Midterm

One of the justified criticisms of the classical model of decision making is that it is

too unrealistic and time consuming to be applied to real situations.

A device used to determine if an applicant has had prior job experience is the

training and experience form.

A decision becomes an ethical issue when accepted rules no longer apply and the decision maker must use his or her own moral principles and standards to decide what is right or wrong.

true

The condition under which managers are least confident about their decision making and most prone to err is

uncertainty

With regard to leadership and management, most American companies today appear to be

under-led and over-managed.

The role of management in fostering ethical behavior in an organization is extremely important because managers

who ask employees to do something wrong have a powerful influence.

Which of the following characteristics relates to situational leadership theory?

. A leadership model whose premise is that a leader's style should be contingent on subordinates' competence and commitment

What are job-centered leaders?

. Less-effective managers, who are mostly directive in their approaches and more concerned with closely supervising employees, explaining work procedures, and monitoring progress in task accomplishment

What is human resource management (HRM)?

All activities that forecast the number and type of employees an organization will need and then find and develop employees with necessary skills

What name is given to programs that typically simulate managerial tasks?

Assessment center tests

Which of the following statements about business ethics is false?

Business ethics is a concern only for upper management.

What is determined from patterns among an individual's predispositions, such as which situations to avoid, what kind of jobs an individual enjoys, which things he or she dislikes, how an individual communicates, how an individual approaches problems, and how he or she makes decisions?

Decision styles

Which of the following characteristics relates to initiating-structure behaviors?

Defining and structuring leader-employee roles through activities such as scheduling, defining work tasks, setting deadlines, criticizing poor work, getting employees to accept work standards, and resolving problems

_______ judge an action by whether it infringes on individual rights or universal principles, such as the Golden Rule, equality, or justice.

Deontologists

What term describes a member of the team who argues for an alternative position, thereby encouraging team members to carefully consider alternative courses of action?

Devil's advocate

In general, it is accurate to use the terms ethics and social responsibility interchangeably.

False

In most ways, ethical issues are totally independent of the culture in which a business operates.

False

Job analysis is a systematic procedure to determine the relative worth of various jobs.

False

What is a code of ethics?

Formalized rules and standards that describe and delineate what the organization expects of its employees

When Richard Nixon lost the presidency as the result of Watergate, what core trait category of leadership did he NOT demonstrate?

Honesty and integrity

Which of the following refers to the systematic process of gathering information about important work-related aspects of a job?

Job analysis

Which of the following refers to techniques that determine the value of an organization's jobs and arrange these jobs in order of pay according to their value?

Job evaluation methods

What term describes aspects of the task, subordinates, or organization that amplify a leader's impact on employee?

Leadership enhancers

Which of the following is one of the four major types of leadership behaviors recognized in path-goal theory?

Participative leadership

What are consideration behaviors?

Patterns of being friendly and supportive by listening to employees' problems, supporting their actions, "going to bat" for them, and getting their input on a variety of issues

What term describes examinations that verify an applicant's ability to perform actual job behaviors identified from a job analysis?

Performance or work-sample tests

What name is given to a person's ability to satisfy or deny satisfaction of another's need, based on an interpersonal relationship between individuals or on his or her personal characteristics?

Personal power

Which of the following refers to tests that qualify an individual's placement in manually and physically demanding jobs?

Physical examinations

Which of the following characteristics relates to information power?

Power that is a result of having access to important information that is not common knowledge, or of having the ability to control the flow of information to and from others

Which of the following refers to the condition that exists when decision makers must rely on incomplete, yet reliable information?

Risk

What is meant by promotion?

The advancement of a current employee to a higher-level job within the organization

What is meant by legitimate power?

The influence that comes from a person's formal position in an organization and the authority that accompanies that position

A values orientation relies on shared values between the company and the employees.

True

As the trait approach to leadership waned, two major dimensions of leader behavior emerged from new research: (1) how leaders get the job done and (2) how leaders treat their subordinates.

True

Before the twentieth century, businesses were largely responsible for defining how they would interact with society, and their sole motivation was profit.

True

John F. Kennedy's 1962 consumer bill of rights highlighted the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, and the right to be heard.

True

One of the strong arguments in favor of asking businesses to be socially responsible is that since they have created many social problems, they should also help solve them.

True

Opportunity refers to conditions that limit unfavorable behavior and/or reward favorable behavior.

True

The University of Michigan studies identified two dimensions of leadership behavior: task-oriented behaviors and relationship-oriented behaviors.

True

Which of the following is NOT one of the core trait categories that research has shown to have some relationship to leadership ability and success?

