Exam prep questions PDF

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Review and Discussion Questions for Exam Preparation

The following list of questions has been designed to provide an optimal tool for your preparation for the final examination, part two “Questions”.

Topic: Diversity Describe the difference between surface-level diversity and deep-level diversity and provide two examples for each! Please explain why workplace discrimination may lead to reduced productivity and citizenship behavior! What is age discrimination? Provide two examples of how it does express itself in the workplace! What could organizations do to prevent age discrimination? Hazel Samuels has been working at her company for the past two years and consistently gets yelled at by her manager even when she is not at fault. He often makes derogatory references to her ethnicity. In addition, during team meetings, she is his target for practical jokes and nasty pranks. She is extremely upset and decides not to be subjected to such treatment any longer. Which of the following kinds of discrimination is she most likely to report to the human resource department in such a situation? Please explain your decision! a) b) c) d) e)

intimidation sexual harassment hazing mobbing whistle-blowing

Describe four ways by which management can attract, select, and recruit diverse employees in an organization. Discuss the following statement and provide your own opinion! “Managing diversity is about maximizing employee effectiveness and retaining competitive advantage when working in a global economy with an increasingly diverse workforce. It is not about fostering equality or the moral responsibility to remove discrimination.”

Topic: Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Does behavior always follow from attitudes? Why or why not? Discuss the factors that affect whether behavior follows from attitudes. Describe the major job attitudes. In what way are these attitudes alike? What is unique about each? What causes job satisfaction? Is pay or the work itself more important? Do the causes vary by country? Are happy workers productive workers? Discuss to what extent managers can create job satisfaction. Describe the different responses to job dissatisfaction. Discuss under which circumstances employees might decide for any of these responses.

Topic: Personality and Values Compare the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Big Five personality model referring to similarities and differences. Describe three ways of how the Big Five traits predict work behavior. How does the situation or environment affect the degree to which personality predicts behavior? Should organizations use personality tests, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, to measure the personality of their job applicants? Discuss! Do values differ across cultures? How so? Can we rely on testing a person’s personality and values to predict whether this person fits to a particular job and the organization in general or do we need to take into account other aspects as well?

Topic: Motivation What are the key principles of self-efficacy theory, reinforcement theory, equity theory, and expectancy theory? Explain how a manager should motivate employees with reference to: a) b) c) d) e) f) g)

Maslow’s theory of needs McClelland’s theory of needs Herzberg's two-factor theory Goal-setting theory Self-efficacy theory Equity theory Expectancy theory

Describe the job characteristics model? How does it motivate employees? What are the major ways that jobs can be redesigned? How can the different types of variable-pay programs increase employee motivation? What are the motivational benefits of intrinsic rewards? Provide three examples of intrinsic rewards!

Topic: Emotions and Moods Explain the difference between emotions and moods and provide three examples for each! Please discuss the following statement and provide your own opinion: “At work, employees should act rational. Emotions are acceptable but should not interfere with the professional behaviour.” What impact does emotional labour have on employees? What is the evidence for and against the existence of emotional intelligence?

Topics: Foundations of Group Behaviour + Understanding Work Teams What are the five stages of group development? On which stage does the group show the highest performance? How do group norms and status influence an individual’s behavior? Discuss whether diverse groups are more effective? Do groups make better decisions compared to individuals? What is the difference between a group and a team? To what extent does it make sense to differentiate between groups and teams? What conditions or context factors determine whether teams are effective? Can every individual be turned into a team player?

Topic: Leadership List five traits of what you believe is an effective leader. Discuss whether these traits predict effective leadership across situations? Is an employee-oriented leader more effective than a production-oriented one? Why? Why not? Discuss whether the creation of an in-group and an out-group by a leader does create feelings of inequity and unfairness among followers? Would it be wise to have charismatic leader on all hierarchical levels of an organization? Discuss! What should organizations do to select and develop effective leaders? In your answer refer to four aspects. Leadership research usually focuses on leaders. Shouldn’t we pay more attention to followers to fully understand what leadership is?

Topic: Power and Politics What bases of power do they have? A CEO, a politician, a university professor, a shop floor assistant at a local supermarket, a university student? What power tactics do university professors frequently use to influence their students? Describe at least three tactics. Does political behavior always lead to favorable outcomes? Describe three impression management techniques used by students in order to impress their university teachers? Are the students who use these techniques successful?

Topic: Foundations of Organizational Structure Provide a one-sentence description of each of the six elements that define an organization. What is a bureaucracy? Why are many organizations structured following bureaucratic principles? Are hierarchies a thing of the past? Why? Why not? The matrix form combines two forms of departmentalization, functional and product. Does this mean that only the advantages of both are combined? What are virtual organizations and what are their advantages and drawbacks? Why do organizational structures differ? What are the behavioural implications of different organizational designs?

Topic: Organizational Culture Do organizations have uniform culture? Why? Why not? How would you respond to someone, who made the following statement: “Organizational culture is not important as far as business is concerned”? How is culture transmitted to employees? Can an organization’s culture cause unethical behavior among its employees? Explain! How does national culture affect what happens when an organizational culture is transported to another country?

Topic: Organizational Change and Stress Management What is the difference between planned and unplanned change? Is it possible to argue that one of them is better? “Giving everyone in the organization a good kick in the ass is enough to unfreeze the status quo!” How would you respond to such a statement from what you learned about organizational change? Is it wise to keep an organization in a state of perpetual change? Why? Why not? Describe three individual and three organizational sources of resistance to change? How can organizational change be a source of stress for the members of an organization?

Topic: Philosophy of Science (based on the Easterby-Smith chapter) Explain the difference between positivism and social constructionism. Can a researcher (the observer) be independent from the group the she or he studies? Explain the differences between ontology, epistemology, methodology, and methods. Describe one example of positivist management research. Describe one example of relativist management research. Describe one example of social-constructionist management research. What does feminism say and why is this position beneficial for management research?...