h 17 ob assessments

Assessment Reference Book Questions from the Edinburgh Business School Course Website

Organisational Behaviour

Assessment Reference Book: Organisational Behaviour Edinburgh Business School 2

This booklet contains copies of the self-assessment materials found on the Edinburgh Business School Course Website.

Additional feedback and profiling of these questions are available on the Course Website.

Organisational Behaviour Question Booklet Release of December 2012

Edinburgh Business School

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Module 1A: The Basics

1 Which of the following challenges necessitates rapid or urgent changes in employee and group behaviour,

information flows, work design, team (SDT) interactions and organisational structure?

A. Challenge of managing ethical behaviour.

B. Challenge of workforce diversity.

C. Challenge of globalisation.

D. Challenge of technology change.

2 Executive merit performance bonuses, demanding customer expectations for service and intense global

competition suggest a corporate work environment that is represented by which of the following?

A. Bottom-up and top-down communication (expertise-based and multi-channel).

B. Highly specialised with little cross-training and no use of skill-based compensation.

C. Widespread uncertainty avoidance by managers.

D. Functional design with little need for a functioning intergroup network.

3 When a manager believes that a new employee has all the necessary skills to perform a job adequately and de-

emphasises any on-the-job training for the new worker, the manager is applying which of the following?

A. The SOBC model of human behaviour.

B. Theory Y assumptions of management.

C. A scientific management approach that matches the new employees existing skill set to the demands

of the job (a Theory X approach).

D. The employee is motivated only by terminal values.

4 Which of the following represents the goals to be achieved or the desired end states of ones existence?

A. Terminal values.

B. Instrumental values.

C. Critical values.

D. Principled stage of moral development.

5 Which of the following is a way for corporations to encourage ethical behaviour in employees?

A. Issue a code of ethics and train employees in the ethics of business practices.

B. Dictate ethical standards.

C. Classify all employees in terms of their stages of moral development.

D. Encourage criminal charges and the prosecution of unethical employees.

6 Which of the following defines a personal, relatively stable set of individual characteristics that influences an

employees behaviour on the job?

A. The SOBC model.

B. The employees personality.

C. Managements Theory X and Theory Y assumptions about employee behaviour.

D. The human perception process as influenced by the fight-or-flight response.

7 You work for a boss who demands personal loyalty from his employees; who takes credit for your colleagues

innovative suggestions and who occasionally fudges expense reports so as to pocket some extra cash. Which

combination of individual differences best represents the personality of your boss?

A. A preconventional stage of moral development, personalised need for power and high-Mach

characteristics.

B. External locus of control, extroversion and high self-efficacy.

C. High need for achievement, low need for affiliation and the principled stage of moral development.

D. Internal locus of control, personalised need for power and high tolerance for risk.

Module 1A: The Basics


8 You are the manager of a sales force that sells personal care products throughout the UK. In making hiring

decisions, which of the following would you emphasise in applicant personality testing?

A. Extroversion and introversion.

B. Tolerance for risk-taking behaviour.

C. Self-esteem.

D. Mach-V tendency.

9 Which of the following is not a likely behaviour on the part of a high-Mach executive?

A. She publicly puts the company and its needs before her personal needs.

B. She explains just enough to pacify employees so they will not question her management decisions.

C. She explains to a junior executive that hard work builds character.

D. She says I seldom question the legitimacy of the firms authority system.

10 Employees who relish the political aspects of work and throw themselves into the technical aspects of product

development and change most likely exhibit which of the following?

A. High need for socialised power, principled moral development and high need for achievement.

B. Low need for affiliation, preconventional moral development and high need for achievement.

C. High need for affiliation, conventional moral development and high need for achievement.

D. High need for personalised power, principled moral development and high need for affiliation.


Module 2A: Stress and Well-Being at Work

1 Frustration and stress emanating from the work performed by employees (appearing as dissatisfaction with the

work itself) would include all of the following except:

A. Technological change in work.

B. Supervisory leadership styles (too much like X and too little like Y).

C. Work overload.

D. Lack of personal control over work methods.

2 Which of the following is not an emotional or mental-state change associated with job stress?

A. Frequent physical fatigue.

B. Anxiety or apprehension.

C. Irritability and extreme short-temperedness on the job (intermittent explosive disorder).

D. Increased insomnia and restlessness (inability to rest and relax).

3 Which of the following would heighten a managers risk of a heart attack?

A. His job is complex and demanding, and he has high autonomy.

B. His job is simple and highly repetitive, and he has high autonomy.

C. His job is simple and repetitive, and he has no autonomy on the job.

D. His job is complex and demanding, and he has little autonomy.

4 A veteran software salesman is reluctant to ask a newly hired software engineer how programming defects

entered an inventory management programme. This is an example of which of the following?

A. Value inconsistency.

B. Role ambiguity.

C. Technological uncertainty.

D. Interpersonal demands.

5 A positive consequence of job stress could include which of the following?

A. Performance declines.

B. Functional turnover.

C. Unscheduled maintenance of equipment.

D. Employee sabotage of production equipment.

6 You supervise four employees, one of whom is strongly Type A and never exhibits hostility or irritability

towards you or her colleagues. Which of the following represents how you would manage her?

A. Frequently remind her of upcoming deadlines and project methods.

B. Counsel her to practise time management and to pace herself as she works through task demands.

C. Consistently underrate her performance to ensure that she raises her efforts and also sets more

ambitious and challenging work goals.

D. Remind her that promotions and merit-based rises are contingent on her higher productivity and

effort on the job.

7 Which of the following are valuable personal qualities for a mentor to a new non-hostile and eager Type A

employee performing a job with high role ambiguity and rapid knowledge obsolescence (perhaps a young

consultant specialising in data analytics and cloud computing)?

A. Internal locus of control and Type A behaviour.

B. External locus of control and Type A behaviour.

C. Internal locus of control and Type B behaviour.

D. High introversion, internal locus of control and Type A behaviour.

Module 2A: Stress and Well-Being at Work


8 Job-stress-induced absenteeism (for instance insomnia-induced mental fatigue) for an employee reflects which

of the following?

A. The alarm reaction stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome.

B. A behavioural symptom of hindrance stress on the job.

C. The exhaustion phase of the General Adaptation Syndrome.

D. A loss of control over work methods or outcomes.

9 Employee burnout would happen most quickly under which of the following conditions?

A. Middle management is eliminated, and remaining employees are not trained in problem-solving and

conflict-resolution skills.

B. Employees are given more responsibility for high-quality customer service, but the company is slow

to install merit-based rewards.

C. Middle managers are most focused on the technical aspects of their jobs, and their subordinates are

expected to accept delegated responsibility.

D. Employees are expected to customise service for clients, and managers have been slow to provide

guidance on best practices.

10 Which of the following company programmes is most effective in helping employees to manage their job stress

levels?

A. Track employee meeting times and the extent to which employees show up for meetings on time.

B. Reward employees for the number of their customer contacts per day and design an incentive

programme that provides an all-expenses-paid vacation to top employees.

C. Encourage employees to live by their own values at work.

D. Give employees personal time off to deal with elder care problems and allow them to make up the

work hours on a negotiated schedule.


Module 3A: Contemporary Theories of Motivation

1 Which of the following statements is most accurate about the relationship among motivation (effort), ability,

rewards and job performance?

A. All are positively related under normal work circumstances.

B. When motivation is high, ability is irrelevant regarding performance and rewards.

C. High ability can replace low motivation with respect to performance, and rewards become irrele-

vant.

