Management Sample Questions

How can companies foster the generation of new ideas?

a. By building a creative work environment

Which of the following is NOT one of the core job characteristics in the job characteristics model (JCM)

a. Client relationships

Which of the following types of conflicts is most strongly associated with improvements in team performance

a. Cognitive conflict

Senora is the CEO of a new company called BSL Corp. She has instructed the managers to use the traditional approach to create the organization's structure. What should the managers at BSL Corp. do?

a. Create an organizational structure with vertical and horizontal configurations

Which of the following statements regarding cohesiveness is true?

a. Engaging in non-work activities as a team can help build cohesion

Which of the following is the key difference between line authority and staff authority?

a. Line authority is the right to command immediate subordinates, whereas staff authority is the right to advise but not command others who are not subordinates

_____ is notorious for confusion and conflict between project managers in different areas of the organization

a. Matrix departmentalization

Which of the following types of teams has the authority to change their composition as well as all of their tasks and work methods

a. Self-designing teams

Which of the following typically happens during the storming stage of team development?

a. Team members begin to work together, and different personalities and work styles clash

In terms of innovation streams, what occurred when customers purchased flat-screen computer monitors to replace the older, bulkier monitors?

a. Technological substitution

Minority domination will most likely be a problem _____

a. as teams grow

Where standardization is important, it is appropriate to _____

a. centralize authority

Organizational authority is traditionally characterized by _____

a. chain of command

In order to cut costs and improve efficiency, old assembly line of a chocolate manufacturing company is being replaced by a system of employees working in groups. Under the new system, each person does several jobs because each of them have been trained to do the others' tasks. The chocolate manufacturing company is using _____

a. cross-training

During the latter half of the last decade, flat-screen television sets were gradually replaced by LED television sets; the LED televisions became the new market standard. The latter is an example of a _____

a. dominant design

In essence, reengineering changes organizations by _____

a. increasing reciprocal interdependence

A drawback of virtual teams is that:

a. their members must learn to express themselves in new contexts

The least amount of autonomy is found in ____

a. traditional work groups

The three steps in the basic process of managing organizational change outlined by Kurt Lewin are ____

a. unfreezing, change intervention, and refreezing

A(n) _____ is defined as a small number of people with complementary skills who hold themselves mutually accountable for pursuing a common purpose, achieving performance goals, and improving interdependent work processes

a. work team

Which of the following factors is necessary for stretch goals to effectively motivate teams?

b. Bureaucratic immunity

How are organizations using teams to help increase customer satisfaction?

b. By training teams to meet the needs of specific customers

Which of the following statements about team training is true?

b. Cross-training is less appropriate for teams of highly skilled workers

_____ do NOT have the authority to make decisions

b. Employee involvement teams

_____ is characterized by simple, easy-to-learn steps, low variety, and high repetition

b. Job specialization

Which of the following kinds of teams is always temporary?

b. Project team

_____ are often used to develop new products, significantly improve existing products, roll out new information systems, or build new factories or offices within a specific time, following which the team members either move on to the next project or return to their functional units

b. Project teams

Which of the following statements about team compensation is generally true?

b. Skill-based pay is more effective for self-directing teams performing complex tasks

_____ is a term used by work teams to describe when workers withhold their efforts and fail to perform their share of the work

b. Social loafing

Which of the following approaches to job redesign entails more than simply providing variety in job tasks

b. The job characteristics model

Which of the following statements about mechanistic organizations is true?

b. They work best in stable, unchanging business environments

Which of the following is the approach to managing interorganizational processes that can be best described as one which changes its composition depending on what an organization wants at the moment

b. Virtual organizations

In the typical S-curve pattern of innovation, small amounts of effort will result in significant increases in performance _____

b. at the midpoint of the cycle

The _____ approach to innovation asserts that the key to fast product innovation is to use intuition, flexible options, and hands-on experience to reduce uncertainty and accelerate learning and understanding

b. experiential

The amount of information a job provides to workers about their work performance best defines the term _____

b. feedback

Organizational _____ is the successful implementation of creative ideas in organizations

b. innovation

In the context of organizational development interventions, the purpose of _____ interventions is to change the character and performance of an organization, business unit, or department

b. large-system

With _____, most employees report to two bosses

b. matrix departmentalization

Formal project review points used to assess progress and performance are called _____

