Organizational Communication Quiz #1

An anesthesiologist asking about a patient's medical history before determining sedation strategy is an example of which of the following flows of communication?

Activity coordination

Gavin is a manager in a human resources organization. He has a message for Bob who works on the assembly line. What channel is he likely going to use to get the message to Bob?

Any of the above

Weick proposes a process called _________, where communication cycles are saved for future organizational use.

Assembly rules

In Blake & Mouton's Managerial Grid, which prototypical management style best aligns with classical management styles?

Authority-compliance

Which approach was best illustrated in the clip of "The Founder" that was discussion in class/lecture?

Classical Approaches

The purpose of Zappos adopting a holocracy was to change the status quo of utilizing management in a certain way. This was in direct contrast with what approach to organizations?

Classical approach

Sally misunderstood what Sam meant when he asked her to submit a report to Human Resources on time. This common misunderstanding can be traced back to which part of the communication process?

Encoding and decoding

Three people were fired at ABC Corporation. Eugene was fired because he was incompetent. Rita was fired because she was unethical. Kayla was fired because of economic conditions. This illustrates the systems property of

Equifinality

The fact that we all have different understandings of the word "Field" is an example of which aspect of the communication process? Select the most accurate answer.

Fields of experience impact how we encode and decode messages.

According to the Montreal School of CCO, substance and meaning represents which part of the "co-orientation" process?

Text

Which of the following approaches does NOT characteristically rely on formal styles of communication?

Human relations

Compare and contrast the Human Relations and Human Resources Approaches.

Human relations is different from human resources because the theory behind human relations revolves around the people's hierarchy of needs and if they are happy with their work. While the human resources theory revolves around the idea of employees being successful at work, both in their individual work and achieving the company's goals. One similarity between human resources and human relations is both theories believe it is important to have satisfied employees to have a successful organization.

_______________________ makes the suggestion box available but __________________________ actually uses it.

Human relations; Human resources

_______________ refers to the taken-for-granted assumptions about reality that influence our perceptions about organizational life.

Ideologies

The theory of scientific management sought to eliminate:

Inconsistent/uneven work and systematic soldiering

Which of the Hawthorne Studies found that employees were more interested in talking about their feelings and attitudes rather than the work itself?

Interview program

Michael is a sales representative who spends a great deal of time out on the road and infrequently communicates with the rest of his sales team so he doesn't feel very "in the loop" about changes and things taking place at the organization. Michael's role in the communication network of his company is most likely a(n):

Isolate

Network "nodes" who connect different groups of the network without being a member in either group fulfill the role of _______________.

Liason

The ___________________ flow makes clear the point that organizations are communicatively constituted through people who bring the organization into existence and enter and exit over time.

Membership negotiation

Susan, Tallie, Geoffrey, and Joshua enjoy each others' company and have great conversation when they get together, but they do not go out of their way to schedule communication. Which property of communication networks does their relationship illustrate?

Network density

Josh is a nurse at a hospital in Ames, Iowa. He is working on a patient who appears to be suffering from flu-like symptoms from a bacterial infection. Yolanda is a scientist for the Center for Disease Control. She has been studying bacteria samples that were found in Ames, which appear to be traces of a biological terrorist weapon that creates the flu-like symptoms Josh has been observing in his patient. The difficulty of getting Yolanda and Josh to exchange helpful information through the work of the Department of Homeland Security is really a problem of ________, according to the text.

Organizational Communication

The idea that a system should be open and allow for information, resources, etc. to flow both into and out of the organization illustrates which system component?

Permeability

Deal & Kennedy's "strong culture" exemplifies a __________________ approach to understanding culture.

Prescriptive

The role of a critical theorist in the emancipation process is similar to the role of a

Psychoanalyst

Weber advocated the use/prominence of __________ power over other forms of power in organizations.

Rational-legal

According to Weick, a primary goal of organizing is to:

Reduce uncertainty

Henry manages a fast food restaurant and never worries too much about treating his employees well, because he knows the local high school is full of students willing to work for minimum wage. What principle of the "machine metaphor" does Henry's attitude exemplify?

Replaceability

The concept of ______________ considers how workers can exert counter-pressure on the exercise of power and control.

Resistance

Human relations principles argue that:

Satisfaction of employees' higher order needs lead directly to job satisfaction.

According to CCO, when active participants exercise their agency, they will ________ follow the rules that have been established to guide interactions.

Sometimes

The number of people supervised by a manager is his/her:

Span of control

Feminists who work to enhance the opportunity for a variety of marginalized voices to be heard within societal dialogue are called

Standpoint Feminists

In Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid, which protoypical management style most aligns with a human resources approach?

Team Management Approach

According to your text, The United States is an outlier from its traditional competitors in which demographic way?

The U.S. is struggling to create enough jobs for a growing immigrant population.

Explain the "informal organization" and why it is important.

The informal organization is the social organization within the formal structure of an organization. It is important because social relationships between workers in an organization give workers a sense of belonging with their coworkers within the organization. These social relationships are important because they help workers in an organization feel better informed about what is going on in the organization they work for.

What does it mean that the theme of the semester is "Complexity"?

The theme of complexity for this semester means everything is more than what it seems at first glance. When we are talking about a certain topic there is always more to it than simply the definition or first explanation.

McGregor believed that managers who believe commitment is a function of the rewards associated with employees' achievement were following the assumptions of:

Theory Y management

Which theory included a tenet that believed organizations should close themselves off and operate distinctly from the environments in which they operate?

Theory of bureaucracy

Having a checklist with an order of tasks for retail employees to follow for opening and closing procedures illustrates which tenant of Taylor's theory?

There is one best way to do every job.

What part of system processes is displayed when any type of resource has entered a system and then undergoes a transformational process to make that resource useful to both the organization and its environment?

Throughput

The Human Resources approach borrows _________________________from classical management and __________________________ from human relations.

emphasis on productivity; emphasis on employee feelings

Susan works as a firefighter in a male-dominated organization. She is often sexually harassed on the job by her male co-workers. When asked about the appropriateness of this behavior, Susan excuses the behavior, by sighing and stating "Boys will be boys. What can I do about it, anyway?" According to the critical approach, Susan is

hegemonically contributing to the control of the patriarchal organizational power structure.

Gail has been working as a seamstress for 20 years, but her job is soon going to be changed drastically as the plant she works in becomes automated. According to Marxist theory, Gail may become alienated when this happens because

management has control over the means of production.

Open systems as characterized by _________, or the ability to sustain themselves and grow.

negative entropy

The key assumption of the container metaphor is that:

organizational communication occurs within the "container" of an organization.

The four key components of Deal and Kennedy's "strong cultures" are

values, heroes, rites/rituals, and the cultural network