D. Motivation and ability are unrelated either to job performance or to rewards.

2 Fong is a skilled software programmer who is respected by his colleagues for his creativity and ability to work

long hours without taking a break. Which of the following higher-order levels of Maslows hierarchy is

motivating his behaviour?

A. Physiological.

B. Self-esteem.

C. Safety or job security.

D. Self-actualisation.

3 Herzbergs two-factor theory of motivation is most strongly related to which of the following?

A. Expectancy theory.

B. Equity theory.

C. Maslows hierarchy.

D. Pathgoal theory of motivation.

4 According to Herzberg, which of the following is the key to motivating employees?

A. Employee stock option plans.

B. Complete satisfaction of lower-order needs.

C. Enriched job content (vertical job loading).

D. Improved co-worker relations.

5 Unlike Maslows or Herzbergs motivational models, equity theory emphasises which of the following?

A. Dissonance or imbalance triggered by perceptions of job outcomes and inputs.

B. The pivotal role of goal setting.

C. The determination of personal probabilities regarding performance and rewards.

D. The combined effects of job involvement and organisational commitment.

6 Complete the sentence from the options provided. The two key probabilities in the expectancy theory of

motivation are ____performance and performance____ probabilities.

A. effort; reward

B. ability; skills

C. ability; motivation

D. effort; results

7 A soccer player tells a fan: Theres a 90 per cent chance I can score a goal if Im 60 metres away and at a 20

degree angle from the net. According to expectancy theory, the player is expressing which of the following?

A. Instrumentality.

B. Expectancy.

C. Valence.

D. Goal.

Module 3A: Contemporary Theories of Motivation


8 According to equity theory, employees are likely to be motivated by which of the following?

A. A belief that they are being treated fairly.

B. A comparison of their inputs with their outputs on the job.

C. Experienced high job satisfaction.

D. Receiving rewards that are higher than those of their peers performing similar work.

9 Which of the following is an important managerial implication of expectancy theory?

A. Rewards are more important than effort on the job.

B. Motivation is more important than ability to perform well.

C. As often as possible, performance rewards should be matched to individual preferences.

D. Intrinsic rewards are more important than extrinsic rewards.

10 A manager decides to use positive reinforcement to increase the probability of a variety of employee

performance outcomes. Which of the following is not positive reinforcement?

A. The boss gives no performance feedback when employees fail to complete the job on time.

B. The boss praises two new employees when they complete their tasks successfully.

C. The boss gives his employees a bonus after they achieve a given number of successful task comple-

tions. This award is open to all employees.

D. The boss lets two consistently high-performing employees leave early while giving them credit for a

full days pay. This award is open to all employees.


Module 4A: Organisational Control and Reward Systems

1 You and another supervisor arrive at different conclusions about a subordinates performance despite the fact

that you both used the same evaluation system. Which of the following describes the evaluation system? It is:

A. Invalid.

B. Accurate.

C. Unreliable.

D. Corrupted.

2 Which of the following will an effective performance appraisal system not have?

A. Validity.

B. Reliability.

C. Fairness or equity.

D. Self-correcting behaviour.

3 Which of the following signifies high reliability in an appraisal system?

A. Employees understand the meaning of performance prior to the evaluation.

B. The most meaningful aspects of performance are measured.

C. The performance measurement tools are constructed in a reliable way.

D. Assessments at different times are captured the same way each time they are done.

4 Which of the following is an appraisal system that seeks a supervisors judgements about the presence or

absence of a performance dimension in an employees work?

A. Behaviour-anchored rating scales.

B. A supervisors essay narrative.

C. Graphic rating scales.

D. Journalistic tracking.

5 When human resources specialists determine 1) employees common skills and qualifications for jobs; 2)

coordination requirements of work tasks to support operational effectiveness; 3) external guidelines for task

groupings (forms of departmentation); and 4) the traditions of the company to define how work is done

(organisational culture), which of the following is being performed?

A. Preliminary goal-setting appraisal.

B. BMod programme.

C. Job analysis.

D. Culture analysis.

6 Complete the sentence from one of the options provided. If a company applied a participative management

style (Theory Y principles) and valued the input of employees, then the ____ approach to designing and

conducting performance appraisal would be most stress-reducing for employees.

A. behaviour-anchored rating scales

B. job analysis

C. absolute standards

D. graphic rating scales

7 When a manager establishes a desired result to guide and direct the task behaviour of his subordinates, he is

practising which of the following?

A. Goal setting.

B. Motivation.

C. Valence manipulation.

D. Herzbergs two-factor theory.

Module 4A: Organisational Control and Reward Systems


8 Which of the following is NOT a major result of goal setting performed in a participative fashion?

A. Containing or restricting subordinates creativity, flexibility and openness to change.

B. Increasing employees work motivation and task performance.

C. Reducing employees role stresses caused by conflicting or ambiguous expectations.

D. Improving the accuracy (validity) and reliability of performance appraisal.

9 You are an independent director serving on the firms executive compensation committee. The CEO and his

immediate executive team are asking the board to grant them a 10 per cent increase in their compensation

package. Which choice below would best serve the needs of the firms owners relative to managements

request?

A. Grant managements request by authorising a 10 per cent increase in all aspects of their direct,

short-term compensation.

B. Tie the 10 per cent increase in the form of stock options to the achievement of a 10 per cent gain in

net income and a reduction of 15 per cent of the firms long-term debt load.

C. Leave the annual pay of the executives unchanged but raise their bonuses by an amount that

increases their total compensation by 10 per cent if they improve the firms total market capitalisa-

tion by 10 per cent.

D. Before agreeing to managements request, authorise a salary survey to determine the size of pay

packets for executive teams running rival firms in the industry.

10 A company uses a process through which teams of employees make labour-saving suggestions that are

incorporated in their production units. If their suggestions produce labour-hour savings below a historical

quarterly average, they earn team bonuses that are equal to 50 per cent of the value of those labour-hours

saved. The bonuses are divided equally among the eligible teams. This programme is an example of ____:

A. gainsharing or cost savings.

B. profit sharing.

C. a two-tiered reward system.

D. pay at risk.


Module 5A: Job Design

1 Scientific management includes all but which of the following?

A. Participative involvement of employees in decisions about the methods and goals of work.

B. Time and motion studies.

C. Work simplification.

D. Job activity repetition.

2 Which of the following is the principal goal of scientific management?

A. Redesigning the reward system to create the lowest economical unit labour costs.

B. Simplifying and standardising the work performed by employees.

C. Identifying those job applicants who have the skill sets necessary to perform jobs with little or no

on-the-job training.

D. Creating an improved work design to balance employees worklife challenges.

3 Job enlargement is most likely to be an organisational response to which of the following?

A. A decrease in product and service quality experienced by customers.

B. Technology-induced job changes (rising productivity through greater capital intensity).

C. Over-specialised work that causes employees to be bored (rusting out on the job).

D. Employees frustration with their inability to satisfy their higher-order needs.

4 Which of the following would NOT be one of Herzbergs principles of job design?

A. Give employees as much control over the methods of task completion as possible.

B. Hold employees accountable for their performance.

C. Design jobs so employees experience accomplishment.

D. Seek input from employees about the agenda for the annual company holiday party.

5 As a manager of insurance specialists who input policy and claims data, you would like to find ways to

horizontally load the specialists jobs. Which of the following would accomplish that?

