hr prelim

Traditionally, the HRM department was primarily a(n) ______?

administrative expert

A "leading indicator" is

an objective measure that accurately predicts future labor demand.

Executive search firms (ESFs)

are a relatively expensive way to recruit.

Within the Job Characteristics Model, the degree to which the job allows an individual to make decisions about the way the work is carried out is called

autonomy

The most typical organizational responses to an expected labor shortage are

fast response and high revocability.

Within the Job Characteristics Model, the extent to which a person receives clear information about his or her performance from the job itself is termed

feedback.

The first step in the human resource planning process is

forecasting labor demand and supply.

The process of attempting to ascertain the supply and demand for various types of human resources is called

forecasting.

Empowerment is defined as

giving employees responsibility and authority to make decisions regarding all aspects of product development or customer service.

Which of the following statements is true regarding job design and job analysis?

have extensive overlap

Diversity is important for trapping all of the following except

homogeneous thinking

ABS-CBN's "Kapamilya" campaign is an example of

image advertising.

All of the following HR practices support high-performance work systems except

individuals tend to work separately.

An organization needs to create a fit between its organizational design and all of the following except

its products and services

Adding more decision-making authority to a job to increase its motivational potential is known as

job enrichment

Job analysis information usually is obtained from

job incumbents and supervisors

Organizational recruitment materials that emphasize due process, rights of appeal and grievance mechanisms send a message that

job security is high in the organization

A person's factual or procedural information that is necessary for successfully performing a task is called

knowledge

An approach that pays higher than current market wages is called a

lead-the-market approach.

A critical aspect of the program implementation step of human resource planning is

making sure that some individual is held accountable for achieving the stated goals.

A special case of outsourcing where the jobs that move actually leave one country and go to another is called

offshoring.

Exporting jobs from developed to less developed countries refers to

offshoring.

Exporting jobs to rural parts of the United States is refers to

onshoring

The practice of having another company (a vendor, third-party provider, consultant) provide services traditionally associated with the administrative role of HR is known as

outsourcing.

A small company that manufactures special-order wood furniture has kept its employees busy on a 40-hour-a-week schedule for the past two years. The company just received the largest contract in its history from a Saudi company opening offices in the area. There is no expectation of repeat business from the Saudi company. In order to complete the contract in the required six months, additional skilled woodworking manpower is needed. Under these circumstances, to avoid an expected labor shortage, the best option would be

overtime.

Which of the following options for avoiding an expected labor shortage has the benefit of being a relatively fast solution with high revocability?

overtime.

Yield ratios express the

percentage of applicants who successfully move from one stage of the recruitment and selection process to the next.

The key to a successful downsizing effort is to

perform surgical strategic cuts.

Research has shown that creating a good fit between the skills and values of employees and _______ is a powerful determinate of organizational success.

the tasks and mission they are assigned

Your company's primary concern is to reduce an expected labor surplus fast; its secondary concern is to minimize human suffering. The options that would best address the company's concerns (in the priority indicated) are

transfers and work sharing.

A(n) _____ shows the proportion of employees in different job categories at different times.

transitional matrix

Recruiting advertisements in newspapers and periodicals\

typically generate less desirable recruits than direct applications or referrals.

An advantage of statistical forecasting methods is that

under the right conditions, they provide predictions that are much more precise than judgmental methods.

In the face of demographic pressures dealing with an aging workforce, many employers try to induce among their older workers through early retirement incentive programs

voluntary attrition

Divisional structures are most appropriate

when flexibility is required. when dealing with rapidly changing environments. in support of organizations that compete on differentiation. all of the above.

The final stage of a workflow analysis is analyzing the

work inputs

The _____ are the activities that members of a work unit engage in to produce a given output.

work processes

Regardless of their background, most employees value

work that leads to self-fulfillment.

A study of 52 Fortune 100 firms that announced downsizing efforts showed that in the following years most firms showed?

worse financial performance

Many companies refer to HRM as involving _______.

"people practices"

The sources from which companies recruit potential employees are

A critical aspect of its overall recruit strategy

Van Roehling Inc., located in a small town 40 miles from Detroit, is seeking to hire ten production workers. The company also wants very much to improve the diversity of its presently all-white, male workforce. Which of the following combinations of recruitment sources would be the best for the company to use?

