Review Questions Module 1-8 PDF

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Module 1: 1. The management of people through the application of knowledge from the field of organizational behavior is a primary means through which competitive advantage can be created and sustained. True 2. Organizational behavior is a field of study that endeavors to understand, explain, predict, and change human behavior as it occurs in the organizational context. True 3. The field of organizational behavior focuses on observable behaviors, such as talking in a meeting, running production equipment, or writing a report but does not also consider internal states, such as thinking, perceiving, and deciding. False, it does deal with internal states as well 4. Micro organizational behavior is concerned mainly with the behaviors of individuals working together in teams. False, micro is individuals working alone. Meso focuses on teams. Macro is entire organization. 5. Macro organizational behavior examines questions like "How do differences in ability affect employee productivity?" and "How do individual employees' perceptions influence workplace behavior?" False, it examines questions like "How is power acquired and retained?" "How can conflicts be resolved?" "What mechanisms can be used to coordinate work activities?" "How should an organization be structured to best cope with its surrounding environment?" 6. "Empowerment" is the delegation to non-managers of the authority to make significant decisions on their jobs. True 7. The "moral rights" approach to ethics suggests that the appropriateness of the use of power should be judged in terms of the consequences of this use. False, the "moral rights" approach to ethics suggest that power is used appropriately only when no one's personal rights or freedoms are sacrificed.

8. Diagnosis is a procedure in which managers gather information about a troublesome situation and try to summarize it in a problem statement. True 9. Solution is the process of identifying ways to resolve the problem identified during the evaluation phase of the process of problem solving. False, the problem is identified in the diagnosis phase of problem solving (diagnosis, solution, action, evaluation) 10. Managers prescribing solutions must resist the urge to satisfice—to choose the first alternative that seems workable. True 11. In the action stage of problem solving, managers must first stipulate the specific activities they believe are needed to solve a particular problem and then oversee the implementation of these activities. True 12. Problem solving concludes with evaluation, the process of determining whether actions taken to solve the problem had the intended effect. True 13. Management is the process of influencing behavior in organizations such that common purposes are identified, worked toward, and achieved. True 14. An organization is a collection of people and materials brought together to accomplish purposes that would be more effectively achieved by individuals working alone. False, brought together to accomplish what is not achievable working alone. 15. An organization's mission helps hold it together by giving members a shared sense of direction. True 16. The division of labor reduces efficiency by making tasks more difficult to perform. False, a division of labor enhances efficiency by simplifying tasks and making them

easier to perform. 17. An organization's chief executive officer (CEO) is a member of the organization's middle management. False, CEO's are a part of top management 18. An organization's mission assumes the integration of effort whereas the division of labor produces a differentiation of effort. True 19. Management is a process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling organizational behaviors to accomplish a mission through the division of labor. True 20. Directing is partly a process of communicating goals and objectives to members wherein managers announce, clarify, and promote targets toward which effort should be directed. True 21. Controlling means evaluating the performance of the organization and its units to see whether the firm is progressing in the desired direction. True 22. Managers are the people who plan, organize, direct, and control so as to manage organizations and organizational units. True 23. Top managers plan the activities needed to develop the organization's mission and strategic goals. True 24. Middle managers are responsible for managing the entire organization. False, middle managers are responsible for managing the performance of a particular organization and implementing top managers' strategic plans. Top managers are responsible for managing the entire organization. 25. Supervisory managers are charged with overseeing the nonsupervisory employees who perform the organization's basic work.

True 26. Conceptual skills include the ability to perceive an organization or organizational unit as a whole, and to recognize important relationships between the organization or unit and the environment that surrounds it. True 27. Technical skills involve the ability to work effectively as a group member and build cooperation among the members of an organization or unit. False, human skills allow this. Technical skills understanding the knowledge required to make goods or services. 28. In fulfilling interpersonal roles, managers create and maintain interpersonal relationships to ensure the well-being of their organizations or units. True 29. The figurehead and leader roles are both disseminator roles occupied by managers. False, they are both interpersonal roles. 30. In the disturbance handler role, managers make decisions about improvements in the organizations or units for which they are responsible. False, in the disturbance handler role, they manage adapting the organization or unit to changing conditions. 31. For middle managers, the leader, liaison, disturbance handler, and resource allocator roles are the most important. True 32. For supervisory managers, the leader role is the most important, as they spend most of their time directing nonsupervisory personnel. True 33. Henry Mintzberg's research led him to conclude that managers' roles often require them to work in long, uninterrupted sessions. False, managers are required to work in short bursts.