A. Create a new telecommuting job design for the specialists.

B. Increase the number of policy and claims tasks performed by each individual.

C. Increase their job specialisation through more training.

D. Reschedule their work into a flexitime system.

6 When a purchasing specialist has the authority to handle some key aspects of vendor relationships without

consulting a superior, which of the following is occurring in her job?

A. Job rotation.

B. Job enlargement.

C. Vertical job loading.

D. Job specialisation.

7 Job range is the variety of tasks performed by an employee while job depth is which of the following?

A. The extent to which an employee is cross-trained.

B. The extent to which the employee believes that his job can satisfy his higher-order needs.

C. The extent to which the employees job is horizontally expanded.

D. The extent to which the employees job is specialised.

8 Which of the following is the core job dimension in the Job Characteristics Model linked to experienced

responsibility for work outcomes?

A. Autonomy.

B. Feedback.

C. Skill variety.

D. Task significance.

Module 5A: Job Design


9 Four-day work weeks, job sharing and telecommuting would be job design trends of most interest to ____

A. employees about to retire.

B. Generation Y and Millennial employees.

C. employees with low growth-need strength.

D. employees who have been highly cross-trained.

10 The following factors have been in place for several years in a hospitals patient recovery wards: 1) a team of

nurses (case team) delivers care from the point of patient admission to patient discharge; 2) the case manager

(senior nurse) is selected on the basis of his or her medical expertise; 3) the case team members are thor-

oughly cross-trained; and 4) the entire case team meets with the patients attending physician to discuss the

patients physical and psychological recovery. This work design system is best characterised as a ____

A. self-directed team design.

B. traditional grouping of jobs based on medical specialisations.

C. scientific management job design without a piece-rate pay system.

D. healthcare delivery system with horizontally loaded jobs.


Module 6A: Work Group Dynamics

1 Which of the following describes the standards used by a group to judge the behaviour of its members?

A. Authority relationship congruence.

B. Behaviour norms.

C. Heterogeneity.

D. Cohesiveness.

2 Which of the following best defines a work group or a team in an organisation?

A. Two or more employees who 1) interact with each other; 2) see themselves as sharing common

interests and goals; and 3) are brought together to accomplish a meaningful work activity.

B. Two or more employees who 1) interact with each other; 2) share common career goals; and 3) are

geographically dispersed.

C. Two or more employees who 1) share similar attitudes; 2) are in face-to-face contact; and 3) exhibit

similarities in terms of economic and educational backgrounds.

D. Two or more employees who 1) enjoy the groups activities; 2) perceive extensive performance

ability among members; and 3) wish to share performance feedback with each other.

3 A team has these characteristics: 1) short life span; 2) voluntary membership; 3) members selected for their

problem-solving expertise; and 4) a direct link to higher management. This group is which of the following?

A. Board of directors.

B. Union organising group.

C. Project team.

D. Cross-functional work group.

4 Which of the following is the least likely factor to cause the formation of an informal group within a firm?

A. Common interests among members of the larger work unit.

B. Proximity of members in the larger work unit.

C. Race and gender similarity among members of the larger work unit.

D. The larger work units task complexity.

5 Which of the following statements about group cohesiveness is inaccurate?

A. Cohesion can raise member job satisfaction and performance.

B. Cohesion can enhance organisational commitment.

C. Cohesion raises the number of social exchanges among members outside the work setting.

D. Cohesive work groups are better able to manage the behaviour of their members.

6 Which of the following is the best explanation for the relationship between work group cohesiveness and

performance?

A. It is based on the extent of interpersonal attraction among group or team members.

B. It depends on the complexity of the groups task and the size of the group or team.

C. It is moderated by the extent to which a group or team accepts the firms performance standards

and goals (metrics composing operational effectiveness).

D. It is dependent on the extent to which the work group or team is homogeneous.

7 Several members of a highly cohesive SDT are talking in the hallway prior to a strategy session. These

individuals are heard to say: 1) The scientists down in the lab are a bunch of eggheads and they should stay

out of marketing decisions; 2) Our new app will be a category killer and the competition cannot touch us;

and 3) It is up to us to keep a lid on the cost overruns, which well recover in the first month of sales. These

perceptions shared by the team members suggest which of the following?

A. Groupthink.

B. Escalation of commitment.

C. High organisational commitment.

D. Social loafing.

Module 6A: Work Group Dynamics


8 Groupthink is most strongly associated with which of the following?

A. Extent to which an SDT or group is cohesive and its norms reflect the groups needs for conformity.

B. Members who are highly committed to the organisation and its goals.

C. Groups or SDTs that do not experience turnover in membership over time (stable membership

with high tenure).

D. SDT or group members who value team social recognition rewards and harmony more than

individual rewards.

9 As the number of team members increases, process losses in a work group or team do which of the following?

A. Rise.

B. Level off.

C. Decline.

D. Remain unaffected.

10 A project engineering software development team (Team 1) decides unanimously to present its newest app to

a rival team (Team 2) that claims to have developed it first. In the meeting Team 1 offers to share with Team 2

its latest version of the apps software and Team 2 offers to meet with prospective customers in order to get

the app out there as soon as possible. This meeting and the actions of the two teams are best described as

which of the following?

A. The traditional view of conflict management (Theory X principle) in the firm.

B. A compromise strategy within the traditional view of conflict management in the firm.

C. A collaborative strategy based on the contemporary (Theory Y) view of conflict management in the

firm.

D. The compromising strategy.


Module 7A: The Influence Process

1 Which of the following choices best completes the sentence? The legitimacy inherent in your job is ____ while

your ability to influence an employee is ____.

A. power; authority

B. influence; authority

C. authority; power

D. power; control

2 Which of the following choices best completes the sentence? As a subordinate you might have ____ over your

superior.

A. authority

B. control

C. influence

D. power

3 Which of the following choices best completes the sentence? You are a senior research engineer and a

colleague seeks you out for advice on a project design problem. This is an example of your ____ power.

A. reward

B. expert

C. referent

D. legitimate

4 We would expect a manager who has plateaued at the conventional stage of moral development to consider

as often as possible how her exercise of power will:

A. produce a good outcome for those affected by her decision.

B. respect everyones rights.

C. treat everyone equitably and fairly.

D. All of the above.

5 The principle of line of sight is most prominent in which theory of leadership?

A. Fiedlers contingency theory.

B. Consideration and initiating structure theory of leadership (Ohio State Studies).

C. Houses pathgoal theory of leadership.

D. Trait theory of leadership behaviour.

6 Which of the following should an ethical manager employ to examine his use of power?

A. Beneficial outcomes, individual rights and fair treatment of stakeholders.

B. Personal motive, his higher-order need satisfaction and personal consequences of his decision.

C. Personal growth opportunities, its career effects for him and whether his chances for promotion are

approved.

D. Downside danger to his reputation, chance of litigation for the firm and competitor retaliation.

7 You are in a department that is downsizing; to keep your job you should choose which of the following?

A. Be a knowledge worker, take risks, be creative and give excellent performance.

B. Emphasise your cooperativeness more than your job expertise.

C. Refrain from reorganising the job, and do not manipulate job rules in your favour.

D. Provide all sources of job and product information to those who ask and identify with powerful

managers who control the downsizing decision.