Verbal fluency

In _____, managers evaluate a company's long- and short-term contributions to society to determine whether the firm's social responsibility approach is working.

a social audit

You are the CEO of a highly competitive cell phone company, and you tell your employees, "All's fair in love and war," and "To each his or her own share, and to me ten shares." You apparently lack understanding of

acceptable business ethics.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of the nominal group technique is that it

allows every member to have an equal amount of input in decision making.

While being evaluated for a new job, you are subjected to a variety of tests. One of these asks questions about attitudes. The subjects cover topics like theft, sabotage, and physical and substance abuse. This is an example of

an integrity test.

Employees who succumb to organizational pressures to act contrary to their personal ethics can rationalize their behavior as "I was just following orders." All of the following are weaknesses of that rationalization EXCEPT

authority figures in the organization are a powerful influence.

The other side of disastrous escalation of commitment is

bailing out of a course of action too soon.

You are desperate for some creative ideas to crack open the closed Japanese import market for your high-protein soybean solution. You pull your management team together and tell them they have the entire day to

brainstorm.

Unlike Fiedler's contingency theory, path-goal theory assumes that leaders

can adapt their styles to meet the demands of the situation.

You have read about the Ohio State studies of leadership but know about no other theories of leadership. Above all else, you want your subordinates to be happy and satisfied. Based on your knowledge, you decide to practice

consideration behaviors

Managers with a conceptual decision making style are skilled at

developing new solutions and relying on intuition.

The characteristics of a good interview include all of the following EXCEPT

different for each applicant.

All of the following are steps in the nominal group decision process EXCEPT

each idea is rank ordered by the group leader.

Questions used in wage and salary surveys usually ask about all of the following EXCEPT

employee traits.

There is increasing evidence that transformational leaders

exist at all levels in organizational hierarchies and in a broad range of organizations.

According to Fiedler's contingency model, favorability is defined by three aspects of the situation: leadership style, employee development, and the organizational environment.

false

The greater the reward or the smaller the punishment for unethical behavior, the less is the likelihood that unethical behavior will recur.

false

Predicting how many employees will be needed in specific jobs in the future defines

forecasting employee demand.

The planning of human resources includes all of the following EXCEPT

forming a pool of qualified applicants from which to select employees.

All of the following are typical reactions to emotion and stress in the decision making process EXCEPT

framing.

You hire a group of college kids to work at your widget plant for the summer months. As a group, they are enthusiastic. You tell John, their foreman, that for the first few days he should

give them strong direction.

The steps in the training process include all of the following EXCEPT

have employees evaluate the trainer.

Even when alternatives have been thoroughly evaluated, decision makers may end up

having to assign a probability of success to each alternative.

Experts generally agree that the first step in decision making is

identifying the problem.

Benefits of employee empowerment include all of the following EXCEPT

increased work for leaders.

Giving employees tickets to "cash in" for a paid day off when they get their projects done well ahead of the deadline is an example of the creative use of

informal rewards.

One of the reasons that a university president's secretary often may have a great deal of influence and power within the university community is that he or she typically possesses

information power.

You are a computer whiz, and you have installed some software that monitors all incoming and outgoing company emails. You have no formal understanding of leadership theory, but you clearly understand

information power.

Whole Foods allows service employees to form teams and make independent decisions. In the language of leadership substitutes theory, the work teams act as a

leadership substitute.

In a condition of uncertainty, managers must acquire as much relevant information as possible, and then make the best possible use of

logic, intuition, judgment, and experience.

You are the CEO of a chocolate company, and you tell your managers that you expect a 25 percent increase in production this year, even if it means lowering the quality of your fine lines of chocolates. You may have created an ethical issue through

management pressure.

Social responsibility is the obligation a business has to

maximize its positive impact on society and minimize its negative impact.

In summarizing the trait and early behavioral approaches to leadership, it can be said that

neither approach addressed contingency factors that are very important in leadership.

Training methods that are conducted away from the workplace by outside individuals hired by the company describe

off-job training.

The most frequently used training methods that are used primarily for training managers include all of the following EXCEPT

on-the-job training.

A company has worked with a large supplier for many years. Recently, the supplier has requested certain financial favors from the company, threatening to terminate the contract if demands are not met. An ethical issue has arisen in the area of

organizational relationships.

You manage a semiprofessional baseball team, and you call up the Toronto Blue Jays and challenge them to a million-dollar match, winner take all. You suffer from

overconfidence and excessive risk propensity.

The concept of the social responsibility of business is not universally accepted. All of the following are arguments in favor of social responsibility EXCEPT

participation in social programs gives businesses greater power.

Tests that measure an applicant's ability to do actual job behaviors identified from a job analysis are called

performance tests.

While open discussion of an ethical issue may not eliminate all ethical problems in an organization, discussion will usually

promote trust and learning in an organization.

You need to know your future requirements for employees. To find the answer, you begin by collecting and analyzing data. You continue by using the productivity index and regression analysis. The method you are using is

quantitative forecasting.

