Mgmt 480

Summer II

Your Name:_______________________________
Exam 3 Take-Home Version

Directions put all your answers on this examination. There is no penalty for guessing.
You must hand in a printed copy of your completed exam at the start of class Monday,
July 21, 2008.
1. All teams are groups, but some types of groups are not teams.
a. true
b. false
2. Under stressful or dangerous conditions, people are more likely to stay together than
disperse, even when the other people are strangers.
a. true
b. false
3. Team effectiveness refers to how well a team accomplishes its objectives for the
organization, even if this undermines the teams ability to survive for future tasks.
a. true
b. false
4. Teams are generally more effective when the task is complex and lacks definition.
a. true
b. false
5. Employees working in a department would be considered a team only when:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

they operate without any supervisor.

everyone in the department has the same set of skills.
they directly interact with each other and coordinate work activities.
they are all located in the same physical area.
all of these conditions exist.

6. Royal Dutch/Shell Group formed a team to improve revenues for its service stations
along major highways in Malaysia. This team, which included a service station dealer, a
union truck driver and four or five marketing executives, disbanded after it had reviewed
the Malaysian service stations and submitted a business plan. The Malaysian group is
called:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

a friendship group.
a commuter group.
an informal group.
a community of practice.
task force.

7. According to social identity theory:

a: teams are never as productive as individuals working alone.
b: the most effective teams have as many members as the organization can afford.
c: the team development process occurs more rapidly for heterogeneous teams than for
homogeneous teams.
d: people are motivated to become members of groups that are similar to themselves.
e: team members identify with their team only when they are publicly recognized as members
of that team.

8. Which of he following is NOT a stage of team development?

a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

performing
storming
norming
conforming
forming

9. What generally occurs during the storming stage of team development?

a: Members learn about each other and evaluate the benefits and costs of continued
membership.
b: Members shift their attention away from task orientation to a socioemotional focus as they
realize their relationship is coming to an end.
c: Members have learned to coordinate their actions and now become more task-oriented.
d: Members develop their first real sense of cohesion and, through disclosure and feedback,
make an effort to understand and accept each other.
e: Members try to assume specific responsibilities and influence the teams goals and means of
goal attainment.

10. Self-directed work teams are typically responsible for a specialized skill, such as
accounting or maintenance.
a. true
b. false

11. The shift from production to knowledge-based work has resulted in fewer virtual
teams than in the past.
a. true
b. false
12. Production blocking causes team members to pay less attention to the conversation
or to forget their own ideas.
a. true
b. false
13. The nominal group technique tends to produce more and better ideas than do
traditional interacting groups.
a. true
b. false
14. Which of the following explains how self-directed work teams should be designed?
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

Open book management

Team building
Sociotechnical systems theory
Bounded rationality
Expectancy theory

15. According to sociotechnical systems theory, autonomy is:

a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

one of the four main conditions for self-directed work teams.

the main reason why self-directed work teams fail.
the main source of groupthink.
a key variance.
the most common reason why self-directed work teams lack joint optimization

16. Virtual teams are best described as:

a: groups of employees who are almost (virtually) identical to each other in skills and values.
b: cross-functional groups of employees that operate across space, time and organizational
boundaries.
c: formal work teams in which most members do not feel that they are really part of the team.
d: informal groups that meet only in cyberspace.
e: groups of employees from different departments who are located near each other.

17. To improve the team development and cohesiveness of virtual teams, the textbook
recommends that:
a: the team should have as many members as the company can afford.
b: team members should avoid communicating with each other after the task has been discussed
at the beginning of the project.
c: team members should meet face-to-face, particularly when the team is formed.
d: the team should rely only on one communication medium, such as email.
e: The textbook states that virtual teams do not require any action to improve their development
or cohesiveness.

18. Which of the following statements about nominal group technique is FALSE?
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

It overcomes the problem of evaluation apprehension.

Some production blocking problems still occur.
Participants feel less team cohesiveness than in traditional decision-making groups.
It tends to keep team members focused on the task.
Although the team is called nominal, participants still meet face-to-face.