Module 7A: The Influence Process


8 Which of the following would make upward management more widespread?

A. The organisation uses empowerment and job enrichment.

B. Employees are cross-trained and function effectively in SDTs.

C. Managers favour the use of legitimate power and reward power.

D. A and B.

9 A strongly task-oriented leader (low LPC score) will be most successful when:

A. the leadership situation is either highly favourable or moderately favourable.

B. the leadership situation is highly unfavourable or moderately unfavourable.

C. the leadership situation is either highly favourable or highly unfavourable.

D. None of the above.

10 Which of the following behaviours reflects the use of entrepreneurship within the firm?

A. A manager tells one of his SDTs that it is a violation of company policy to contact outside experts

regarding software-coding problems.

B. A product development team member tells her colleague to approach a senior engineer to be her

mentor.

C. Two members of a marketing team approach a vendor-client about the possibility of developing a

co-branding promotional strategy.

D. A manager works with his units employees to set up a flexitime work schedule.


Module 8A: Organisational Design

1 Organisational design specifies the structural features of a firm. The design process begins with which of the

following?

A. Listing all job classifications and titles.

B. Specifying all job designs throughout the company.

C. Articulating the organisations financial and strategic goals.

D. Arranging jobs into various work units or departments.

2 Principles of organisational design do not include which of the following?

A. Departmentalisation.

B. Span of control.

C. Division of labour.

D. Scientific unit specialisation.

3 The principal contributor to marginal productivity among employees is which of the following?

A. Span of control.

B. Division of labour.

C. Organisational design.

D. Piece-rate pay system.

4 Span of control is defined by which of the following?

A. Number of vertical levels in a company.

B. Vertical differentiation.

C. Degree of division of labour.

D. Number of subordinates reporting to a given manager.

5 Designing a competitive business model based on improved service delivery includes the recognition of which

of the following?

A. Differentiating services from the physical characteristics of products is often easier and faster

because service features are more flexible.

B. Service units cannot be stored or kept in inventory.

C. Service improvements strengthen brand loyalty and erect barriers to rivals around the firms market

segments.


6 Increased use of delegation of authority in an organisation would be most likely after which of the following

major organisational events?

A. Change to a system 1 organisational design.

B. Re-engineering after delayering and downsizing.

C. Change to a functional organisational design.


Module 8A: Organisational Design


7 A firm has the following characteristics: 1) a strong customer service orientation among its SDTs; 2)

widespread use of SDTs with high horizontal integration; 3) a highly cross-trained workforce; 4) shortening

product and service life cycles (increasing rate of obsolescence); and 5) a management team that stresses

company-wide employee participation through internal learning communities designed to solve problems in

operational effectiveness. Given this profile, which of the following would not be an appropriate management

practice in this company?

A. Avoiding the use of time clocks to track when employees come to or depart from work.

B. Close supervision by managers who prefer to limit the authority of employees.

C. Creation of a two-tiered reward system to emphasise the importance of teams meeting or exceed-

ing their customer service goals.

D. Giving SDTs the authority to conduct periodic customer service audits to assess current levels of

customer satisfaction with their service delivery.

8 An organisational design with few vertical layers would be characterised by which of the following?

A. A high ratio of employees to supervisors and managers.

B. Close supervision.

C. Slow, unresponsive communication channels that distort information.

D. Narrow spans of control.

9 When firms rely on internal process controls (MBO, Six Sigma, TQM), we generally expect to find which of

the following?

A. High job specialisation, more formal hierarchies of authority and widespread use of SDTs.

B. Responsive horizontal integration systems, an active and flexible inter-group (or inter-team)

network and continuous cross-training activities.

C. Productive divisional structures, use of two-tiered reward systems and low delegation of authority.


10 In a highly responsive organisational design, we would expect to find which of the following?

A. A flexible inter-group task network that undermines the power of traditional functional work units.

B. A minimised authority boundary that blurs the leaderfollower relationship so that there are fewer

impediments that prevent problem-solving expertise from flowing to where it is needed (where

problems in operational effectiveness exist).

C. Highly sophisticated employees who identify more with the company and its values than with a

particular work unit.



Module 9A: Managing Transitions

1 Basic assumptions that are considered by employees to be valid and that are taught to new employees as the

proper way to conduct business as well as think about the firm are known as which of the following?

A. Terminal organisational values.

B. Organisational culture.

C. Company business values.

D. Company mission statement.

2 Which of the following would not be an aspect of a companys culture?

A. A code that governs employee appearance.

B. Formal job titles to convey ones status or capabilities.

C. Number of units produced.

D. Exercise facilities that are open to all employees.

3 A firms top managers have expressed many of these opinions in private conversations: 1) We have a gold-

plated strategy-planning process even though we often fail to deliver results; 2) We will all get along if it kills

us!; 3) We continue to be beaten by our better-organised and more responsive rivals; 4) Our union

members want higher pay, shorter hours and free healthcare coverage for life or else we will go on strike; and

5) We have not created a significant new product design, while our main rival has launched four during the

last two years. These symptoms reflect which of the following?

A. Managements dissatisfaction with the status quo and clear indicators that the firm is in the decline

phase of its organisational life cycle.

B. The need for an immediate plan to downsize the firm and take it through the re-engineering

process.

C. A need for the companys board to step in and change the executive management team.

D. A failed job design system that exhibits Theory X qualities and has alienated the firms workforce.

4 The CEO can best influence and shape corporate culture through the process of socialisation by stressing


A. He hires highly qualified executives different from himself and nominates qualified outside directors

to serve on the firms board.

B. He acts quickly to lay off employees when sales decline.

C. He always shows consistency with respect to his key business values in how he expects employees

to conduct themselves on behalf of the firm (he puts the firms welfare ahead of his personal

interests).

D. He actively delegates authority to his subordinates for handling and containing any kind of crisis

(product liability claims; supply chain disruption; claims of sexual harassment by several mid-level

managers, etc.).

5 Which of the following is not an element of the planned change process?

A. Forecasting sales figures for the next year.

B. Changing the organisations structure or design.

C. Finding ways to improve the firms operational effectiveness.

D. Basing organisational change solely on the opinions of top management.

6 A strong organisational culture contributes to competitive advantage when which of the following occurs in

the firm?

A. Its organisational culture reinforces the firms long-term financial and strategic goals.

B. Its organisational culture causes resistance to change among the firms board members.

C. Its organisational culture matches the firms design.

D. The firms CEO strengthens organisational culture by using team-based rewards.

Module 9A: Managing Transitions


7 A firm has just completed a programme of intergroup development designed to improve team decision-making

processes and horizontal integration among its SDTs. This description best fits which of the following?

A. T-group training.

B. The feedback component of the survey feedback OD method.

C. The second step in the Grid OD programme.

D. Alteration of the firms job design system so that SDTs have more resources to support their

decision-making processes.

8 The organisational life-cycle theory suggests that organisational culture is which of the following?

A. It is static during the phases of a companys life cycle.

B. It is not easily managed during the maturity phase.

C. It can and should be adjusted to meet the features of a firms particular life-cycle stage.

D. It evolves with the firms design throughout the firms life cycle.

9 Which of the following may delay indefinitely a firms entering the decline stage in life-cycle theory?

A. Industry products may be on the cusp of becoming more popular, and a firm in the industry invests

in capital improvements and workforce cross-training prior to a strong market-based resurgence in

product popularity.

B. A company outsources its sales (uses a telemarketing supplier) and purchasing functions (hires a

specialised logistics firm that uses cloud-computing processes to control the flow of supplies).

C. A firm vertically integrates prior to a slowing of the rate of new product introductions by all firms in

the industry.

