OB Exam 2 Review

When the factory needed to get production up, it instituted a reward system that sent the most productive employees on a trip to Florida. Harris, however, hated to travel and didn't know how to swim, so he slacked off on his production. According to the expectancy theory, this reward had ________ for Harris.

a negative outcome valence

Employees who receive a fixed amount of pay each week and feel underrewarded are most likely to

reduce their work effort.

Which of the following communication channels is most effective when the sender wants to persuade the receiver?

a personal face-to-face meeting with the receiver

Management by walking around (MBWA) refers to

a practice in which executives get out of their offices and learn from others in the organization through casual face-to-face dialogue.

Paul has worked in the same office at DEF Insurance LLC for 6 years. He has been very ambitious during his years at the company. Although he started as an insurance agent, he has recently been promoted to the position of agency manager and proudly displays all his awards on the wall of his new office. He is very proud of his status and accomplishments. According to the four-drive theory, Paul most likely has a high drive to

acquire.

Intuition relies on programmed decision routines that speed up our response to pattern matches or mismatches. These programmed decision routines are referred to as

action scripts.

During the ________ stage of team development, team members shift their attention away from task orientation to a relationship focus.

adjourning

The desire to seek approval from others, conform to their wishes and expectations, and avoid conflict and confrontations is referred to as the need for

affiliation.

Jake slams his finger while closing a cabinet drawer. Mandy winces and shakes her hand. This is an example of

emotional contagion.

Which of the following fundamental drives is highly influenced by effective communication?

the drive to bond

Which drive in the four-drive theory is reactive rather than proactive?

the drive to defend

Social loafing occurs more

when the task is boring than when it is interesting.

Although there are many forms of brainwriting, what is the one common feature that each form has?

Individuals write down their ideas.

According to the expectancy theory, which of the following would be a way to increase an employee's E-to-P expectancy?

Assure the employee that he or she has the necessary competencies.

________ can be best defined as a conscious process of making choices among one or more alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs.

Decision making

Which of the following statements is true about the drives of people?

Drives are innate and universal to human beings.

An individual's perceived probability that a particular level of effort will result in a particular level of performance is referred to as the

E-to-P expectancy.

According to business leaders, how should people make decisions in organizations?

Effective decision making involves identifying, selecting, and applying the best possible alternative.

Which of the following statements is TRUE about organizational conditions and their effects on creativity?

Extreme time pressures are well-known creativity inhibitors.

In the creative process, which of the following refers to the experience of suddenly becoming aware of a unique idea?

Illumination

Which of the following is an advantage associated with using written communication channels in persuading people?

It is better in presenting technical details.

Which of the following statements is TRUE about intuition?

It is both an emotional experience and a rapid nonconscious analytic process.

Which of the following statements is TRUE about communication within a corporate organization?

It is important in the decision-making process.

Which of the following statements is TRUE about email?

It is usually inappropriate for ambiguous and novel situations.

Which of the following is TRUE about calculus-based trust?

It offers the lowest potential trust in organizations.

Which of the following generally occurs during the storming stage of team development?

Members try to establish norms of appropriate behavior and performance standards.

________ are the motivational forces of emotions channeled toward particular goals to correct deficiencies or imbalances.

Needs

Which of the following is a major criticism of Maslow's needs hierarchy theory?

People do not progress through the hierarchy as the theory predicts.

________ is the tendency to experience stronger negative emotions when losing something of value than the positive emotions experienced when gaining something of equal value.

Prospect theory effect

Which of the following statements is TRUE about the rational decision-making model?

Rational choice decision making selects the best alternative by calculating the probability that various outcomes will occur from the choices.

________ provides an explanation of why people belong to informal groups.

Social identity theory

The ________ of human beings are also called primary needs.

drives

Which of the following is TRUE at the highest level of employee involvement?

The entire decision-making process is handed over to employees.

Which of the following is TRUE about an organizational grapevine?

The typical pattern of a grapevine is a cluster chain, whereby a few people actively transmit rumors to many others.

How do norms affect the behavior of group members?

They help groups regulate and guide the behaviors of their members.

Which of the following should corporate leaders do with the organizational grapevine?

Use the grapevine as a signal of employee anxiety and view it as a valid competitor to the company's formal communication system.

In organizational communication, "flaming" generally refers to

an emotionally charged email that communicates strong negative emotions.

The core elements of organizational behavior modification are depicted by the A-B-C model in which A, B, and C stand for

antecedents, behavior, and consequences.

In the expectancy theory, valence refers to the

anticipated satisfaction or dissatisfaction that an individual feels toward an outcome.

"Faultlines" are more likely to occur when teams

are diverse.

Perceptual defense refers to the

blocking out of bad news or information that threatens our self-concept.

After choosing among several computer server systems, the director of information systems feels very positive about the final choice. However, some of this optimism is due to the fact that the director forgot about a few of the limitations of the chosen system and unconsciously downplays the importance of the positive features of the rejected systems. The director of information systems is engaging in

confirmation bias.