The employee demand forecasting methods that use statistical techniques are

quantitative.

All of the following are general decision making styles EXCEPT

rational.

The method that uses a number of variables to predict sales and numbers of employees is

regression analysis.

Human resource programs concerned with bringing the appropriate individuals into the organization include HR planning, recruiting, and

selecting.

According to Robert Greenleaf, leaders who try to ensure that the highest priorities of their followers are met and who help followers to grow are

servant leaders.

Diversity encompasses all of the following EXCEPT

skill.

Your company has hired a group of 50 homeless persons as assembly-line workers. You talk to your managers about this program, and they tell you the formerly homeless workers are productive and fit in well, despite higher initial training costs. You have conducted an informal

social audit.

Concerns about the ethical and legal ramifications of finding that a Chinese company's paint contained lead would fall into the domain of

social responsibility

Your employees call you "The Computer." Your favorite saying is, "Just the facts, ma'am." You believe that knowledge is power. Your favorite decision-making model is

the classical model.

In Fiedler's leadership contingency theory, the basic concept is that successful leadership requires matching leaders with stable leadership styles to

the demands of the situation.

In a decision making situation where the decision maker satisfices,

the first satisfactory alternative is chosen.

The more conflict that exists within an organization,

the lower the perception of the ethicalness of the work group.

The reasons why reference information is not very useful in the selection process include all of the following EXCEPT

the reference may not have experience in the applicant's field of work.

One of the main difficulties with using trait appraisals is that

there are no clear definitions of many traits.

What are integrity tests?

. Tests that measure an applicant's attitudes and opinions about dysfunctional behaviors such as theft, sabotage, physical abuse, and substance abuse

A process that asks co-workers from the employee's inner circle to rate the employee's strengths and weaknesses on different elements of performance is

360-degree feedback.

What name is given to the most effective managers, who engage in both dimensions of leadership behaviors by getting employees involved in the operation of their departments or divisions in a positive and constructive manner, setting general goals, providing fairly loose supervision, and recognizing employees' contributions?

Employee-centered leaders

Which of the following refers to aspects of the task, subordinates, or organization that have the effect of paralyzing, destroying, or counteracting the effect of a leadership behavior?

Leadership neutralizers

What term is based on the idea that certain individuals or groups will be able to influence others to achieve their goals?

Political model of decision making

Which of the following refers to the difference between a desired situation and the actual situation?

Problem

When a manager decides to reorder inventory or establishes skill requirements for a certain job, she is making what type of decision?

Programmed

What name is given to decisions made in response to situations that are routine, structured, and fairly repetitive?

Programmed decisions

Which of the following characteristics relates to personality inventories?

Programs that measure the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that define an individual and determine that person's pattern of interaction with the environment

What name is given to personal power that results when one person identifies with and admires another?

Referent power

______ has become a leading issue in the 21st century as both business and the public acknowledge the damage done to the environment by past generations.

Sustainability

Which one of the following activities or behaviors is characteristic of a charismatic leader?

Takes great personal risks and engages in unconventional behavior to achieve change

Which of the following refers to behaviors—such as planning and scheduling work, coordinating employee activities, and providing necessary supplies, equipment, and technical assistance—designed primarily and specifically to get tasks completed?

Task-oriented behaviors

What is meant by charisma?

The ability to inspire admiration, respect, loyalty, and a desire to emulate, based on some intangible set of personality traits; a personal source of power

Which of the following characteristics relates to certainty?

The condition that exists when decision makers are fully informed about a problem, its alternative solutions, and its respective outcomes

What is leadership?

The process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group toward the achievement of a goal

While managers are often granted legitimate power to influence certain kinds of behavior, this type of power may also be limited by a formal contract.

True

What term describes the condition that exists when little or no factual information is available about a problem, its alternative solutions, and its respective outcomes?

Uncertainty

In the Hersey and Blanchard situational leadership model, development level is the term used to describe

a subordinate's competence in goal attainment and commitment to accepting responsibility for goals.

The University of Michigan studies of leadership effectiveness found that the most effective leaders

employ both task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors.

When a performance evaluation is based on favoritism and political opportunity, rather than on merit, an ethical issue has arisen in the area of

employee relations.

Because emotional intelligence impacts how one relates to others in the organization, some employers consider it to be a better predictor of success than IQ.

true

Numerous studies over the years have shown that while male and female leaders may have different leadership styles, overall both are equally effective in leading others

true

The biggest takeaway of the situational leadership theory is that management styles depend on the situation of where employees are at in their development.

true

The fact that Whole Foods allows service employees to form teams and make independent decisions is a good example of leadership substitutes at work.

true

If the decision making process fails, all of the following questions would normally be asked to determine why it failed EXCEPT

was brainstorming ineffective?