Organizational Behavior

When organizing a team to develop a new quality control system, management wanted to assign team members having characteristics common to effective teams.Which list specifies common characteristics of effective teams?

A manageable level of conflict, members who are conscientious, and effective leadership

Which option defines organizational culture?

A shared system of meanings that is unique to the organization

Which of the following is an example of internally caused behavior?

An employee was fired from work because he violated a company policy.

With reference to the expectancy theory, which of the following examples indicates a weak rewards-personal goals relationship?

An employee works hard in order to be relocated to the Paris office but instead is transferred to Beijing.

Which of the following does the heredity approach state?

An individual's personality is determined by molecular structure of the genes.

How might a charismatic leader work to increase performance in an organization?

Articulate an appealing vision.

Which of the following statements is true regarding the effect of size of the group has on the performance of the group?

As compared to smaller groups, larger groups are better in problem solving.

Which attributes are included in the seven primary characteristics that define an organization's culture?

Attention to detail, innovation and risk taking, people orientation

To resolve a conflict between the department staff and the janitorial staff, the department head informs the department staff of a new policy prohibiting the eating of food at the desk.Which type of conflict resolution technique does this represent?

Authoritative command

________ bias refers to the tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is easily accessible.

Availability

How can an organization transmit its culture to its employees?

By using material symbols and specific language

A newly-formed team is struggling to become productive but cannot decide who should do what.How should the team leader attempt to resolve the problem?

Coach the team through the difficulty

________ is as important for managers as for front-line employees and, among all Big Five Model traits, is most consistently related to job performance.

Conscientiousness

Which approach might be used to mentor a less-experienced employee?

Counseling and sponsorship

What type of team is formed when employees from about the same hierarchical level but from different work areas come together to accomplish a task?

Cross-functional team

Employees A and B work together on the same project team. When the team faces a complex problem, the team leader usually asks B to generate alternative solutions for the team to consider. Experience has shown that B is more likely to take initiative, to set ambitious goals, and to feel that the team can effectively influence its environment. Employee A tends to do well on jobs that are routine, is plagued with self doubt, and feels that the team is largely powerless over its environment.Which statement is correct?

Employee A exhibits negative core self evaluation, and employee B exhibits positive core self evaluation.

Manager A supervises 10 district units with 100 employees and receives $100,000 in compensation. Manager B supervises 5 district units with 50 employees and also receives $100,000 in compensation. Manager A is upset by this relationship and is looking for a new job.Which theory explains A's motivation to look for a new job?

Equity theory

________ refers to staying with a decision even when there is clear evidence it's wrong.

Escalation of commitment

Which type of group is defined by the organization's structure?

Formal group

What defines a set of expected behavior patterns attributed to a person occupying a given position in a social unit?

Group role

Which of the following statements is true regarding self-managed work teams?

In the case of self-managed work teams, supervisory positions take on decreased importance.

A person is broadminded, courageous, and forgiving.Which type of values are these?

Instrumental values

An employee enjoys having a large span of responsibility and is motivated to do well because of personal feelings.Which kind of reward is this?

Intrinsic reward

What is the major problem with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a measure of personality?

It forces a person to be categorized as either one type or another.

Which contingency theory of leadership proposes that early in the interaction between a leader and a given follower the leader implicitly categorizes the follower as an "in" or an "out"?

Leader-member exchange theory

Which theory of motivation focuses on 5 levels of needs, and further separates those needs by lower-order needs and higher-order needs?

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory

Which statement is true about work teams?

Members of the group generate positive synergy through coordinated effort.

Which of these groups is the higher performing

Nominal Group

Which stage of the five-stage group development model is characterized by developing close relationships and cohesiveness?

Norming

Which of the following statements is true regarding perception?

Our perception of reality can be different from the objective reality.

What are primary factors that differentiate virtual teams from face-to-face teams?

Overcome time and space constraints and create limited social context

Which of the following statements is true regarding goal-setting theory?

People do better when they get feedback on how well they are progressing toward their goals.

Management has noticed that the quality improvement work group is struggling because members seem to be working in different directions.Which suggested action can the company take to increase group cohesiveness?

Physically isolate the group

Which level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs deals with satisfying one's hunger, thirst, and other bodily needs?

Physiological

What is a characteristic of problem-solving teams that is different than cross-functional teams?

Problem-solving team members come from the same work unit.

What is a characteristic employed by transformational leaders?