34. Principles of scientific management reflect the idea that through proper management an organization can achieve profitability and survive over the long term in the competitive world of business. True 35. The administrative principles perspective focuses on increasing the efficiency of administrative procedures. True 36. The Hawthorne studies were among the earliest attempts to use scientific techniques to examine human behavior at work. True 37. The human relations perspective of management thought directed attention toward improving efficiency and away from increasing employee growth, development, and satisfaction. False, human relations perspective was directed away from improving efficiency and towards increasing employee growth. 38. Unlike Theory X managers, who try to control their employees, Theory Y managers try to help employees learn how to manage themselves. True 39. According to the open systems perspective, every organization is a system that is immune to the influence of the surrounding environment. False, it is subject to the influence of the surrounding environment 40. The contingency approach to management incorporates the view that no single theory, procedure, or set of rules is applicable to every situation. True

Module 2: A stereotype presumes that some person possesses certain individual characteristics based on their sex or membership in a racial, ethnic, or age group. True The mirror image fallacy is a perceptual distortion in which an individual presumes that no one else is "just like me." False, it's that everyone else is "just like me" Research on how firms gain sustainable competitive advantage consistently identifies selectivity in hiring and an emphasis on training as two central characteristics of successful companies. True Selection programs enable managers to assess people and jobs, and then try to match up the two in a way that maximizes the fit between the abilities and traits of the individual and the abilities and traits required for the job. True Selection programs often begin with an analysis of the job, which leads to a written job description, which in turn leads to a list of the various characteristics needed for someone who is likely to be successful in that job. True Training is a way to compensate for any job-related deficiencies in individuals' traits or abilities by modifying their jobs. False, reengineering Reengineering involves responding to any mismatch between person and job by changing the job. True Older workers are another source of valuable talent that sometimes requires reengineered jobs. True

Just as research on training has shown that certain people benefit more from training than others, research also suggests that some people respond better to the redesign of work than others. True People who are psychologically flexible and open to experience are also more trainable, and this can be built into selection programs that rely heavily on work redesign initiatives to stay competitive. True Physical ability consists of three major dimensions: muscular strength, endurance, and movement quantity. False, movement quality Muscular strength refers to the ability to sustain physical activity for a long period. False, endurance Endurance is a type of physical ability that refers to the ability to exert muscular force to push, pull, or carry. False, muscular strength Movement quality is the ability to maintain the body in a stable position and resist forces that cause a loss of stability. True Height and weight criteria were often substituted for specific abilities in the past, but because height and weight measures are considered to discriminate unfairly against women and members of some minority groups, they are rarely used today. True Tests of physical abilities can predict not only a person's level of job performance, but also his or her risk of job-related injuries. True General cognitive ability reflects the summed total of scores across different types of mental tests True

Verbal ability is the degree to which a person can understand and use written and spoken language. True People high in quantitative ability are able to apply mathematical rules appropriately. True Reasoning ability reflects a person's ability to perform arithmetic problems. False, quantitative ability A great deal of evidence suggests that general cognitive ability is predictive of success in the work world. True General cognitive ability is important even for jobs that lack such complexity if these positions expose one to dangerous conditions, and workers who are high in cognitive ability show much lower on-the-job-accident rates. True For certain jobs, tests of specific mental ability can add significantly to the predictive power of tests of general intelligence. True People who are high on emotional intelligence have the ability to identify distinct emotions in themselves, as well as other people, and use this to guide their thinking and actions. True Emotional intelligence helps predict success in jobs that involve interpersonal interaction. True Cultural intelligence enables people to generate, recognize, express, understand, and evaluate their own and others emotions. False, emotional intelligence

Cultural intelligence is a critical individual difference for companies that are trying to move into global product markets. True Many organizations attempt to broaden the cultural experience of their current employees by sending them on international assignments. True The Big Five personality traits include extroversion, emotional intelligence, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. False, its emotional adjustment not intelligence Emotional adjustment reflects characteristics of emotional stability, security, and contentment. True Agreeableness is a personality trait that refers to dependability and achievement orientation. False, conscientiousness Someone who is extroverted can be expected to be courteous, forgiving, and trustworthy. False, agreeableness People characterized by high openness to experience are curious and broad-minded. True Conscientious people are dependable, organized, and thorough. True Conscientiousness, in the absence of ability, is not much of an asset, but when conscientiousness and ability both reside in the same person, the results can be dramatic. True In the past, legal and political forces, particularly civil rights activists who tried to increase opportunities for women and minorities in the workplace, drove integration of

the workforce. True Much of the current concern about managing demographic diversity can be traced to the fact that that an increasingly larger percent of new entrants into the labor pool tend to be women, minorities, or immigrants. True One of the more sweeping demographic forces with which many organizations are attempting to come to grips is the aging of the workforce. True Replacing outdated stereotypes with actual scientific data regarding individual differences is a critical skill for today's managers. True In order to gain competitive advantage from demographic and cultural diversity, managers need to move beyond false stereotypes regarding various groups and directly assess the true abilities and traits of each individual person with reliable and valid methods. True