D. A firm responds to rising production costs by increasing capital expenditures in manufacturing

(reducing its dependence on labour and increasing marginal productivity per employee).

10 A firm uses behavioural science knowledge to improve its organisational design and manufacturing process. As

these applications unfold, the company carefully measures and records improvements in its effectiveness.

These activities best describe which of the following?

A. Developing an Internet-based learning community inside the firm.

B. Planned change.

C. Adopting a company-wide Six Sigma programme.

D. Overcoming resistance to change.


Module 1B: The Basics

1 All but one of the following would be a concern to an engineer with a high need for achievement. Which one

would not be a concern?

A. Rising customer complaints directed towards the marketing department.

B. Project delays that threaten the cost structure of his teams work.

C. Rising failure rates in a key component of a product that is under development.

D. The engineers request for increased educational support is rejected by the firm.

2 The employees willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organisation is a significant feature of which of the

following?

A. Organisational commitment.

B. Job involvement.

C. Job satisfaction.

D. Emotional component of one of his work attitudes.

3 Which of the following is correct? Over time, job satisfaction has been shown to be related to organisational

commitment because:

A. Congruence between the employees personal values and the firms mission statement and her

accumulated positive experiences with facets of job satisfaction build the basis for her long-term

organisational commitment.

B. It is a determinant of internal locus of control.

C. It is seldom related to absenteeism.

D. It is less likely to be found among rank-and-file workers.

4 Which of the following describes the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance?

A. Simple and direct.

B. Indirect and complex.

C. Unimportant to managers because satisfied workers are not motivated to perform well.

D. Very important to managers because job satisfaction is a direct, short-run cause of organisational

commitment.

5 Just prior to hiring a promising applicant, which combination of actions would most likely produce the best

personjob fit?

A. Psychometric testing and a background check.

B. Pooled multiple interviews and a realistic job preview.

C. Realistic job preview and psychometric testing.

D. Background check and phone calls to the applicants recommended previous employers.

6 Which of the following aspects of OB helps managers who must improve both operational effectiveness and

the competitive advantage of their firms?

A. How a firms strategy determines its design.

B. How transaction costs influence competition between companies and their rivals.

C. How firms influence individual and group behaviour and organisational design.

D. How firms deploy resources to quickly seize market opportunities.

Module 1B: The Basics


7 For which of the following reasons does OB focus on employees attitudes and behaviour on the job?

A. Human nature in the work setting plays a permanent and significant role in operational effectiveness,

workforce resilience and creativity and the firms strategic success (a rate of return that exceeds the

industry average rate of return).

B. The long history of unionisation in industries has created this perspective in OB.

C. OB researchers like to study how employee attitudes and behaviour influence operational effective-

ness.

D. Only the field of management focuses on the dynamics of how organisations should design adminis-

trative systems to accomplish their goals.

8 As part of a re-engineering programme, a supervisor is told that he must update his departments job

descriptions. From which of the following does his assignment originate?

A. Technical managerial work.

B. Human resources managerial work.

C. Conceptual managerial work.

D. Systems managerial work.

9 You value a manager in your unit because of his professional expertise, productivity and knowledge, and

personal ability to work effectively with customers. However, when he tries to motivate his subordinates he

comes off as abrasive and overbearing. As a result, several of his subordinates have quit in disgust. You know

that you have to relieve him of his managerial duties, but you do not want to lose him as an employee. Which

of the following choices should you select to handle this problem?

A. Try to shake him up by telling him that he is a bad manager and that he has failed in that role.

B. Try to convince him that he would be happier and more content in a non-managerial role.

C. Offer him a pressing challenge in another job and tell him that he must take it for the firms good.

D. Confront him with objective examples of his ineffective managerial style, assign him to a challenging

customer service improvement job that he can work on by himself for a specified period of time and

tell him that you expect to find valuable input from his staff members in his work.

10 A mid-level manager of an audit division asks his subordinate to treat maintenance costs as capital expenditure

during the current accounting period. As a member of the boards audit committee, you have learned of this

and you must take action. Which of the following actions would you select?

A. Inform the audit committee and ask it to initiate an independent inquiry once you have told the

CEO what you must do because you are an independent director.

B. Speak to the manager and his subordinate and tell them to stop the practice.

C. Warn the director of investor relations to be prepared to handle the problem if the practice is

leaked by a whistle-blower to the press.

D. Speak privately to the CEO so he can take action.


Module 2B: Stress and Well Being at Work

1 Which of the following sets of physiological and behavioural characteristics applies to an employee in the

advanced adaptation stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome?

A. Tardiness, work sabotage and absenteeism.

B. High blood pressure, insomnia, irritability, substance abuse and late arrivals.

C. Heart attack, severe depression, cerebral stroke.

D. Panic, anxiety and a strong urge to flee from a situation.

2 You are a manager and your boss has just told you that you must reduce costs by 25 per cent in your

department. You know that you must lay off three of your 20 highly qualified and capable employees to

achieve the cost reduction goal. You have agonised over this decision, and you have also postponed telling any

of them about the layoffs to come. Some of your otherwise friendly subordinates have noticed that you have

become more distant and short-tempered with them for no apparent reason. Your reactions are features of


A. Your experienced role demands and interpersonal demands.

B. Your hostile and insecure Type A personality.

C. Your psychological reactions to job stressors.

D. The adaptation stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome.

3 Employees are often a few minutes late for work because they want to avoid an insulting, sometimes quite

rude and temperamental manager who always takes the lift to their floor at the beginning of the work day.

Which of the following (aspects) of the stress model apply (Figure 2.2)?

A. Behavioural symptoms.

B. Psychological symptoms.

C. Type B behaviour.

D. Environmental factors.

4 Employee burnout that is triggered by numerous waves of downsizing is least likely to affect which of the

following?

A. The customisation of service for new clients.

B. Executive decisions about future layoffs.

C. Long-term customer satisfaction with service quality.

D. Peer relationships among employees remaining after the last layoff.

5 A Type B employee will perform well under which of the following circumstances?

A. She coordinates eight goals with members of her SDT and conducts mandatory goal feedback

sessions with her teammates.

B. She has the authority to set her own work pace and to inspect her own work for its defects.

C. Her boss exerts external control by telling her which goals she should pursue and the methods she

should use to achieve them.

D. She is surrounded by non-hostile Type A colleagues who exhort her to higher levels of work

achievement.

6 A manager feels stuck, bored and dissatisfied with her work. Despite this state of mind, she continues to

receive praise and recognition for her excellent performance on the job. Which of the following choices

reflects her best course action?

A. She should join a fitness centre and hire a personal trainer to design a physical fitness programme

for her.

B. She should realise that her sense of frustration and boredom comes from the fact that she has

accomplished all that she can in relation to her current position and its responsibilities, (she may

have hit a glass ceiling that limits her upward hierarchical mobility).

C. She should redouble her efforts in her current position and make the best of a bad situation.

D. She should seek outside-the-job activities that she finds to be personally rewarding.

Module 2B: Stress and Well Being at Work


7 Alex Preston felt he had landed his dream job when he started work as a financial analyst at the age of 23.

After 15 years in the business he experienced severe job burnout brought on by a mixture of depression and

anxiety. He was drawn to the security of a wireless telephone company job, but a careers counsellor told him

that he had an entrepreneurial streak and should start a business. Which of the following choices is best for

Alex at this point in his life?