19. Legitimate power is an agreement between people that one person has the right to
request specific behaviors from the other person.
a. true
b. false
20. First-line supervisors may have legitimate, reward and coercive sources of power,
but their actual power is often limited by a lack of discretion.
a. true
b. false
21. Networking is a form of influence that tends to increase the individuals expert and
referent power.
a. true
b. false
22. One feature of influence is that it operates down the corporate hierarchy but not up or
across that hierarchy.
a. true
b. false

23. Counterpower refers to:

a: a second source of power held by the power holder in case the main source of power is
ineffective.
b: the initial feeling of power employees experience when they are given more freedom and
control over their jobs.
c: the capacity to keep someone who is more powerful than you in the exchange relationship.
d: a method of measuring the number of times an employee uses his or her power each day.
e: the ability of a person or department to gain more power through unethical organizational
politics.

24. As organizations rely increasingly on knowledge rather than on machines and

physical resources as the means of production, employees:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

are gaining expert power in the workplace.

are losing any power in the labor market.
are gaining more referent power in the workplace.
are becoming more tolerant of their bosss legitimate power.
are becoming less willing to use organizational politics to get their way.

25. Which of the following would potentially increase someones power through nonsubstitutability?
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

Avoiding documenting unique knowledge about organizational processes.

Increasing the number of people affected by your work.
Increasing the amount of autonomy granted to you to accomplish your work.
Using impression management strategies to increase your popularity with colleagues.
All of these.

26. Employees who engage in networking tend to:

a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

be less powerful in the long run.

develop their referent power.
have a low level of Machiavellianism.
develop their legitimate power.
develop both their referent and legitimate power.

27. _______ is part of a larger influence tactic called _______.

a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

Persuasion, upward influence

Ingratiation, impression management
Upward appeal, persuasion
Persuasion, ingratiation
Impression management, persuasion

28. Conflict begins whenever both parties realize that they have opposing interests.
a. true
b. false
29. When conflict reduces each sides motivation to communicate, they rely more on
stereotypes to reinforce their perceptions of the other side.
a. true
b. false
30. The yielding conflict management style is preferred when both parties have equal
power and enough trust to share information.
a. true
b. false
31. Constructive conflict exists:
a: when the conflict is viewed as a personal attack on each person in the relationship.
b: when an employee disagrees with his or her supervisor regarding what tasks should be
performed as part of the job.
c: when the conflict is emotionally charged.
d: when all of these exist.
e: when none of these exists.

32. Incompatible goals, differentiation and ambiguous rules are:

a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

indicators of effectiveness in third-party conflict resolution.

situational influences on negotiations.
sources of potential conflict.
strategies used in the inquisition approach to third-party conflict resolution.
none of these.

33. Which of the following sources of conflict is typically associated with mergers and
acquisitions?
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

Task interdependence
Differentiation
Goal incompatibility
Scarce resources
Ambiguity

34. Conflict potential tends to be higher with the organizations cultural diversity
because employees:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

have differing values and beliefs.

have less task interdependence.
no longer have a superordinate goal.
have more communication problems.
both differing values and beliefs as well as more communication problems.

35. Which of the following actions does NOT reduce conflict between employees and
work teams?
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

Reducing the amount of task interdependence.

Increasing the resources available.
Clarifying the responsibilities and authority of each employee.
Encouraging employees to emphasize departmental rather than organizational goals.
Requiring employees to learn more about each other in special sessions.

36. For everyday disputes between two employees, managers should use ______ as a
third-party intervention:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

inquisition
mediation
arbitration
retaliation
negotiation

37. Integrator roles increase informal communication as a coordinating mechanism.

a. true
b. false

38. Todays educated and individualistic workforce is less tolerant of coordination

through formal hierarchy.
a. true
b. false
39. Organizations tend to become less formalized as they age and grow in number of
employees.
a. true
b. false
40. To increase work efficiency and make it easier to match employee competencies with
job requirements, companies tend to:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

divide work into more specialized jobs.

rely on formal hierarchy as a coordinating mechanism.
rely on a narrow span of control.
centralize decision making.
rely on formal hierarchy AND a narrow span of control.

41. When work activities are too complex to standardize through procedures or goals,
companies often coordinate work effort:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

through direct supervision.

by extensively training employees.
by giving one employee most of the tasks previously divided among many people.
through further division of labor.
through formal hierarchy.

