Final Exam

CobWeb Inc., a software firm, assesses managers based on how well they understand their subordinates, as well as the factors involved in their poor performance. Which of the following examples is the most appropriate evaluation of the input factors involved in analyzing poor performance?

DeShaun checks if the job flow and procedures are logical.

_____ are problem-solving systems, which usually include a "what if" feature that allows users to see how outcomes change when assumptions or data change.

Decision support systems

_____ involves contracting with an outside domestic vendor to provide a product or service to a firm, as opposed to producing the product using employees within the firm.

Outsourcing

According to the agency theory, the principals are the _____.

Owners

_____ is a quality control technique that lists the causes of a problem in decreasing order of importance.

Pareto chart

The _____ guarantees payment to employees of a basic retirement benefit in the event that financial difficulties force a company to terminate or reduce employee pension benefits.

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

____ functions have been clearly identified and articulated, and they have aligned their HR activities around people issues and outcomes, but not business issues and outcomes.

People-linked

_____ analysis involves identifying who needs training and determining employees' readiness for training.

Person

_____ attempts to emphasize the multidimensional nature of performance and thoroughly familiarize the raters with the actual content of various performance dimensions.

Rater accuracy training

Elle Inc. is a firm that holds frequent reviews and feedback sessions for its employees. It demands that the same person review the employees of a team to ensure that the performance evaluation is consistent; tests-retests are conducted periodically to make sure the evaluation is consistent. These two steps taken by Elle Inc. focus on the _____ of performance management.

Reliability

The _____ approach assumes that subjectivity can be eliminated from the measurement process and that outcomes are the closest indicators of one's contribution to organizational effectiveness.

Results

_____ systems provide employees with an equitable return for their investment of skills and effort.

Reward

For Drew to be a successful expatriate manager, he must be able to maintain a positive self-image. This adaptive skill is considered the

Self Dimension

At BayPoint Strategies, employees can work on several projects over the course of a year, reporting to different managers and interacting with a variety of team members. Which of the following approaches would be most effective and efficient in assessing employee performance at this consulting firm?

Social performance management

The extent to which a performance measure gives guidance to employees about what is expected of them is called

Specificity

_____ is a statement of an employee's work activity in a specific job.

Task

_____ is the process of identifying the knowledge, skills, jobs, and behaviors that need to be emphasized in training

Task analysis

Gainsharing can motivate employees as much as individual plans do

because it allows more control over the performance measure and the frequency of payouts

As jobs become less programmable

behavior-oriented contracts become less likely

Benefit plans that permit employees to choose the types and amounts of benefits they want are called _____.

flex-plans

_____ involves development programs, courses, and events that are developed and organized by the company.

formal training

Establishing a mentoring process is part of the _____ component of an effective managing diversity program.

identifying and developing talent

Examining the need to develop new technologies is part of

identifying strategic business issues.

According to a merit increase grid, one of the factors that determine the size and frequency of pay increases is the _____.

individual's performance rating

Culture based on _____ is most likely to prevail in companies that use a profit-sharing compensation program.

knowledge of business

Assistance provided to line managers in handling grievances is a customer satisfaction measure used in the _____ function of HRM.

labor relations

Chris is the chief human resource officer (CHRO) of ProPel Inc. In performing the tasks of aligning the HR activities with the needs of the business, Chris is performing the role of a(n) _____

leader of the HR function

Diagnosing problems and evaluating results are part of the _____ competence required by HR professionals.

management of change processes

______ are decisions about whether to join or remain with an organization

membership behaviors

A(n) _____ is suitable for an organization with a culture that promotes individual competition.

merit pay plan

Expectancy theory implies that linking an increased amount of rewards to performance will increase motivation and performance. Followers of cognitive evaluation theory are likely to question this assumption, arguing that

monetary rewards may decrease intrinsic motivation

A firm focuses on organizational and person analysis during the _____ stage in the training design process.

needs assessment

Group insurance rates are typically lower than individual rates because risks cannot be pooled together in group insurance

of economies of scale.

Agents prefer a behavior-based contract when _____.

outcome uncertainty is high

_____ is the means through which managers ensure that employees' activities and outputs are congruent with the organization's goals

performance management

Group incentives tend to measure performance in terms of _____.

physical output

As a manager, Jorge wants to find out the impact of his company's behavior-modeling training program on his employees' communications skills. The _____ evaluation design is necessary for this purpose.

pretest/posttest comparison group

The _____ evaluation design is necessary if a manager wants to equate the effect of two training programs.

pretest/posttest comparison group

Agency costs are likely to arise when _____.

principals and agents have different goals

Appraisals that involve collecting subordinates' evaluations of a manager's behavior or skills are known as _____.

upward feedback

The cost-benefit analysis approach that estimates the financial impact of employee behavior such as absenteeism is called _____.

utility analysis

Both the comparative and the attribute approaches to performance measurement are _____.

very low on specificity

According to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the rights of employees to a pension upon retirement are known as _____.

vesting rights

Fouad works at Ante Inc. He is responsible for conducting cost-benefit analyses of different functions performed at Ante. If Fouad's current task is to conduct a utility analysis, which of the following factors is he likely to asses through it?

Gains from selection programs

A(n) _____ program is based on group or plant performance that does not become part of the employee's base salary.

Gainsharing

_____ functions' articulation of people outcomes stems from an analysis of what their functions currently do

HR-focused

_____ is ideal for understanding how skills and behaviors can be transferred to the job and for dealing with interpersonal issues.

Hands on method

Benito, a psychology student, has had an overall negative impression of his psychology professor. As a consequence, during the end-of-term appraisal, he rates his professor low on all performance criteria. Which of the following rater errors has Benito committed?