Advertisement in a metropolitan Detroit newspaper and Michigan's public employment service

Which one of the following best exemplifies the process of self-selection?

An applicant takes an online "job fitness" test before deciding to apply to the ABC

As a manager, you want to redesign a job to ensure that incumbents have fewer physical ailments, such as backaches and so on. Which job design approach would be most helpful to you?

Biological approach

_____ refers to a company's ability to maintain and gain market share in its industry.

Competitiveness

Which of the following is not one of the six sections of the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ)?

Data output

Which of the following is not one of the methods for analyzing jobs in use today?

Dictionary of Occupational Titles

Self-cannibalization is a concern of which one of the following structures?

Divisional

What kind of a structure combines a work-flow departmentalization scheme with relatively low levels of centralization?

Divisional structure

Which of the following options for reducing an expected labor surplus has the benefit of being a relatively fast solution, but the disadvantage of being high in human suffering?

Downsizing

Which one of the following is concerned with examining the interface between individual's physiological characteristics and the physical work environment?

Ergonomics

Which of the following best describes a cultural steward?

Facilitates change

Human Resource Management is Recruitment and selection

False, because Recruitment and selection is not the only function of H.R

An accountant will never do human resource functions

False, because providing orientations and training to jr accountants or new accountants is an H.R function and not an accounting function

Which of the following approaches to job design entails performing time-and-motion studies?

Mechanistic approach

Which of the following approaches to job design focuses on efficiency as the major outcome of interest?

Mechanistic approach

Strategic HR Management includes all but one of the following. Name the exception.

Financial planning

Assume that you are thinking of developing a career planning system based on the abilities that are required in the jobs you are examining. Which job analysis method would be the most useful to you?

Fleishman Job Analysis Method

An organization seeking to reduce a projected labor surplus must select from a number of possible options aimed at obtaining that objective (e.g., retirements, layoffs, work sharing, etc.). This occurs at what step in the human resource planning process?

Goal-setting and strategic planning

As a manager, you decide to design a job based on the principles of the biological approach. Based on the existing research, which of the following outcomes should you most expect?

High financial costs from changes in equipment or the job environment

Which of the following is not a product line of human resources?

Human capital partner

Assume that you are writing a report for your class. You do not possess good writing skills, and because of this deficiency, your paper receives a grade of D. In which part of the workflow process was the deficiency?

Human skills

Which one of the following is not associated with managing the human resource environment?

Identifying human resource requirements through human resource planning, recruitment, and selection

As a manager, you decide to design a job based on the principles of the perceptual-motor approach. Based on existing research, which of the following outcomes should you most expect?

Increased absenteeism

As a manager, you decide to design a job based on the principles of the motivational approach. Based on existing research, which of the following outcomes should you least expect?

Increased efficiency of production

As a manager, you decide to design a job based on the principles of the mechanistic approach. Based on existing research, which of the following outcomes should you least expect?

Increased job satisfaction

Which of the following sources of job analysis information would most likely provide accurate information regarding the time spent on various tasks

Incumbents

Tacit(unspoken) knowledge is an example of _______ capital.

Intangible

All but one of the following is true of the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ). Name the exception.

It describes specific task activities that comprise the actual job

Which of the following is not a managerial benefit of job analysis?

It provides an avenue for communicating policy information to employees

_____ focuses on analyzing existing jobs to gather information for other human resource management practices, whereas _____ focuses on redesigning existing jobs to make them more efficient or more motivating to jobholders.

Job analysis; job design

Which of the following refers to a list of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities that a job entails?

Job description

Which one of the following is a source of error in the job analysis process?

Job descriptions being outdated

Which of the following refers to the process of defining the way work will be performed and the tasks that will be required in a given job?

Job design

Which term refers to changing the tasks or the way work is performed in an existing job?

Job redesign

Which of the following refers to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that an individual must have to perform the job?

Job specification

Which of the following tends to have the most positive influence on job choice decisions?

Job vacancy characteristics

Which of the following is false about high-involvement, adaptive organizational structures?

