Organizational Leadership - Study From Tests

A common principle underlying various total quality management (TQM) programs is that one should:

do it right the first time to eliminate costly rework.

According to the concept of building blocks, leading for choice involves:

empowering employees and delegating meaningful assignments and tasks.

Amy has recently joined a new research institute. She had initially thought that her job would entail a lot of field work, which would allow her to gain some practical experience, but her manager just gives her a lot of paperwork instead. She is also learning to adjust to the strict dress code that the company enforces on all of its employees. Amy is in the _____ stage of the socialization process.

encounter Amy is in the encounter phase of the socialization process. During the encounter phase employees come to learn what the organization is really like. It is a time for reconciling unmet expectations and making sense of a new work environment.

In Maslow's need hierarchy, the _____ need is the desire for reputation, prestige, and recognition from others.

esteem

Paying an employee $10 for every 20 units he or she produces is an example of a _____ schedule of reinforcement.

fixed ratio

According to Alderfer's ERG theory:

frustration of higher-order needs can influence the desire for lower-order needs. ERG theory contains a frustration-regression component. That is, frustration of higher-order needs can influence the desire for lower-order needs.

Based on information gathered in the GLOBE project, _____ reflects how much effort should be put into minimizing sex discrimination and role inequalities.

gender egalitarianism

According to Alderfer's ERG theory, the _____ needs reflect the desire to use one's abilities to their fullest potential.

growth

Which of the following is true about a field study?

A field study probes individual or group processes in an organizational setting, involving real-life situations. In OB, a field study probes individual or group processes in an organizational setting. Because field studies involve real-life situations, their results often have immediate and practical relevance for managers.

_____ is an attitude, opinion, feeling, or action that is shared by two or more people and guides their behavior.

A norm According to one respected team of management consultants: "A norm is an attitude, opinion, feeling, or action—shared by two or more people—that guides their behavior." Although norms are typically unwritten and seldom discussed openly, they have a powerful influence on group and organizational behavior.

receptive

A(n) _____ developmental network is composed of a few weak ties from one social system such as an employer or a professional association. The diversity and strength of developmental relationships result in four types of developmental networks: receptive, traditional, entrepreneurial, and opportunistic. A receptive developmental network is composed of a few weak ties from one social system such as an employer or a professional association.

_____ represents a broad and stable characteristic responsible for a person's maximum—as opposed to typical—performance on mental and physical tasks.

Ability Ability represents a broad and stable characteristic responsible for a person's maximum—as opposed to typical—performance on mental and physical tasks. Successful performance depends on the right combination of effort, ability, and skill.

statistical analysis

According to W. Edwards Deming, _____ is required to uncover system failures. As Deming observed, the typical manager spends most of her time wrongly blaming and punishing individuals for system failures. Statistical analysis is required to uncover system failures.

Which of the following statements about organizational culture is true?

An organization's culture is not determined by fate. A company's organizational culture is formed and shaped by the combination and integration of the top managers. Organizational culture is clearly related to measures of organizational effectiveness. This reinforces the conclusion that an organization's culture can be a source of competitive advantage.

Which of the following is the first phase of the organizational socialization process?

Anticipatory socialization The anticipatory socialization phase is the first phase of the socialization process and it occurs before an individual actually joins an organization. It is represented by the information people have learned about different careers, occupations, professions, and organizations.

Which of the following groups of people have traits such as workaholism, idealism, and work ethics?

Baby boomers Baby boomers have traits such as workaholism, idealism, and work ethics. Refer: Table 2-1

Which of the following should managers keep in mind while giving feedback?

Base feedback on accurate and credible information. Managers need to keep the following tips in mind when giving feedback as part of a comprehensive performance management program: focus on performance, not personalities, give specific feedback linked to learning goals and performance outcome goals, channel feedback toward key result areas for the organization, give feedback as soon as possible, give feedback to coach improvement, not just for final results, base feedback on accurate and credible information, and pair feedback with clear expectations for improvement.

According to Schwartz's Value Theory, _____ refers to the preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact.

Benevolence Refer: Table 6-1

_____, that tend to be self-serving and often invalid, are suspected or inferred causes of behavior.

Causal attributions Causal attributions are suspected or inferred causes of behavior. Even though our causal attributions tend to be self-serving and are often invalid, it is important to understand how people formulate attributions because they profoundly affect organizational behavior.

_____ is a perceptual error that represents the tendency to avoid all extreme judgments and rate people and objects as average or neutral.