A. Take the phone company job and stay out of the investment industry fast lane.

B. Try to find another job as an analyst in the financial services industry.

C. Start a small investment firm specialising in personal financial management for a limited number of

high-net-worth clients.

D. Put off any decision by going back to school to earn an MBA degree.

The next three questions are related.

8 Phillip has been an engineer at ValueSync for five years. Last year he agreed to manage a project designed to

streamline a new logistics application for his firms customer ordering systems. Lately he has been working 14-

hour days to de-bug the system and make it part of ValueSyncs cloud-computing offerings. One of his

problems is the nagging thought that several key higher-level managers have failed to clarify their project

expectations and they have not expressed their personal commitment to the project to him. Which of the

following choices best reflects Phillips predicament?

A. Role conflict.

B. Role ambiguity.

C. Low instrumentality.

D. Insufficient financial rewards for entrepreneurship.

9 This question is a continuation of Phillips dilemma illustrated in the previous question. Phillip realises that his

new customer ordering system will affect every department and business process in clients firms, from

accounting to manufacturing and marketing, and that many of the employees in those firms will have to adjust

to it. The client companies primary users have not yet been briefed on the new logistics system and how it

works from the cloud-computing base. The job of telling various departments that they are required to use the

new system has fallen on Phillips team, but upper management has yet to schedule the meetings or to make

the necessary client introductions for Phillips engineers. Which of the following choices best reflects Phillips

problem?

A. Insufficient job experience.

B. Role underload.

C. An excess of responsibility over authority.

D. Unwillingness by Phillip to assume extra, temporary responsibility to complete the project.

10 This question is the final instalment of Phillips dilemma (see the previous two questions). With respect to the

problems described, which of the following choices should Phillip make?

A. Demand to be relieved of his project duties as soon as a replacement manager has been found to

take over the logistics project.

B. Say nothing to his superiors and peers and try to meet the looming and inevitable client demands for

clarification, scheduling and training.

C. Look for a new job with another firm as quickly as possible.

D. Approach the vice president of marketing and sales and ask him to become personally involved in

setting up the post design phase of the logistics project.


Module 3B: Theories of Motivation

1 Which of the following is a schedule of reinforcement that produces job behaviour with the lowest

persistence, strength and durability compared with the three remaining choices?

A. Fixed interval.

B. Fixed ratio.

C. Variable interval.

D. Variable ratio.

2 You supervise a group of telemarketing specialists who conduct sales work over the phone. Which of the

following reinforcement schedules will produce the highest level of job performance among the employees?

A. Continuous.

B. Fixed ratio.

C. Fixed interval.

D. Variable ratio.

3 One of your employees is chronically late to work. Instead of punishing her, you decide to try extinction.

Which of the following would you select?

A. Ignore her tardiness for a while.

B. Criticise her in front of her peers.

C. Give her the sack.

D. Encourage her co-workers to ignore her tardiness.

4 A manager using behavioural shaping to raise her employees performance would do which of the following?

A. She would start by demanding extremely effective performance from them.

B. She would gradually raise performance requirements while liberally using praise and performance

feedback with them.

C. She would reward them after a given number of successful performance behaviours.

D. She would urge other more senior employees to become mentors to the newer employees.

5 A company has a strict policy forbidding employees to accept gifts from vendors. A specialist in purchasing

with 15 years of job experience is caught accepting bribes from a major vendor. His boss should choose which

of the following?

A. Discipline the employee and initiate an ethics training programme in purchasing.

B. Ignore the problem and hope that it goes away.

C. Give the employee the sack.

D. Give the employee a written reprimand that goes in his personnel file.

6 The use of employee engagement to design a BMod programme in the firms production unit represents which

of the following?

A. Creating numerous opportunities for high Machs to manipulate the behaviour of their co-workers.

B. The strengthening of employees lower-order need satisfaction.

C. Improving employees understanding of task and performance requirements and improving their line

of sight.

D. Giving employees power over basic decisions concerning work methods and outcomes.

Module 3B: Theories of Motivation


7 A manager who has a strong socialised need for power and who is widely recognised as a problem solver

would be most likely to:

A. reserve all key decisions for herself and quickly inform her subordinates once she has reached a

decision.

B. delegate to subordinates those decisions that improve the harmony and cooperativeness among her

units employees.

C. create as many goals as possible for her unit employees.

D. delegate to employees tasks (or goals) that have a high potential to lift her units operational

effectiveness and simultaneously create rewards and work assignments that boost her employees

line of sight.

8 After repeated downsizings in a department, the employees who are left are demoralised. Many of them

continue to visit their old co-workers at the local pub after work hours. These reactions on the part of the

employees who managed to keep their jobs are an example of which of the following?

A. Their low organisational commitment.

B. Their high dissatisfaction with co-worker relations.

C. Their dissatisfaction with company policies and work procedures.

D. The lack of fulfilment of their social and belongingness need.

9 A manager of a global sales division of a UK firm learns that three of his salesmen in South Africa have been

offering bribes to customers who agree to give the firms products preferential treatment. These arrangements

have significantly boosted sales. The manager is highly irritated because the three salesmen have not included

him in this scheme (he thinks he deserves a piece of the action). The manager threatens to expose the three

salesmen if they do not give him a kickback. The bosss behaviour springs from which set of principles shown

below?

A. Not understanding the hot stove rule; having socialised need for power; using too much punish-

ment.

B. Creating ineffective mentorprotg relationships; delegating too much authority to subordinates;

an out-of-date corporate mission statement.

C. Being stuck in the preconventional stage of moral development; personalised need for power; high-

Mach tendency; negatively reinforcing subordinates.

D. Punishing employees; Theory X practices; failing to practise employee engagement; low growth-need

strength.

10 A manager takes the time to clearly explain performance expectations and work methods to his new

employees. He also uses senior members of the department to act as on-the-job trainers to improve their skill

sets through extensive cross-training. These two actions will most quickly influence which of the following?

A. The expectancies of the new employees.

B. Satisfaction with co-worker relationships among the senior and junior members of the unit.

C. Organisational commitment of the new employees.

D. The overall quality of the units performance.


Module 4B: Organisational Control and Reward Systems

1 Which of the following is emphasised as the principal basis for traditional pay systems?

A. Entitlement (aspects such as tenure, experience or socio-economic class).

B. Individual performance (merit-based rewards).

C. Profit sharing based on the firms end-of-year net income.

D. Cooperative (group) rather than individual (merit) performance.

2 Which of the following class of rewards best links to employees having the opportunity to participate in

decision making and to perform a variety of job activities?

A. Non-financial rewards.

B. Intrinsic rewards.

C. Indirect compensation.

D. Indirect intrinsic rewards.

3 Which choice among the following should you use to complete the sentence? Pay systems based on ____

encourage the greatest performance improvement among the largest number of employees.

A. non-financial rewards

B. goals established through employee engagement

C. effortperformance and performancereward probabilities

D. need for achievement and intrinsic rewards

4 For executive compensation strategies to be most effective from a shareholder perspective, they should link

the CEOs pay (and the executive team members pay) to which of the following?

A. The firms total market capitalisation, the levels of customer satisfaction achieved, and the stocks

earnings per share relative to the industrys top-performing company.

B. No more than 12 times the average pay of the companys production-level employees.

C. Gains in the value of stock options granted by the board of directors.

D. Average compensation of CEOs in the companys industry group.

5 Which of the following would create the most favourable response from employees who have an internal

locus of control and a strong achievement motive?