b. milestones

Lisa recently joined a famous multinational company. During her first few days, she went to work wearing casual clothing. However, she gradually came to know that this was not the expected dress code as everyone in the office dressed in formal attire. This was not specifically told to her, nor was it officially established as she later found out. The formal dress code is an example of a(n) _____

b. norm

Creativity was needed to improve efficiency without raising costs at an automobile maker. Over the last few years, the company has successfully implemented a creative engineering program that allows its plants to produce more than one type of car from the same assembly line. This successful change to a flexible manufacturing system is an example of ____

b. organizational innovation

Bridget's Gift Store has four departments. These departments are grouped as flowers and gifts, cards and e-cards, Bridget's collectibles, and Photo albums and scrapbooks. Bridget's Gift Store most likely uses _____

b. product departmentalization

A manager who wants to give his team the highest amount of autonomy should select _____

b. self-designing teams

An organization that rewards its team members through gainsharing is _____

b. sharing the financial value of performance gains

Teams are typically required when:

b. tasks require multiple perspectives

Feldman Films is a company associated with photography. The development of the digital camera forced Feldman Films into the innovation stream because the new imaging process was a(n) _____

b. technological discontinuity

According to the job characteristics model, _____ means pushing some managerial authority down to workers

b. vertical loading

Which of the following is a component of a creative work environment that encourages creativity?

c. Absence of organizational impediments

_____ refers to the emotional reactions that can occur when disagreements become personal rather than professional

c. Affective conflict

At which stage of organizational decline does the decline become irreversible?

c. Dissolution stage

Linda is a manager at a local restaurant. She wants to introduce a new scheme that she thinks will improve customer satisfaction. But before this, she needs to inform her team about this. Should Linda force consensus for her new scheme? Why?

c. No, because insisting on consensus usually promotes affective rather than cognitive conflict

Benson & Parker Advertising recently hired a fresh batch of copywriters and designers for their creative team. Initially, there was a lot of turbulence among the new team. In which stage of team development is this group at Benson & Parker Advertising most likely to resolve petty differences, develop friendships, and establish strong group cohesiveness?

c. Norming

_____ is defined as a philosophy and collection of planned change interventions designed to improve an organization's long-term health and performance

c. Organizational development

_____ can be best defined as fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance such as cost, quality, service, and speed

c. Reengineering

In the context of managing change, _____ forces support the status quo

c. Resistance

When significant improvements in performance can only be gained through radical new designs or new performance-enhancing materials, it is likely that a company is _____ in the S-curve pattern of innovation

c. at the end of the innovation cycle

Large accounting agencies typically have separate departments that deal with households, businesses, and governments. This allows them to better serve the needs of their clients by using _____

c. customer departmentalization

A technology _____ begins with the birth of a new technology and ends when that technology reaches its limits and dies as it is replaced by a newer, substantially better technology

c. cycle

ACST University is well known for the wide array of courses it offers. It offers courses in fine arts, humanities, science, and management. The university has dedicated divisions for each stream. In management terms, the university uses _____ to manage the different disciplines

c. departmentalization

When incremental improvements are made to a dominant technological design such that the improved version of the technology is fully backward compatible with the older version, _____ is said to have occurred

c. generational change

Elena works in a data processing department for a large credit reporting service and is bored. She spends her days entering an endless stream of monotonous data into much larger databases. According to the job characteristics model (JCM), one of the primary reasons for her boredom would most likely be a _____

c. low degree of task identity

Self-managing teams are different from semi-autonomous work groups in that team members:

c. manage and control all of the major tasks directly related to production of a product or service without first getting approval from management

Teams should NOT be used when:

c. there is no clear, engaging purpose

The Turnpike Authority of the state of Lakewood encountered several challenges while constructing tunnels. Hence, it created a national team of tunnel experts to develop road tunnel engineering principles, traffic flow patterns, and maintenance practices through the use of telecommunications and information technology. In this scenario, this group of tunnel experts can be best categorized as a _____

c. virtual team

Identify the correct statement about team conflicts

d. Affective conflict occurs when team members disagree because their different experiences and expertise lead them to different views of the problem and solutions

Which of the following methods for managing resistance to change should only be used as a last resort or under crisis conditions?

d. Coercion

Which of the following is NOT necessary for stretch goals to effectively motivate teams?

d. Conflict management training

Which of the following statements is true about the compression approach to managing innovation?

d. It is used during periods of incremental change.

