Deck 1: Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior

Question 1

Research indicates that baby boomers and Generation-X employees bring the same values and expectations to the workplace.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Contingent work is any employment arrangement where the individual's pay is contingent on the amount of output produced.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Globalization may have both positive and negative implications for people working in organizations.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Teleworking forces employers to evaluate employee performance based on 'face time' rather than work output.

Question 5

All organizations have a collective sense of purpose,even though this purpose might not be fully understood or agreed upon.

Question 6

Contingent work allows companies to more closely match the employment levels to product or service demand.

Question 7

Research has revealed that the percentage of people in contingent work has decreased over the past two decades.

Question 8

Organizational behavior knowledge helps us to understand,predict and influence organizational events.

Question 9

Employability means that employees are expected to manage their own careers by developing competencies that will keep them employed in the future.

Question 10

An important principle in organizational behavior is that OB theories should never be used to predict or influence organizational events.

Question 11

Generation-X and Generation-Y expectations are causing employers to reduce hierarchy and command-and-control management.

Question 12

Evidence indicates that applying organizational behavior knowledge tends to improve the organization's financial performance.

Question 13

Contingent work includes freelance contractors and workers from temporary staffing agencies.

Question 14

Scholars have been studying organizational behavior since the days of Greek philosophers.

Question 15

In order for something to be called an organization it must have buildings and equipment.

Question 16

Successful teleworkers tend to be self-motivated and are able to fulfill their social needs outside of the work context.

Question 17

Social entities are called organizations only when their members have complete agreement on the goals they want to achieve.

Question 18

Within the next 50 years,it is expected that one in two Americans will be Hispanics.

Question 19

Education is a primary category of demographic diversity.

Question 20

Workforce diversity potentially improves decision making and team performance on complex tasks.

Question 21

One reason why workplace values have become more important is that employees increasingly value command-and-control direct supervision.

Question 22

Industrial engineering is one of the few disciplines that have not made any contribution to organizational behavior knowledge.

Question 23

Organizations have a dynamic capability when they are able to change their outputs and transformational process that produce those outputs.

Question 24

The open systems perspective emphasizes that organizations survive by adapting to changes in the external environment.

Question 25

Virtual teams rely on information technology to keep team members connected to each other.

Question 26

Stakeholders are shareholders,customers,suppliers,governments and any other groups with a vested interest in the organization.

Question 27

Psychology and sociology have contributed many theories and concepts to the field of organizational behavior.

Question 28

Most organizational events may be studied from all three levels of analysis: individual,team and organization.

Question 29

Ethics refers to the study of moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right or wrong and outcomes are good or bad.

Question 30

Communications and information systems are two emerging fields from which organizational behavior is now acquiring knowledge.

Question 31

According to the systems perspective,most organizations have one working part rather than many sub-components.

Question 32

As organizations grow,they tend to develop more subsystems and relationships among them become more complex.

Question 33

The "triple bottom line" philosophy says that successful organizations focus on financial performance three times more often than do less successful organizations.

Question 34

The field of organizational behavior relies on quantitative--never qualitative--research to understand organizational phenomena.

Question 35

A team's "virtualness" depends on how often and how many team members interact face-to-face or at a distance.

Question 36

Values have a strong influence on our priorities,our preferences and our desires.

Question 37

The contingency anchor in organizational behavior suggests that we need to diagnose the situation to identify the most appropriate action under those specific circumstances.

Question 38

The best organizational practices are those built on the notion that organizations are closed systems.

Question 39

Globalization has increased the importance of values in the workplace.

Question 40

Values represent an individual's short term beliefs about what will happen in the future.

Question 41

Parental status,work style,relation and income are:

A) secondary categories of workforce diversity.
B) primary categories of workforce diversity.
C) necessary contingencies in all organizational behavior theories.
D) never discussed in organizational behavior.
E) a result of globalization.

Question 42

Organizational memory includes knowledge embedded in the organization's systems and structures.

Question 43

Workforce diversity:

A) includes the entry of younger people in the workforce.
B) can potentially improve decision making and team performance in organizations.
C) is increasing in the United States.
D) includes the increasing proportion of women in the workforce.
E) all of the above.