A. Challenging work goals and merit-based rewards.

B. The all-salaried team concept.

C. Accumulating time off (with pay) for excellent performance.

D. A mix of open and closed salary information.

6 Shareholders should be concerned with which of the following with respect to employee compensation?

A. The extent to which the compensation plan improves the strategic and financial performance of the

company.

B. The extent to which employees understand the compensation plan.

C. The extent to which the compensation plan retains highly creative employees.


7 The broadest reason for conducting a timely salary survey is which of the following?

A. It is done internally by the firm to ensure that employees perceive the pay system to be fair.

B. It is done outside the company to ensure that new employees are hired at the proper entry-level

salaries and current employees are being fairly compensated for their contributions.

C. It is done to ensure that the CEOs compensation is consistent with that of his industry peers.

D. It is done to ensure that the nature of the work matches the level of compensation.

Module 4B: Organisational Control and Reward Systems


8 The successful start-up of a gainsharing programme relies most heavily on which of the following sets of

features?

A. History of effective labourmanagement relations; a pattern of openness with employees about

productivity enhancement; and employee cross-training in operating systems.

B. New product development; bonuses for entrepreneurial employees; and team-based rewards.

C. Rising earnings per share; lowered production costs and low employee turnover.

D. All-salaried work teams; participative decision making; and a history of sharing cost savings with

employees.

9 Profit-sharing plans differ from gainsharing plans in which of the following ways?

A. They require employees to find ways to enhance operational effectiveness.

B. They depend on increases in product prices or increases in the companys market share (greater

sales volume at a given price) to ensure that employees receive profit-sharing bonuses.

C. They produce and sustain employee line of sight.

D. They require employees to find ways to cut the costs of production.

10 Two-tiered reward systems motivate employees to achieve high individual performance as well as unit and firm

goals. In which of the following situations would a two-tiered reward system work best?

A. A team of workers perform mutually exclusive tasks that are independent of the work of other

teams.

B. A team of workers have mutual distrust of each other.

C. Work tasks are woven together and all team members must coordinate closely with their team-

mates as the teams work unfolds (e.g. like a team of firefighters putting out a blaze).

D. Competition among workers is encouraged and fostered.


Module 5B: Job Design

1 Applying the Job Characteristics Model to the task of improving individual employees job designs will have the

most long-term benefit if which of the following has occurred?

A. Higher-order needs were first addressed by increasing the availability of extrinsic rewards.

B. All six core job dimensions were built into redesigned jobs for employees who tested as having high

growth-need strength and who performed jobs with low motivating potential.

C. Employees growth-need strength was assessed after the jobs had been redesigned.

D. Task identity was assessed by outside experts.

2 Which of the following applies to managers who have jobs that are rich in all core job dimensions?

A. They have high growth-need strength.

B. They view their jobs as being only horizontally loaded.

C. They perceive and experience their jobs as having high motivating potential.

D. They are more satisfied than managers whose jobs have been downsized.

3 Two managers and their 12 subordinates have the authority to completely redesign their work processes and

duties as medical bills analysts in hospital. Which of the following principles of job redesign would these

employees be using?

A. Designing a performance feedback system to track their performance.

B. Altering unit work flow patterns and individuals work schedules.

C. Redesigning their work to fit a flexitime system.


4 Which of the following combination of factors will most quickly cause managers to consider the benefits of job

redesign?

A. Workforce diversity, downsizing and increased global competition.

B. More difficult union negotiations, more complex labour laws and lower retirement ages.

C. Rising technological complexity, rising job hindrance stress and more employee-initiated (voluntary)

job turnover.

D. Shareholder demands, strategic planning and migration of capital to the industrys most profitable

firms (the target firms market capitalisation is in long-term decline).

5 Sociotechnical systems theory STS (the Tavistock Institute) can best be thought of as which of the

following?

A. A theory of cultural integration of workforce management practices.

B. A theory based on empirical research that predicts how the interpersonal and technical aspects of

work will affect individuals as well as their work teams.

C. A theoretical refinement of scientific management.

D. A theory that extends BMod to job redesign.

6 An autonomous work group most closely resembles which of the following?

A. A self-directed team that is responsible for its members cross-training and other personnel

decisions (performance appraisal, work scheduling and internal decision making).

B. A group of individual workers who are being phased through a job rotation scheme.

C. Telecommuters who come into the office based on a predetermined schedule.

D. Employees who work at remote sites but who are connected by Apples iCloud and Skype.

Module 5B: Job Design


7 Which of the following choices could cause an SDT to fail?

A. A manager uses sensitivity training to improve the work climate in the SDT.

B. A team gets the authority to plan, organise and control its work system.

C. A pay system is altered so that member pay is a partial reflection of the teams performance (team

bonuses reflect a partial pay-at-risk practice in the firm).

D. An upper managers job is altered to give her responsibility for maintaining horizontal integration in

the firms inter-team network.

8 Which of the following responsibilities is least likely to be performed by an SDT?

A. Evaluation of each team members performance using peer appraisals.

B. Monitoring member performance and taking appropriate action.

C. Application of Six Sigma principles to all aspects of the teams work production activities.


9 The use of SDTs is strongly associated with firms having which of the following?

A. A responsive organisational design that stresses workforce flexibility and versatility.

B. Job designs that contain less hindrance stress for employees.

C. Elimination of jobs based on scientific management.

D. Improved worklife balance programmes for Generation X and Millennial employees.

10 A decentralised System 4 organisation most resembles which of the following?

A. A company that relies heavily on piece-rate pay systems in production.

B. A company that expands middle management to gain more control over operations.

C. A company that delayers middle management and replaces it with SDTs.

D. A company that practises cross-training and flexitime throughout its operations.


Module 6B: Work Group Dynamics

1 Which of the following can be de-emphasised by managers during the earliest stage of work group or SDT

development?

A. Authority.

B. Reward distribution.

C. Trustworthiness.

D. Acceptance.

2 Forming goals and objectives and assigning tasks to members with various skills occur during which of the

following stage of work group development?

A. Norming.

B. Performing.

C. Forming.

D. Storming.

3 Having all work groups remain permanently set in stage 4 (performing) in an enterprise is which of the

following?

A. A long-term solution to maintaining operational effectiveness and competitive advantage.

B. Unrealistic and probably unattainable.

C. A feature of a System 4 organisation.

D. A way for the organisation to retain its flexibility and speed in problem solving.

4 A work team should do all but which of the following to encourage member creativity?

A. Design a process to separate the generation of ideas from their evaluation.

B. Blame failures on individual team members.

C. Loosely supervise the work and activities of members.

D. Provide a flexible role structure in the team.

5 A team decision-making approach that quickly increases the number of alternatives is which of the following?

A. Brainstorming.

B. Hyperdelphi technique.

C. VroomYetton decision-making process.

D. Semi-autonomous work team.

6 Which of the following is not a maintenance activity in an SDT?

A. Harmonising conflicts.

B. Elaborating concepts.

C. Expressing members feelings.

D. Discussing ways to attract new members.

7 Which of the following actions do not help a mature SDT make a contribution to the firms competitive

advantage?

A. Emphasising task activities more than maintenance activities.

B. Eliminating the connection between the SDTs rewards and measurement of its success or failure in

helping the firm achieve its strategic goals.

C. Replacing retired or transferred team members.

D. Balancing or matching team-based rewards and individual members rewards.

Module 6B: Work Group Dynamics


8 When the quality requirement of a team decision is very important and the task is highly unstructured, the

appropriate team decision-making style (the one the team leader should use) is which of the following?