Sansa and Shuki are managers at ABC Corporation. Shuki is having problems in his department due to lack of innovation. In response, he consults the corporate procedures manual and speaks with his boss about the right way to solve the problem. Sansa is also having a similar problem in her own department but decides to confront it by hosting team luncheons where she can learn new perspectives and discuss new "outside the box" ways to deal with the problem. Shuki is an example of a(n) ________ thinker.

convergent

The concept of bounded rationality holds that

decision makers process limited and imperfect information and rarely try to select the best choice.

If a dysfunctional norm is very deeply ingrained in a team, the best strategy is probably to

disband the group and replace it with people having more favorable norms.

Sansa and Shuki are managers at ABC Corporation. Shuki is having problems in his department due to lack of innovation. In response, he consults the corporate procedures manual and speaks with his boss about the right way to solve the problem. Sansa is also having a similar problem in her own department but decides to confront it by hosting team luncheons where she can learn new perspectives and discuss new "outside the box" ways to deal with the problem. Sansa is an example of a(n) ________ thinker.

divergent

Justin is a manager at InnoApp Inc., a web-based applications company. In an attempt to promote new ideas, Justin decides to allow his engineering team to devote 15 percent of their work time to whatever projects they would like to work on and reduces their assigned workload. He then institutes a 30-minute period each morning where the team members are asked to look over their current project list for the day and develop more knowledge about a task before they move on to work on their assigned tasks. Justin is attempting to promote

employee creativity.

The employees at Keyboard Corporation are extremely motivated to achieve their work-related goals, and they believe the company gives them to resources to do so. These employees are high in

employee engagement

The company cafeteria had become overcrowded at lunchtime over the last few months, creating slower food lines and less seating. Employees were beginning to grumble. Expanding the lunchroom wasn't in this year's budget, so management called a meeting to discuss the problem and invited any employee who would like to attend. Several production employees attended the meeting and said several months ago they were assigned to eat lunch at the same time. These employees who attended the meeting suggested a way to stagger lunchtimes that wouldn't interfere with productivity. This is an example of

employee involvement.

What theory suggests that employee motivation is influenced by what other people contribute to and receive from the organization?

equity theory

Decision makers tend to rely on their implicit favorite when they

evaluate decision alternatives sequentially.

Shantal recently went to a communication workshop to improve her workplace performance. She learned that in effective communication she should resist forming an opinion until the speaker has finished, then attempt to empathize with the listener, and, finally, respond effectively to the speaker. She learned techniques regarding maintaining eye contact and sending back channel signals to show interest. The skills that Shantal learned regarding empathizing with the speaker and organizing information will help her specifically in ________ the message.

evaluating

Which of these is the final step in the rational choice decision-making process?

evaluating decision outcomes

Which theory of motivation is based on the idea that work effort is directed toward behaviors that people believe will lead to desired outcomes?

expectancy theory

Selene and Rita are both engineers at a highly innovative technology company. They are both very creative people. Selene has 15 years of engineering background, a high need for achievement, and strong task motivation, whereas Rita prides herself on her high openness to experience, strong self-direction, and her ability to evaluate the potential usefulness of ideas. According to the characteristics of creative people, which are Selene's strongest areas?

experience and persistence

Which of the following communication channels has the lowest media richness?

financial statement

According to the communication model, which of the following represents the first three steps in sequence?

form message, encode message, and transmit message

Calculus, knowledge, and identification are the three

foundations of trust in teams.

The unstructured and informal organizational network that is founded in social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions is called the

grapevine.

People tend to be more creative when they

have a reasonable level of job security.

Self-directed teams

have substantial autonomy over the execution of a task.

You have just received fresh investments for a new e-commerce business and you want to hire a dozen people with a high level of creative potential. To hire the most creative people, you would select applicants who have

high degree of persistence, strong self-direction value, and relatively low need for affiliation.

Alvin, the production manager of Paragon Company, wants to select the best supplier of raw materials from among several vendors. He has several choices and has done research into which company provides the best services and products. One company is known to be extremely timely, another is much lower in price but often late in deliveries, and the third is well-known to provide the highest quality products available. According to the rational choice decision-making process, the first step in solving this problem would be to

identify the problem or opportunity.

Harvey's Hot Dogs started a performance-based reward system that accurately identified employees who performed better than others. This practice improves employee motivation by

improving P-to-O expectancies.

Selene and Rita are both engineers at a highly innovative technology company. They are both very creative people. Selene has 15 years of engineering background, a high need for achievement, and strong task motivation, whereas Rita prides herself on her high openness to experience, strong self-direction, and her ability to evaluate the potential usefulness of ideas. According to the characteristics of creative people, which are Rita's strongest areas?

intelligence and independent imagination

In the context of communication barrier, ________ refers to specialized words and phrases for specific occupations or groups that are used in communication.

jargon

The ________ model identifies five core job dimensions that produce three psychological states.

job characteristics

The drive to bond and the dynamics of social identity theory both explain why people

join informal groups.