Provides vision and sense of mission and gains trust

A company is changing their work organization from employees working individually to the use of teams.Which reward system could be used to foster long-term team effectiveness?

Reward system that rewards both individual and group activity

Helen, a high school teacher, wants her students to actively participate more in class. She has decided to use reinforcement theory to get the required results. Which of the following methods is she most likely to use?

She is going to give students extra credit each time that they contribute.

If Alberta is a categorized as a Theory X manager, which of the following behaviors is she most likely to exhibit?

She will strictly control all the details of any project she is managing.

Employee B was upset by Employee A's behavior at the department's planning meeting.Which factors will influence Employee B's perception in this situation?

Situation, target, and perceiver

Which term describes the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually?

Social loafing

What is one of the forces that plays a particularly important role in sustaining an organization's culture?

Socialization process

A manager challenged an employee to produce an average of 24 assemblies each day for a week. This production goal was higher than the employee had ever achieved during any week. The manager gave the employee a tally sheet to mark after each assembly was completed.Considering the goal-setting theory of motivation, the manager was counting on which factors to influence the employee to achieve the production goal?

Specificity and feedback

Which conflict-resolution techniques might a manager use to control the level of conflict that has become dysfunctional?

Superordinate goals and altering the structural variables

A company switched from assembly lines to self-managed work teams.What can team members do to improve the synergy and success of their teams?

Take action on problems as individual members as well as in work teams

A company has restructured around teams but performance has not met expectations.What should be the main evaluation criterion in an appropriate performance evaluation for supporting and improving the performance of teams?

Team results being tied to important goals

A team was assigned a project. Halfway through the project it was obvious that the team was failing to meet expectations. Management had made sure that individuals assigned to the team had good interpersonal skills as well as good problem-solving and decision-making skills. However, they overlooked other abilities of team members required for accomplishing the work.Which ability necessary for team members was overlooked?

Technical expertise

What is an advantage of a strong organizational culture?

The company has low employee turnover.

What is true about the relationship between performance evaluation and motivation?

The relationship is a function of the degree of indirect empowerment of the supervisor.

Which of the following is true regarding formal groups?

They are marked by stipulated behaviors in pursuit of organizational goals.

Which of the following statements is most likely to be true regarding people with proactive personalities?

They are more likely than others to be seen as leaders.

Which of the following is true of values?

They have content and intensity attributes.

What is a purpose of employee performance evaluations?

To provide feedback and determine reward allocations

With reference to the Hofstede's framework, which country scores highest in individualism?

United States

What is the optimal method for maximizing team member participation in a global meeting?

Video conferencing technology

Management is considering a reorganization of sales regions and plans to allow employees to live and work in their respective sales territories throughout the United States. However, the vice president of sales wants the regionally-dispersed agents to participate in weekly sales meetings.Which type of teams should be organized?

Virtual teams

In which circumstances would the use of 360-degree performance evaluations apply?

When both internal and external customer feedback is helpful

When is organizational culture considered dysfunctional?

When cultural incompatibility deters making acquisitions or mergers

What is an advantage of a group that is not very cohesive?

When performance norms are low, productivity may be higher than in a cohesive group.

Which of the following statements is true regarding size of teams?

When teams have excess members, cohesiveness declines.

Which of the following is true with regard to deviant workplace behavior?

Widespread deviant workplace behavior depends on the accepted norms of the group.

Recognize how workplace politics influence behavior within an organization.How do employees often respond when feeling threatened by organizational politics?

With defensive behaviors

Which of the following accurately differentiates between work groups and work teams?

Work teams generate a potential for an organization to generate greater outputs with no increase in inputs, while work groups cannot perform this function.

When ________ is of importance in decision making, group decisions are preferred to individual decisions.

acceptance of solution

Luke's cubicle neighbor Leia, though an understanding and great co-worker, talks loudly on the phone. Luke gets annoyed every time Leia's phone rings, but he has decided it's simply not worth the trouble to talk to her about it. Luke's conflict-handling intention is called ________.

avoiding

During which phase of the negotiation process do the parties have the actual discussion to hash out an agreement?

bargaining and problem-solving

A process of making decisions by constructing simplified models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their complexity is known as ________.

bounded rationality

Which of the following is a conflict-stimulation technique?

bringing in outsiders

Araceli is a team member in a large corporation. She never speaks in team meetings because she has seen members talk behind each other's backs after the meetings. Members are constantly monitoring the other members' work and looking for mistakes to point out in a meeting. According to the information provided, which contextual factor is lacking in Araceli's team?