A. Participatory, with the team striving for consensus based on collaboration.

B. Consultative, with the leader making the decision alone.

C. Autocratic: the boss makes the decision without any team member input.

D. Autocratic, but the boss first solicits opinions from members before he renders a decision.

9 Collaborative approaches to intra-team conflict resolution should be used when which of the following occurs?

A. Team members are skilled at evaluating ideas as soon as they are suggested by other members.

B. Team members prefer to seek the best solution to a mutual problem instead of a solution that

favours one point of view.

C. No criteria are developed to measure the quality and acceptability of the teams decision.

D. A team is able to quickly jump from tentative solutions to an acceptable outcome.

10 A board of directors has advanced five zero-interest, unsecured loans to the firms CEO (who also founded

the business and handpicked the boards members). The CEO has richly rewarded his board members with

generous grants of stock options. He has repeatedly told them that all firms routinely make zero-interest loans

to their CEOs as well as other top executives. Several board members are uncomfortable with these deci-

sions, but they fail to speak up in meetings when the loans are discussed. Their silence is most likely the result

of which of the following?

A. The board is a highly cohesive group and the members in question do not wish to jeopardise their

membership and the perquisites that they enjoy.

B. If they were to disagree with the boards decisions about the loans, it would undermine the boards

effectiveness in more important strategic decision-making areas.

C. The silent board members have no reason to feel uncomfortable because making such loans is a

widespread industry practice.

D. The CEO determines and enforces the norms that govern the behaviour of board members.


Module 7B: The Influence Process

1 Complete the following sentence from one of the options below. A manager who has strong professional

standards and widely recognised expertise power is more likely to ____ when she believes her superior wants

her to engage in a business practice that she believes will violate one or more of her instrumental or terminal

values.

A. defeat her boss by encouraging line and staff conflict

B. create a coalition of peer managers who also disagree with her bosss actions

C. blow the whistle on her boss

D. manage upward to gain influence with her boss

2 Which of the following is the best example of leaders transformational behaviour?

A. Using rewards and punishments to influence employee behaviour.

B. Exercising legitimate power to reduce the budgets of the firms worldwide productions facilities.

C. Delegating authority to subordinates to handle an emerging crisis in product liability claims.

D. Detecting a change in customer expectations and adding a breakthrough product that creates a

new industry (social networking would be an example of this).

3 Which of the following is not a facet of the leaders initiating structure behaviour?

A. Organising the sequence of subordinates tasks.

B. Encouraging respect and trust among subordinates by launching a series of after-work problem-

solving sessions at the local pub.

C. Providing informal and regular work performance feedback to new members of her SDT.

D. Rotating new members of an SDT through all team positions to complete their cross-training.

4 An SDT is under time pressure, its task is ambiguous and the team has not yet set metrics to measure its

progress in designing a new web app requested by the director of engineering. Under these conditions, team

member satisfaction would be highest under which of the leadership styles shown below?

A. Initiating structure.

B. Consideration behaviour coupled with coercive power aimed at quickly creating the teams metrics.

C. Intense initiating structure behaviour from the boss followed by less intense task-oriented behaviour

once the team becomes successful.

D. A strong interpersonal role emphasis to encourage the formation of effort and performance norms

in the SDT.

5 Which of the following should be used to determine the appropriate leadership style according to Fiedlers

contingency theory?

A. Leaders personality.

B. Leaders dominant behavioural style.

C. Leaders locus of control.

D. Features of the situation confronting the leader.

6 Which of the following choices should be used to complete this sentence? The Fiedler contingency theory of

leadership would advocate ____ to preserve a favourable match between the leaders style (as indicated by

her LPC score) and the situation she faces.

A. altering the leaders personality

B. skill training for the leader

C. re-engineering the situation the leader faces

D. more consideration behaviour on the leaders part

Module 7B: The Influence Process


7 Houses pathgoal leadership theory proposes a leadership style of supporting employees when which of the

following occurs?

A. Their task is structured and they are highly skilled and experienced relative to the job at hand.

B. Their task is structured and they are unskilful (not cross-trained) and inexperienced (new on the job

or new in relation to the task at hand).

C. The task is unstructured and they are skilful and experienced.

D. The task is unstructured and they are unskilful and inexperienced.

8 A leader who uses non-contingent punishment and reward behaviours will:

I. increase the rate of turnover and absenteeism among employees who experience inequity in their social

comparisons.

II. lower employees instrumentalities (damage line of sight) and reduce their level of performance.

III. have no effect on employees job satisfaction.

Which of the following is correct?

A. I only.

B. II only.

C. III only.

D. Both I and II

9 Entrepreneurship in large companies depends on which of the following?

A. Encouraging employees to exploit opportunities; assuring employees that they will not be punished

for failure; keeping salaries (and perhaps bonuses too) in line with innovative successes; and making

quick decisions to implement employees innovative ideas.

B. Paying all employees in technical jobs the same; designing a team-based approach to innovation; and

assigning senior executives as mentors to new employees.

C. Emphasising customer service; small production teams and good labourmanagement relations

(Theory Y practices).

D. Providing rewards to employees for their innovations; rotating employees among jobs; and training

leaders to exhibit consideration behaviour.

10 Two second-generation owners of a 20 million maker of medical-device components forced out their

recently hired, non-family member CEO because they opposed his growth strategy for the firm. The brothers

had told the outsider CEO that they favoured his approach when they hired him on a handshake three years

ago. Which of the following was most likely the mistake made by the outsider CEO?

A. He should have involved the brothers in the development of his growth strategy for their firm.

B. He should have tried to appoint more outsiders to the board of directors as soon as he was hired.

C. He should have negotiated a formal, written contract that specified his duties and outlined his

growth strategy.

D. He should have insisted on a specific organisational structure to operationalise his growth strategy

before he took the job.


Module 8B: Organisational Design

1 Which of the following is correct? A firm has a product divisional design with geographic (territory) emphasis

to reflect variations in customer preferences caused by geographic and cultural differences. The best way for

this company to ensure a stream of continued product and service successes without changing its business

model would be to____.

A. create SDTs throughout the company

B. set up selected matrix-based units designed to build/create new product characteristics and service

offerings that match changes in customer expectations

C. require all production-level employees to work under a piece-rate pay system

D. install an MBO programme in the firm

2 A firm outsourced the manufacturing of several products and the field repair work that goes with them. At the

same time it pulled back under corporate headquarters control the formerly outsourced functions of manage-

ment information systems and human resources. These two actions reflect which of the following?

A. Decentralisation followed by recentralisation.

B. Functional design embedded in a service improvement orientation.

C. Increased goal focus and management by objectives.

D. Specialisation and division of labour.

3 Shortening product and company life cycles place considerable emphasis on which of the following?

A. More formalisation in hierarchical control.

B. Creating an organisational design that emphasises flexibility and responsiveness.

C. Designing the organisation to be mechanistic.

D. More specialisation and standardisation in job designs.

4 Data analytics and cloud-based firms operating on the Internet as virtual organisations should meet which of

the following sets of demands?

A. Lower client demands for horizontal and vertical coordination than bricks-and-mortar rivals.

B. Lower client demands for customer service than their bricks-and-mortar rivals.

C. Higher client demands for extremely responsive and effective horizontal and vertical integration (the

business environment is extremely unstable due to very short product and service life cycles; e.g.

clients demand nearly instantaneous improvements

h 17 ob assessments

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