Central tendency For example, rating a professor average on all dimensions of performance regardless of his or her actual performance. Refer: Table 7-2

According to the Big Five personality dimensions, a person scoring high on _____ is dependable, responsible, achievement oriented, and persistent.

Conscientiousness Refer: Table 5-2

_____ is a perceptual error that represents the tendency to evaluate people or objects by comparing them with characteristics of recently observed people or objects.

Contrast effect

_____ is defined as a set of beliefs and values about what is desirable and undesirable in a community of people, and a set of formal or informal practices to support the values.

Culture So culture has both prescriptive (what people should do) and descriptive (what they actually do) elements.

Which of the following is an organizational implication of expectancy theory?

Design challenging jobs Refer: Table 8-2

Which of the following is highlighted by the information/decision-making theory?

Diverse perspectives help to uncover novel alternatives during problem-solving activities.

Which of the following did W. Edwards Deming call for, regarding the human side of development?

Elimination of barriers to good workmanship egarding the human side of quality improvement, one of the things Deming called for was the elimination of barriers to good workmanship.

Which of the following is true about organizational ethics?

Ethical conduct is often ignored.

_____ is the belief that one's native country, culture, language, and behavior are superior to others.

Ethnocentrism

Which of the following is an example of reasonable accommodation of sincerely held religious beliefs? Children in the workplace and mandatory child care

Flexible scheduling A reasonable religious accommodation is any adjustment to the work environment that will allow the employee to practice his religion. Examples of reasonable accommodation include: flexible scheduling, voluntary substitutions or swaps, job reassignments and lateral transfers, and modification of grooming requirements.

The _____ reflects a loss in performance resulting from low leader expectations.

Golem effect

Which of the following would reduce a mismatch between educational attainment and occupational requirements?

Hire college graduates with critical thinking and analytic reasoning. Outsource technical work to other countries with a highly skilled population.

Which of the following responses identified by R Roosevelt Thomas Jr is an outgrowth of affirmative action programs?

Include/Exclude The action of including/excluding is an outgrowth of affirmative action programs. Its primary goal is to either increase or decrease the number of diverse people at all levels of the organizations.

Which of the following proposes that diverse work groups lead to better task relevant processes and decision making?

Information/Decision-making theory

_____ is defined as the perceived fairness of the decision maker's behavior in the process of decision making.

Interactional justice

Which of the following perceptual and social processes occurs during the change and acquisition phase of organizational socialization?

Internalizing group norms and values The change and acquisition phase requires employees to master important tasks and roles and to adjust to their work group's values and norms. This will only occur when employees have a clear understanding about their roles and they are effectively integrated within the work unit.

_____ conflict occurs when two individuals disagree.

Interpersonal value This type of value conflict often is at the core of personality conflicts, and such conflicts can negatively affect one's career.

_____ intelligence is the potential to understand and regulate oneself.

Intrapersonal

_____ conflict is experienced when personal values conflict with each other.

Intrapersonal value Schwartz's theory of values revealed that people are likely to experience inner conflict and stress when personal values conflict with each other.

Which of the following is a true about cognitive crafting?

It encompasses a change in how you perceive or think about the tasks and relationships associated with your job.

Jill is a sales representative for a large pharmaceutical corporation. According to the current compensation system, if Jill meets her target for the quarterly sales projections, she will receive a bonus equivalent to 7% of her annual salary. Jill is working hard to meet the sales goal so that she can use the bonus money as a down payment on a new car for herself. Which of the following is true regarding Jill's motivation?

It is extrinsically motivated.

_____ is an affective or emotional response toward various facets of one's job.

Job satisfaction Job satisfaction essentially reflects the extent to which an individual likes his or her job.

Which of the following people-centered practices is carried out to build a "we" feeling?

Less emphasis on status

Which of the following cultures has the strongest correlation with subjective innovation?

Market culture A meta-analysis based on 93 studies revealed that a market culture within an organization had the strongest correlation with subjective innovation. Refer: Figure 3-4

In which of the following stages of life is a person least likely to change his or her general attitudes?

Middle adulthood

Which of the following is influenced by psychological contracts?

Normative commitment

_____ reflects a feeling of obligation to continue employment.

Normative commitment Employees with a high level of normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with the organization.

Which of the following is true about organizational values?

Organizations are less likely to accomplish corporate goals when employees perceive an inconsistency between the espoused values of the organization and their own personal characteristics. Employees' satisfaction, performance, and turnover are affected when they feel that their values do not match the organization's enacted values.