Edgar works on a team with four other accounting professionals within a company's accounting department. Edgar doesn't particularly agree with some of his teammates' ideas, such as leaving work early and taking long lunches. However, he works comfortably with the group because they possess top-notch accounting skills and have never let him down while working on a project together. What foundation of trust does Edgar have in this team?

knowledge-based

Which of the following is a way to increase employee motivation by improving the P-to-O expectancies?

measuring employee performance accurately and distributing more valued rewards

The capacity of a communication medium to transmit information is referred to as

media richness.

A central feature of the communication model is the channel, also called the ________, through which information is transmitted.

medium

Establishing a preset level at which the decision is abandoned or reevaluated is recommended mainly to

minimize escalation of commitment.

Keeping the team size sufficiently small and designing tasks such that each team member's contribution is more noticeable are some of the ways to

minimize social loafing.

Goal setting influences employee behavior and performance mainly by improving

motivation and clarifying role perceptions.

Every time Lucy dropped one of the store's imported chocolates on the floor, the manager yelled at her and made her wipe up the floor. As Lucy became less nervous, she dropped fewer chocolates and the manager yelled at her much less. In time, Lucy stopped dropping chocolates altogether. What principle did the manager use to change Lucy's behavior?

negative reinforcement

In the context of the communication process model, ________ refers to the psychological, social, and structural barriers that distort and obscure the sender's intended message.

noise

The optimal level of difficulty of a goal

occurs when the goal is challenging but not impossible.

Ilona is a new employee at a leading IT firm. Within a few weeks, she learns that a large number of emails flood her inbox on a daily basis. She redirects emails of no significance to a junk folder. This act of redirecting emails to a folder in order to reduce information overload is an example of

omitting.

High team efficacy can cause team members to be ________ their decisions.

overconfident about

In the communication process, filtering occurs when

people communicate mainly positive information about themselves by screening out negative information.

Sofia works for Galaxy Manufacturing Inc., where her team shares a machine and materials with another team that works a different shift. Each team is responsible for ensuring that the machine is in working order and the work area is fully stocked before handing it over to the other team at shift change. While working, Sofia begins the manufacturing process, and then passes her work along to her teammate, Amanda, to complete the next step of the process. After this, Amanda passes it along to Nick to complete the process. The two teams sharing a work space and machine is known as

pooled interdependence.

A learned need in which people want to exercise control over others is referred to as the need for

power.

Brainstorming requires team members to

provide as many ideas as possible.

Jill is a manager at a call center that recently received a lot of complaints from its customers. Her supervisor, Robert, asked her to increase the morale of her subordinates because he believed that this would result in better customer service, which in turn would increase repeat business and decrease customer complaints. Jill has decided to use the expectancy theory model to motivate her employees. If Jill wants to increase the E-to-P expectancies of her employees, she should

provide coaching to employees who lack self-confidence.

Employees with ________ interdependence, in which work output is exchanged back and forth among individuals, should be organized into teams to facilitate coordination in their interwoven relationship.

reciprocal

Buffering, summarizing, and omitting are ways to

reduce information overload.

Active listeners can improve their responding by

rephrasing the speaker's ideas at appropriate breaks.

In team dynamics, process losses are best described as

resources expended on team development and maintenance.

At Sunshine Toys, several employees must work together to develop a new product. No one in this group has worked with any of the others before, and the development of this product has not been attempted previously. The most effective medium of communication in this situation would be one that is

rich.

Which of the following is the highest-level need in Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

self-actualization

Which of the following types of task interdependence exists among production employees working on assembly lines?

sequential interdependence

Sofia works for a Galaxy Manufacturing Inc., where her team shares a machine and materials with another team that works a different shift. Each team is responsible for ensuring that the machine is in working order and the work area is fully stocked before handing it over to the other team at shift change. While working, Sofia begins the manufacturing process, and then passes her work along to her teammate, Amanda, to complete the next step of the process. After this, Amanda passes it along to Nick to complete the process. The way Sofia's team functions is known as

sequential interdependence.

Which of the following has the same meaning around the world?

smiling

Synergie Inc. formed a team to improve revenues for its service stations along major highways in Malaysia. This team, which included a service station manager, a truck driver, and four or five marketing executives, disbanded after it had reviewed the Malaysian service stations and submitted a business plan. This team is called a(n)

task force team.

The degree to which team members have collective confidence in how well they work together and the likely success of their team effort is called

team efficacy.

A task force refers to any

temporary team formed to solve a problem, realize an opportunity, or design a product or service.

Team cohesiveness tends to be higher when

the team is sufficiently small.

Satisficing refers to

the tendency to choose an alternative that is good enough rather than the best.

The senior management at a leading global corporation has decided to promote a considerable number of its employees. Since its employees are spread all over the world, the top management is struggling to find an appropriate method to announce these promotions. They are keen on capturing and gauging the emotional joy and delight on the faces of those promoted. In such a case, which of the following would be the most appropriate method in announcing the promotions?

videoconferencing