_____ is defined as the knowledge, tools, and techniques used to transform inputs into outputs

d. Technology

Which of the following is the primary advantage of modular organizations

d. They can cost significantly less to run than traditional organizations

An organization should use teams when:

d. ample resources are available

In the typical S-curve pattern of innovation, increased effort (i.e., money, research and development) brings only small improvements in technological performance _____

d. at both the beginning and end of the cycle

With _____ conflict, team members disagree because their different experiences and expertise lead them to different views of the problem and solutions

d. cognitive

Raul, the CEO of Color Paints Inc. noticed that their plant loses considerable time daily because the assembly line has to be cleaned whenever the production schedule called for a different color to be produced. He, thus, established a team which was composed of employees from several different departments in order to solve this problem in a creative manner. This team came up with a solution that resulted in a significant increase in plant availability and an innovative alternative which successfully decreased plant downtime. This team exemplifies a(n) _____

d. cross-functional team

In the stages of team development, a team first moves from growth to decline during the _____ stage

d. de-norming

Peter, the marketing manager of a company that manufactures church furniture, has been given the job of increasing corporate profits by five percent during the upcoming year. Peter decided to give his assistant the full responsibility and authority for developing a mailing campaign to target churches in an entire state. In other words, Peter has _____

d. delegated the task

The term _____ can be best defined as a feeling of intrinsic motivation, in which workers perceive their work to have meaning and perceive themselves to be competent, having an impact, and capable of self-determination

d. empowerment

Over the long run, the best way for a company to sustain competitive advantage is to create _____ year after year

d. innovation streams

The CEO of RNK Electronics believes that the first requirement of management is that it should make the fullest use of its members' capacities. Thus, every employee's job at RNK Electronics is as minimally defined as possible so that it shapes itself to the employees' special abilities and initiative. RNK Electronics most likely is a(n) _____

d. organic organization

The three types of task interdependence are

d. pooled, sequential, and reciprocal

A(n) _____ is defined as a group that has the authority to make decisions and solve problems related to the major tasks of producing a product or service

d. semi-autonomous work group

The phases of a technology cycle within an innovation stream begins with:

d. technological discontinuity

In the autonomy continuum, the correct sequence, from low team autonomy to high team autonomy, is:

d. traditional work groups, employee involvement teams, semi-autonomous work groups, self- managing teams, and self-designing teams

One of the key assumptions underlying the chain of command is _____, which means that workers should report to just one supervisor

d. unity of command

A key feature of a _____ is that its composition is always changing

d. virtual organization

Touchstone Hardware was a popular company that specialized in making floppy disks. At the start of the 21st century, when people began switching to CDs and DVDs to store their information, it was brought to the notice of senior managers that the company needed to switch its focus to the new storage devices. However, managers did not feel it was important to switch. They dismissed CDs and DVDs as just a passing phase. At this point, which stage of organizational decline is the company in?

e. Blinded stage

_____ means that teams no longer have to go through the frustratingly slow process of multilevel reviews and sign-offs to get management approval before making changes

e. Bureaucratic immunity

When an automobile manufacturer learned that it took longer than any other manufacturer to assemble a vehicle, it purchased newer, more flexible manufacturing systems to replace its older ones. Which stage of the technology cycle is illustrated in the scenario?

e. Discontinuous change

Which of the following is a similarity between modular and virtual organizations

e. It can be difficult to control the quality of work done by network partners once work has been outsourced

Maria, the owner of a large multinational company, believes that the different regional centers should not have to run to her for all decisions. She believes that the company can be more efficient if the people closest to the problem have the ability to make the decisions necessary to solve the problems. To implement her beliefs, Maria has delegated power to the regional centers of the company. This is an example of _____

e. decentralization

The term _____ can be best defined as the collection of activities that transform inputs into outputs that customers value

e. organizational process

A producer of mobile aerial work platforms rewards employees for the number of basic skills they can perform rather than for the jobs to which they are assigned. Prior to initiating this system, pay increases were based on a merit system. The merit system is still in effect; however, the new program emphasizes continued acquisition of new skills. The new program can be best categorized as _____

e. skill-based pay