_____ is a cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings.

Perception

Which of the following is the most basic need according to Maslow's need hierarchy?

Physiological It entails having enough food, air, and water to survive.

_____ is defined as the perceived fairness of the process used to make decisions regarding the allocation of rewards and resources.

Procedural justice

_____ is the most important work-related value for those with no religious preference.

Professional challenge Religious beliefs and practices can have a profound effect on cross-cultural relations. Professional challenge (Concern with having a job that provides learning opportunities and opportunities to use skills well), is the most important work-related value for people with no religious preferences.

_____ is the process of weakening behavior through the contingent presentation of something displeasing.

Punishment

Which of the following behaviors would help managers to harness the Pygmalion effect?

Reinforce positive performance expectations throughout the organization Largely owing to the Pygmalion effect, managerial expectations powerfully influence employee behavior and performance. Consequently, managers need to harness the Pygmalion effect by building a hierarchical framework that reinforces positive performance expectations throughout the organization.

_____ is a goal congruent emotion.

Relief According to Richard Lazarus, the distinction between positive and negative emotions is goal oriented. Relief, which is a positive emotion, is considered to be goal congruent. Refer: Figure 5-4

_____ is the view the individual has of himself or herself as a physical, social, and spiritual or moral being.

Self-concept Sociologist Viktor Gecas defines self-concept as "the concept the individual has of himself as a physical, social, and spiritual or moral being." A self-concept would be impossible without the capacity to think about complex things and processes.

_____ is a belief about one's own self-worth based on an overall self-evaluation.

Self-esteem

_____ is defined as the process of reinforcing closer and closer approximations to a target behavior.

Shaping

According to Herzberg's motivator-hygiene model, which of the following is a hygiene factor?

Supervisor relations Herzberg found job dissatisfaction to be associated primarily with factors in the work context or environment. Specifically, company policy and administration, technical supervision, salary, interpersonal relations with one's supervisor, and working conditions were most frequently mentioned by employees expressing job dissatisfaction.

Which of the following is high when a person works on a product or project from beginning to end and sees a tangible result?

Task identity

Based on information gathered in the GLOBE project, which of the following refers to uncertainty avoidance?

The extent to which people should rely on social norms and rules to limit unpredictability.

Which of the following is an assumption of McGregor's Theory Y?

The typical person has imagination and creativity. One of the assumptions of McGregor's Theory Y is that the typical member of the general population has imagination, ingenuity, and creativity. Refer: Table 1-1

Which of the following is a characteristic of a 21st-century manager?

Viewing people as a primary resource

Workforce demographics

_____ are statistical profiles of the characteristics and composition of the adult working population. Workforce demographics, which are statistical profiles of the characteristics and composition of the adult working population, are an invaluable human-resource planning aid.

Adhocracy

_____ cultures value flexibility and have an external focus. An adhocracy culture has an external focus and values flexibility. This type of culture fosters the creation of innovative products and services by being adaptable, creative, and fast to respond to changes in the marketplace.

Managing diversity

_____ involves creating organizational changes that enable all people to perform up to their maximum potential. Managing diversity entails enabling people to perform up to their maximum potential. It focuses on changing an organization's culture and infrastructure such that people provide the highest productivity possible.

Difficulty in balancing career and family issues

_____ is a barrier to implementing successful diversity programs that particularly affects women. Women still assume the majority of the responsibilities associated with raising children. This makes it harder for women to work evenings and weekends or to frequently travel once they have children.

Race

_____ is an example of an internal dimension of diversity. Refer: Figure 2-1

Enacted

_____ values are values and norms that are exhibited in employees' behavior. Enacted values represent the values and norms that actually are exhibited or converted into employee behavior. They represent the values that employees ascribe to an organization based on their observations of what occurs on a daily basis.

In the _____ phase of the socialization process, people gather information from many sources before they join the organization.

anticipatory socialization The anticipatory socialization phase occurs before an individual actually joins an organization. It is represented by the information people have learned about different careers, occupations, professions, and organizations.

A(n) _____ is defined as a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object.

attitude

People with an external locus of control tend to ____.

attribute outcomes to environmental causes

Most cultural lessons are learned:

by observing and imitating role models.

According to Kelley's attribution model, consensus involves _____.

comparing an individual's behavior with that of his or her peers There is high consensus when one acts like the rest of the group and low consensus when one acts differently.