Module 3: Motivation refers to the energy a person is willing to devote to a task. True A person who is highly motivated will go out of his or her way to learn new things to improve future performance and help co-workers when the workload within the group gets unbalanced. True Expectancy theory is composed on three major components: expectancies, instrumentalities, and outcomes. False, expectancies, instrumentalities and valences Valence refers to anticipated satisfaction, while value represents the actual satisfaction a person experiences from attaining a desired outcome. True Outcomes can have positive, negative, or zero valence. True Instrumentality is a person's belief about the relationship between performing an action and receiving an outcome. True Expectancies are beliefs about the link between making an effort and receiving an outcome. False, between making an effort and performing well Whereas knowledge about valences and instrumentalities tells us what an individual wants to do, we cannot anticipate what the individual will try to do without knowing the person's expectancies. True When it comes to understanding how valences originate and why they differ among people, need theories can prove especially informative. True

Maslow's need theory proposed the existence of five distinct types of needs: psychological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. False, physiological needs Prepotency means that needs residing lower in the hierarchy can influence motivation only if needs residing higher in the hierarchy are already largely satisfied. False, needs residing higher in the hierarchy can influence motivation only if needs residing lower in the hierarchy are already largely satisfied. The term "prosocial motivation" is often used explicitly to capture the degree to which people are motivated to help other people. True Self-actualization is the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming. True Henry Murray's theory of manifest needs defines needs as recurrent concerns for particular goals or end states. True Murray held that an individual could be motivated by more than one need simultaneously, and he also suggested that needs could sometimes conflict with each other. True To understand behavior, we need to know not just what people want, but what they believe will lead to the attainment of what they want—their instrumentalities. True The notion that people attempt to minimize pleasure and maximize pain is captured in the concept of hedonism. False, maximize pleasure and minimize pain Reinforcement theory proposes that a person engages in a specific behavior because that behavior has been positively reinforced in the past.

True Shaping means rewarding successive approximations to a desired behavior, so that "getting close counts." True In extinction, a weakened response occurs because the desired outcome is no longer paired with some positive reinforce. True In negative reinforcement, the likelihood that a person will engage in a particular behavior increases because the behavior is followed by the removal of something the person dislikes. True In punishment, the likelihood of a given behavior decreases because it is followed by something that the person dislikes. True Negative reinforcement and punishment are the same thing. False, they are different Effective discipline programs are progressive—that is, they move in incremental steps. True Social learning theory holds that people learn behaviors by observing others and then modeling the behaviors perceived as being effective. True Valence and instrumentality combine to influence the desire to perform. True Self-efficacy refers to beliefs held by individuals that they will master some specific task after receiving appropriate training. False, it refers to the judgement that people make about their ability to execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations

People with high self-efficacy will often confidently persist even in the face of feedback that they should change their tactics or lower their self-image. True Past instances of successful behavior increase personal feelings of self-efficacy, especially when these successes seem due to personal ability or a manageable level of task difficulty. True Self-efficacy theory is particularly useful for explaining how instrumentalities are formed and suggesting how they might be changed. False, it explains expectancies Role perceptions are people's beliefs about what they are supposed to accomplish on the job and how they should achieve those goals. True Specific and difficult goals appear to promote greater effort and to enhance persistence, especially when combined with timely feedback and incentives. True While goals have positive effects on all tasks, the magnitude of the effect is stronger for complex tasks than for simple tasks. False, the magnitude is stronger for simple tasks than complex tasks The term "goal orientation" has been coined to distinguish between people who approach a task with the goal of learning how to improve and people whose goals focus strictly on performing at a certain level. True People lacking the requisite abilities cannot perform a complex task even under the most favorable goal-related circumstances. True Because it diverts attention from the task to the goal, goal setting may be particularly damaging to people who have low ability or who are still learning the task. True

People who start out with high expectancies might discover during job performance that they cannot perform nearly as well as they anticipated, leading to decreased selfefficacy, reduced expectancy perceptions, and lower motivation. True Piecework plans assess performance at the end of the fiscal year via subjective ratings of employees made by supervisors. False, merit based plans assess performance at the end of the year Incentive systems are easier than merit pay plans to administer and control. False, merit pay plans are easier to administer and control Profit-sharing is an individual-level performance incentive. False, not individual but broader level

Module 4: Attitudes are important because they are related to employee retention, and employee retention is also related to customer retention. True Creating a stable and satisfied workforce serves as another opportunity for one firm to gain a competitive advantage over others in their industry. True Job satisfaction is "a pleasurable feeling that results from the perception that one's job fulfills or allows for the fulfillment of one's important job values." True Stress is an unpleasant emotional state that results when someone is uncertain of his or h...