Horns

The first step toward customer orientation is

Identifying customers

According to expectancy theory, compensation systems differ according to their impact on the components of motivation; the main influence of compensation is on _____.

Instrumentality

According to expectancy theory, motivation is hypothesized to be a function of _____.

Instrumentality

_____ analysis involves determining the business appropriateness of training, given the company's business strategy.

Organizational

An example of an expatriate is a

U.S. citizen working for a U.S. firm in Germany

Analyzing data redundancy, special cases, and exceptions is part of _____ the process during reengineering

Understanding

The extent to which expatriates receive recognition from peers and bosses following their expatriate assignment is called

Validation

E. L. Thorndike's Law of Effect states that _____.

a response followed by a reward is more likely to recur in the future

For an HRM function to become truly strategic in its orientation, it must

adopt a customer-oriented approach.

The first step in task analysis is to

identify the jobs to be examined

By law, what percentage of assets must an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) invest in its company's stock?

51%

Financial Accounting Statement 106 requires that any benefits provided after retirement be paid on a(n) _____ basis.

Accrual

The _____ approach to performance management focuses on the extent to which individuals have certain characteristics or traits believed desirable for the company's success

Attribute

_____ is an example of a presentation training method.

Audiovisual training

_____ is a computer system incorporating the decision rules of people deemed to have specialized knowledge in a certain area.

Expert system

_____ can be described as a function of ability and motivation.

Behaviors

_____ functions begin with an assessment of what HR is doing and then identifying the major people outcomes they should focus on.

Business-linked

_____, attended by managers, provide a way to help ensure that performance is evaluated consistently across managers and to reduce the influence of rating errors and politics on appraisals.

Calibration meetings

A competent employee receives lower-than-deserved ratings because of a few outstanding colleagues who set very high performance standards. This is an example of a _____ rater error

Contrast

________ help(s) ease an expatriate's transition to the new work environment.

Effective cross-cultural training

Defined contribution plans make it the responsibility of the _____ to make wise investment decisions for retirement plans

Employee

_____ consists of practices participated in by employees from all levels of the company that focus on continuous improvement of business processes.

Kaizen

_____ is the role of a chief human resource officer (CHRO) that focuses on working with HR team members regarding the development, design, and delivery of HR services

Leader of the HR function

_____ is a rater error in which a rater gives high ratings to all employees regardless of their performance.

Leniency

_____ are the most frequently used source of performance information.

Managers

_____ activities of HRM have the lowest strategic value in a firm.

Transactional

_____ is on-the-job use of knowledge, skills, and behaviors learned in training.

Transfer of training

A _____ consists of functional specialists in the traditional areas of HRM such as recruitment and selection.

center of expertise

Employee wellness programs primarily aim at

changing health-related behaviors both on and off work time.

At the highest level of childcare provision, firms provide employees with

childcare at or near their worksites.

If an organization decides to take a strategic initiative of enhancing innovation and creativity, which of the following is likely to be an implication for the organization's training practices?

dedicating physical space to encourage teamwork

According to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), in early retirement incentive programs, _____.

employees should not be coerced to accept an incentive and retire

If an organization wants to improve the work environment factor that influences the motivation to learn, it is likely to focus on

encouraging employees to give feedback to each other

_____ focuses on the link between rewards and behaviors and emphasizes anticipated rewards.

expectancy theory

Gainsharing plans differ from profit-sharing plans in that

gainsharing plans distribute payouts more frequently

Allan works as a typesetter in a publishing company. If the organization uses merit pay programs, Allan's salary is based primarily on information collected from _____.

his immediate supervisor

Employees assess fairness along the distributive dimension when their assessment is based on _____.

how much they receive

The _____ approach attempts to place a dollar value on human resources as if they were physical resources.

human resource accounting

Consistency in ratings given by two individuals who evaluate an employee's performance is known as _____ reliability.

internal consistency

From a(n) _____ standpoint, the effect on performance motivation may be limited in ownership programs because of the less obvious link between pay and performance.

reinforcement theory

The audit approach to evaluating the effectiveness of HR practices focuses on

reviewing the various outcomes of the HR functional area.

Agency theory is of particular value in compensation management because of its emphasis on the _____ trade-off.

risk-reward

The _____ consists of individuals who often leverage information technology to efficiently deliver employee services.

service center

The generic structure of HRM functions is likely to result in

service centers focusing on efficient delivery of basic services across units.

Globo Analytics Inc., a data analysis company, has modified its performance management system. Apart from training employees on their specific tasks, the trainers and managers help the employees become more aware of the overall goals of the company and how their individual performances influence the broader goals of the company. As a result of this, employees' performances have become more consistent with the organization's strategies, goals, and culture. This initiative of Globo focuses on the _____ criterion of performance management.

strategic congruence

_____ is the extent to which the performance management system elicits job performance that is consistent with an organization's strategy, goals, and culture

strategic congruence

As the CEO of Blue Corp., Terrell makes it a point to meet new hires at all levels of his organization. He explains the goals of the company and emphasizes the importance of an individual employee's role in the larger picture. This initiative of Terrell focuses on the _____ of performance management.

strategic purpose

A firm is most likely to outsource services when

the effectiveness of services produced internally is less than that produced offshore.

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),

the terms of health insurance should not be a subterfuge to deny benefits to those with disabilities.

Concept maps showing the relationship among ideas and visual images are tools that can be best used

to commit training content to memory

As a component of effective managing diversity programs, _____ includes diversity as part of the business strategy and corporate goals.

top management support

Action plans are developed to facilitate _____.

transfer of training