Barbara is training her new puppy to sit on command. Every time the puppy responds correctly, it receives a treat. Barbara is using a _____ reinforcement schedule.

continuous Barbara is using a continuous reinforcement schedule with her puppy. Every instance of a target behavior is reinforced when a continuous reinforcement (CRF) schedule is in effect.

According to the group decay process, the _____ stage occurs when an undercurrent of discontent slowly comes to the surface and individual resistance increases while cohesiveness declines.

de-storming

High supervisory expectancy produces better leadership, which subsequently leads employees to develop higher self-expectations. Higher expectations motivate workers to exert more effort, ultimately increasing performance and supervisory expectancies. Successful performance also improves an employee's self-expectancy for achievement. This series of steps reflects the _____.

self-fulfilling prophecy

According to research on emotional intelligence, empathy, organizational awareness and service are all elements of _____.

social awareness Refer: Table 5-5

The study of how people perceive one another is called _____.

social cognition

Organizational _____ is defined as "the process by which a person learns the values, norms, and required behaviors which permit him to participate as a member of the organization."

socialization Organizational socialization is defined as "the process by which a person learns the values, norms, and required behaviors which permit him to participate as a member of the organization." It is a key mechanism used by organizations to embed their organizational cultures.

Some employees at Harley-Davidson factories have had the company logo tattooed on their bodies. This example is an indication of _____.

strong organizational identification

According to Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, _____ refers to the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behavior. intention

subjective norm

As a group proceeds through the development process:

the credibility of peer feedback typically increases.

According to the leadership lessons from the GLOBE project, _____ was a universally liked leader attribute.

trustworthiness Refer: Table 4-3

Philip got a mail from his supervisor with compliments and praises for his work over the past few months. This instance is an example of _____ schedule of reinforcement.

variable interval

Kim lives and works in a small town, even though she prefers life in a bigger city. She is quite dissatisfied with her current job and is thinking of leaving the organization. She is worried, however, about her ability to find other employment that pays as well as her current job. Additionally, she is concerned about finding another organization that offers medical benefits. Based on this information, Kim is experiencing _____.

withdrawal cognitions

As employees age, they typically experience _____.

higher job satisfaction

Pam is attempting to reduce her inequity at work by attending night school for further job training. In other words, she is trying to ____.

increase her inputs

The three basic levels of analysis in organizational behavior are:

individual, group, and organizational.

People from _____ cultures emphasize personal responsibility for one's affairs. proximal

individualistic Individualistic cultures, characterized as "I" and "me" cultures, give priority to individual freedom and choice. Accordingly, they emphasize personal responsibility for one's affairs.

Based on information gathered in the GLOBE project, _____ reflects how much should leaders encourage and reward loyalty to the social unit, as opposed to the pursuit of individual goals.

institutional collectivism The nine cultural dimensions from the GLOBE project are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism, gender egalitarianism, assertiveness, future orientation, performance orientation, and humane orientation. Institutional collectivism reflects how much should leaders encourage and reward loyalty to the social unit, as opposed to the pursuit of individual goals.

According to Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, an individual's _____ is the best predictor of behavior.

intention

Employees with a clear _____ understand the organization's strategic goals and know what actions they need to take, both individually and as team members.

line of sight

The Germans have a _____ culture where written and spoken words carry the burden of shared meanings.

low-context Low-context cultures include those found in Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, North America, and Great Britain. In these cultures, written and spoken words carry the burden of shared meanings.

The _____ criterion for reward distribution focuses on tenure or level in the organizational hierarchy.

nonperformance considerations Nonperformance considerations are customary or contractual, including situations where the type of job, nature of the work, equity, tenure, level in hierarchy, and so forth are rewarded.

The sales department of a mutual fund firm set a few goals for the New Year. The firm set targets to sell a certain number of mutual funds within each month. The firm was only bothered about meeting the target and not about how to meet the target. This implies that the firm had made a(n) _____ goal.

performance outcome

The _____ criterion for reward distribution focuses on factors such as teamwork, risk-taking, and creativity.

performance: actions and behaviors

Assigning someone the role of devil's advocate when discussing major alternatives is a way to:

prevent groupthink.

A(n) _____ personality is defined as someone who identifies opportunities, is action-oriented, shows initiative, and perseveres to change things.

proactive

Unrealistic expectations regarding foreign assignments can be avoided with ____.

realistic job previews

According to the theory of emotional intelligence, _____ is a component of social competence.

relationship management Emotional intelligence is said to have four key components: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. The first two constitute personal competence; the second two feed into social competence. Refer: Table 5-5