Line employees are trained to specialize in one job in order to maximize efficiency

According to the Job Characteristics Model, which of the following is not an outcome of jobs high in the core job characteristics?

Lower job complexity

As a manager, you want to redesign a job because your most recent attitude survey indicated that individuals were very bored with the monotony of their jobs. Which job design approach would be most helpful to you?

Motivational approach

Which of the following approaches to job design focuses on job satisfaction as the major outcome of interest?

Motivational approach

Which of the following approaches to job design has its roots in the organizational psychology and management literatures?

Motivational approach

Job descriptions generally contain all but one of the following components. Name the exception.

Pay level

Which one of the following approaches to job design has roots in human-factots literature?

Perceptual-motor approach

Managing the assessment and development of human resources involves all but one of the following. Name the exception.

Recruiting employees and placing them in jobs that best use their skills

Which of the following is not recommended for supporting work teams?

Reducing flexibility and interaction between employees to maintain high productivity

Which of the following options for reducing an expected labor surplus is a relatively slow solution, but offers the benefit of being low in human suffering?

Retirement

Which one of the following is not an advantage of employing temporary workers as a means of eliminating a labor shortage?

Since temporary workers are just that, they do not pose a threat to current employees in terms of job security

Which one of the following is not among the three psychological states associated with the Job Characteristics Model?

Social interaction

Which of the following sources of job analysis information would be the most likely to provide accurate information regarding the importance of various tasks?

Supervisors

_____ refers to the ability of a company to survive and succeed in a dynamic competitive environment.

Sustainability

Which one of the following interventions would not be consistent with the motivational approach to job design?

Task specialization

All of the following about outsourcing are true except one. Name the exception.

Technological advancements have slowed the momentum of outsourcing being done today

New organizational structures emphasize

a core set of values, elimination of boundaries between managers and employees and organizational functions, and employees who have immediate access to information used for decision making.

Which of the following is not typically true of work teams?

They are especially effective when headed by managers skilled in controlling, planning, and coordinating activities

Which of the following is an advantage of relying on internal recruitment sources?

They are generally cheaper and faster than other means

Which one of the following is not true of knowledge workers?

They compete through manual labor and intellectual labor

An organization can function with no H.R function

This is cannot be true even in a zoo False, as long as there is people in an organization it will have an H.R function An organization can function with no H.R Department, but will never function with no H.R function All of the above

The goals of personnel recruitment include all but one of the following. Name the exception.

To finely discriminate among reasonably qualified applicants

Which one of the following is not a major reason organizations engage in downsizing?

To stem current losses

Which of the following refers to the process of analyzing the tasks necessary for the production of a product or service prior to allocating and assigning the tasks to particular job category or person?

Workflow design

When decision-making authority resides at the top of the organizational chart as opposed to being distributed throughout lower levels, an organization is

centralized.

To successfully manage a diverse workforce, managers need to develop

communications and coaching skills.

Reasons for the failure of most downsizing efforts to live up to expectations include all of the following except

downsizing efforts reduce a firm's competitiveness

All of the following have contributed to wiping out the cost savings attributed to lower wages created by offshoring except

employees weak work ethic.

The final step in the planning process is to

evaluate results

Deming's approach to quality emphasizes

preventing errors rather than correcting errors.

A ______ contract describes what an employee expects to contribute and what the company will provide to the employee for these contributions

psychological

Sustainability includes all of the following except

put methods in place to determine if the company is exceeding profit expectations for the benefit of stockholders.

Forecasting indicates your company needs to reduce its white-collar workforce in order to avoid a labor surplus in the next three to five years. Consistent with the corporate culture it wants to maintain, your company places a higher priority on minimizing human suffering than on achieving the labor reduction quickly. The options that are most consistent with these priorities are

retirement and retraining.

Statistical planning models almost always have to be complemented by which of the following?

subjective judgments of people with expertise in the area

The most effective source for recruiters is

the Web.

The goals that are set in the human resource planning process should come directly from

the analysis of the labor supply and demand.

All of the following competitive challenges faced by companies will increase the importance of human resource management except

the economic challenge

recruitment activities are designed to affect all of the following except

the evaluation of employees once hired.