and generally tests well. But in his online Business Statistics class, he missed the first quiz because the dates were confusing. And he earned only 58% on the midterm because the format was unfamiliar. To do well in the course, Greg needs to
take corrective action and change his process.
In Wall Street investment banks, each trader is allowed to make his own decisions within his risk limits, and he can make the opposite bet of another part of the firm. Greg Lippmann, a mortgage trader at Deutsche Bank, made big bets on a housing bust before 2008. Other parts of Deutsche Bank lost billions when the the mortgage bonds defaulted, but Lippmann got rich. Deutsche Bank does not believe in ________ among traders.
team building
To improve quality, companies need to purchase new software and equipment, hire and train employees, conduct studies, and consult with experts. These activities add to
the cost of doing business.
Employee attitude surveys are only beneficial if
the results of those surveys actually lead to substantial action and change.
Teams are ineffective when they lack leadership, when the decision making is not democratic, and when
the team lacks expertise and necessary skills
Culture change is difficult. Executives usually need a crisis to persuade employees to focus on the change. The crisis may be a competitive threat or a large loss. That is, executives need
to create a sense of urgency.
Al Smith is a bank economist. He likes to use time-series charts with multiple lines in different colors in a special presentation room, called the war room, where the charts stay up on the walls between meetings. The other managers must break from listening to puzzle out the meaning of the charts. What does this example reveal about visual aids?
visual aids can be a distraction