42. Candoo Ltd will soon flatten its hierarchy by removing two of the five layers of
management. If the number of employees in the organization remains constant, which of
the following must also occur?
a: It must adopt a matrix form of departmentalization.
b: It must widen the span of control.
c: It must rely more on direct supervision than standardization to coordinate the resulting
structure.
d: It must centralize decision making.
e: All of these must occur.

43. Organizational and environmental complexity pushes organizations towards:

a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

formalization.
a more mechanistic structure.
decentralization.
a simple structure.
all of these structural forms.

44. Employees are most likely to experience empowerment (least likely to experience
powerlessness) when the organization has:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

high centralization.
high formalization.
a mechanistic structure.
low formalization.
a divisionalized structure.

45. Organizational culture is the basic pattern of shared assumptions, values and artifacts
considered to be the correct way of thinking about and acting on problems and
opportunities facing the organization.
a. true
b. false
46. Organizational stories support organizational culture by providing social
prescriptions of the ways things should or should not be done around the organization.
a. true
b. false
47. One problem with a strong organizational culture is that it increases conflict among
employees within the company and makes it more difficult for them to understand each
other.
a. true
b. false

48. Tsunami Ltd. hired a consultant to assess the corporate culture of Wise Widgets,
which Tsunami wanted to acquire. Executives at Wise Widgets were eager to be acquired
by Tsunami, so were willing to have its senior executives interviewed by the consultant
regarding the companys culture. The consultant also relied heavily on news releases and
other public relations statements produced by executives at Wise Widgets to decipher the
companys culture. In this situation, the consultant probably is measuring Wise
Widgetss:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

counterculture.
socialization process.
dominant culture.
assumptions.
The consultant is measuring none of these.

49. Organizations with an adaptive corporate culture:

a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

are unlikely to survive in the long run.

are focused outwardly on customers and others outside the organization rather than inwardly.
tend to be less ethical that organizations with non-adaptive cultures.
have no artifacts to keep their culture in place.
are focused inward to employee needs.

50. When should organizations use reality shock?

a. When they want employees to develop better expectations of future work experiences.
b. When they want to ensure that employees develop a stronger loyalty to the organization.
c. When they want to help newcomers develop a stronger bond with coworkers and the
organization.
d. Under all of these conditions.
e. Never; companies should minimize reality shock.

51. Which type of socialization agent usually provides new employees with technical
information, performance feedback, and information about job duties?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

Coworkers
Supervisors
Senior executives
Subordinates
A one-day orientation session held within the first month of employment.

52. The pre-employment stage of organizational socialization is more effective when:

a. employers are able to avoid forming a psychological contract.
b. employers and job applicants are able to give and receive accurate information about each
other.
c. employers and applicants experience reality shock when meeting each other for the first time.
d. job applicants are able to distort their resume and thereby be offered employment.
e. all of these conditions exist.

53. In force field analysis, stability occurs when the driving forces and restraining forces
are roughly of equal strength in opposite directions.
a. true
b. false
54. Direct costs, fear of the unknown, and incongruent organizational systems are all
sources of resistance to change.
a. true
b. false
55. Successful change requires a well-articulated and appealing vision of the desired
future state.
a. true
b. false
56. The concepts of unfreezing and refreezing the system are mainly represented in:
a:
b:
c:
d:
e:

action research.
Lewins force field model.
appreciative inquiry.
customer-driven change.
the diffusion of change process.

57. Often left out of the usual 3-part unfreezing/refreezing system change models are
these two important parts:
a. rewards, coercion
b. solidification, crystallization
c. diagnosis, evaluation
d. explanation, clarification
58. A company must undergo changes. A senior manager in that company who is
responsible for the conditions that now need changing is called:
a.
b.
c.
d.

big alligator
hanging judge
little alligator
high exalter

59. Which statement below seems closest to Lindbloms notion of management being the
art and science of muddling through?
a. planful purpose in the company is an illusion due to retrospective rationality
b. managers need to stick to the tried and true recipes to be successful
c. often managers have to make decisions and take action when there is no clear
blueprint for what to do
d. managers earn the big bucks by knowing more workable management recipes than
other employees
60. This is the last question on the last test I have to suffer through in HBO this Summer
2008.
a.
b.
c.
d.

true
true
true
true