climate of trust

Which of the following is not one of the key components of effective teams?

company reputation

Self-determination theory proposes that in addition to being driven by a need for autonomy, people seek ways to achieve _______

competence and positive connections

People scoring high on ________ are valuable in teams because they're good at backing up fellow team members and at sensing when their support is truly needed.

conscientiousness

With a deadline approaching, all seven members of Sharon's product development team were working round-the-clock and still the work was not completed in time. After the project was completed, Sharon spoke individually with the members to determine the cause for this delay. Many members complained saying the work given to them was not in accordance with their roles, some were unclear about which team member to approach when faced with a problem, and many underestimated the time and effort the project demanded. This team is characterized by ________.

dissimilar mental models

Jackie thinks that she is paid a lot less than other employees in her division and feels extremely resentful. She starts taking long breaks and generally wastes time. Her actions resulted from a perceived lack of ________ justice.

distributive

As both sides agree that they are competing over a fixed amount of resources, each side feels that what one side wins, the other loses. Based on this information, we can say that the two sides are engaged in ________.

distributive bargaining

Which of the following sources of increasing self-efficacy involves gaining relevant experience with a particular task or job?

enactive mastery

Which of the following is an effective means of countering social loafing?

ensuring that individual contributions to the group's outcome are identified

According to the interactionist view, ________ conflicts support the goals of the group and improve its performance.

functional

Which of the following terms best describes the tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others?

fundamental attribution error

The HR department at Bailey Services is considering offering telecommuting as an option to some experienced employees. At a meeting to formalize the move, the heads of the different departments met with Laura Watson, the HR manager. Laura, who thought this meeting would be a short one, was proven wrong when all the members, who had previously agreed that telecommuting would work in their company, began coming up with divergent views. By the end, two divisions claimed having major concerns about allowing employees to telecommute, and those in favor of it were equally vocal. This scenario depicts the operation of ________.

groupshift

Which of the following is most likely to increase team efficacy?

helping the team achieve small successes

Individuals scoring ________ have a strong ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors and can behave differently in different situations.

high on self-monitoring

What is a strength of group decision making?

increased diversity of views

John Holland's personality-job fit theory presents six personality types. Which of the following is one of these six types?

investigative

For process conflict to be productive, it must be ________.

kept low

The ________ view of conflict focuses on productive resolution of conflicts.

managed

In equity theory, individuals assess the ________.

outcome-input ratio

Stage II of the conflict process deals with the conflict being ________.

perceived and felt

Oscar is looking for a new job. He used to be the company's top sales representative and was eagerly expecting to be promoted. However, one of the regional manager's friends was promoted to district manager instead. According to the expectancy theory, Oscar's dissatisfaction with his current job stems from a breakdown in the ________ relationship.

performance-reward

When the group energy is focused on the task at hand and the group is fully functional, it is said to be in the stage of ________.

performing

Which of the following is an instrumental value?

personal discipline

Which of the following is the first step in the negotiation process?

preparation and planning

Conflict is dysfunctional when it ________.

reduces group cohesiveness

Michael is devout and very active in his church. He is also a very dedicated employee. His manager offers him a promotion but the new role will require him to work Sundays. Michael would like the promotion, but realizes that it would force him to miss some church activities. In this situation, Michael is most likely to experience ________.

role conflict

Which of the following steps can be taken by a manager so as to minimize groupthink?

seeking input from employees before the group leader presents his opinions

You are more likely to notice a car like your own due to ________.

selective perception

Rose needs to give a presentation to the board of directors of her organization next week. She knows that her presentation will play an important role in her performance appraisal in the next quarter. However, she knows that two of her colleagues, John and Keith, will also be giving a presentation on the same issue. She is nervous because she believes that men have a better flair for giving presentations. Rose's perception of John and Keith is most likely characterized by ________.

stereotyping

Valerie Sinclair, a climate campaigner at an environmental organization, invariably uses rationale to make decisions for project implementation. She believes that the right decisions can be made only through scrutiny and analysis. Each time she needs to make a decision, she weighs all options before taking action. Which of the following is Sinclair's personality type according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) classification?

thinking

According to the concept of ________, decisions are made solely on the basis of their outcomes, ideally to provide the greatest good for the greatest number.

utilitarianism

Individuals who report unethical practices by their employer to outsiders are known as ________.

whistle-blowers