Question 44

Globalization occurs when an organization:

A) extends its activities to other parts of the world.
B) serves diverse customers within the firm's home country.
C) has a diverse workforce within the firm's home country.
D) does all of the above.
E) does only 'B' and 'C'.

Question 45

Which of these statements about the field of organizational behavior is TRUE?

A) Organizational behavior emerged as a distinct field during the 1980s.
B) The origins of some organizational behavior concepts date back to Plato and other Greek philosophers.
C) Information technology has almost no effect on organizational behavior.
D) The field of organizational behavior relies exclusively on ideas generated within the field by organizational behavior scholars.
E) The origins of organizational behavior are traced mainly to the field of economics.

Question 46

Absorptive capacity refers to how easily the field of organizational behavior can bring in new knowledge from other fields of study.

Question 47

Employability requires:

A) adult citizens of a country to seek employment whether or not they want to be in the workforce.
B) companies to guarantee lifetime employment to employees who perform well.
C) companies to develop a long-term career path for most employees.
D) employees to perform a variety of work activities over time.
E) employees to come to work even though the employer has no work for them.

Question 48

In the field of organizational behavior,organizations are best described as:

A) legal entities that must abide by government regulations and pay taxes.
B) physical structures with observable capital equipment.
C) social entities with a publicly stated set of formal goals.
D) groups of people who work interdependently towards some purpose.
E) any social entity with profit-centered motives and objectives.

Question 49

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) Employment relationships are shifting towards the idea that companies must provide employees a high degree of job security, possibly even a job for life.
B) Generation-X employees bring somewhat different values and needs to the workplace than those of baby boomers.
C) The workforce is becoming more diverse.
D) Successful firms increasingly rely on values rather than direct supervision to guide employee decisions and behavior.
E) Work/life balance is becoming a "must have" condition in the employment relationship.

Question 50

Which of these statements about the field of organizational behavior is FALSE?

A) Organizational behavior scholars study individual, team and structural characteristics that influence behavior within organizations.
B) Leadership, communication and other organizational behavior topics were not discussed by scholars until the 1940s.
C) Organizational behavior emerged as a distinct field around the 1940s.
D) The field of OB has adopted concepts and theories from other fields of inquiry.
E) OB scholars study what people think, feel and do in and around organizations.

Question 51

Intellectual capital represents the stock of knowledge held by an organization.

Question 52

Employability refers to an emerging employment relationship in which:

A) employees must continuously learn skills that will keep them employed.
B) companies replace employees with casual workers.
C) companies must continually provide new opportunities for employees to get promoted to higher-paying jobs within the organization.
D) people have their own businesses rather than working as employees for someone else.
E) companies are expected to offer employees a job for life.

Question 53

Communities of practice are informal groups bound together by shared expertise and passion for a particular activity or interest.

Question 54

Knowledge management develops an organization's capacity to acquire,share and use knowledge in ways that improve its survival and success.

Question 55

Successful organizations never 'unlearn' knowledge that they have previously gained.

Question 56

Which of the following is a 'primary' category of diversity?

A) Physical qualities
B) Gender
C) Ethnicity
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

Question 57

Organizational behavior knowledge:

A) originates mainly from models developed in chemistry and other natural sciences.
B) accurately predicts how anyone will behave in any situation.
C) is more appropriate for people who work in computer science than in marketing.
D) helps us to understand, predict and influence the behaviors of others in organizational settings.
E) does none of the above.

Question 58

One of the fastest ways to acquire knowledge is to hire individuals or purchase entire companies that have valued knowledge.

Question 59

Intellectual capital includes,among other things,the knowledge captured in an organization's systems and structures.

Question 60

According to the author Organizational Behavior,organizational behavior knowledge:

A) should never be used to influence the behavior of other people.
B) should be used mostly by managers and senior executives.
C) should never replace your commonsense knowledge about how organizations work.
D) is relevant to everyone who works in organizations.
E) both 'A' and 'B'.

Question 61

The triple bottom line philosophy says that:

A) companies should pay three times more attention to profits than to employee wellbeing.
B) the main goal of all companies is to satisfy the needs of three groups: employees, shareholders, and suppliers.
C) business success increases by having three times more contingent workers than permanent employees.
D) companies should pay attention to local, national, and global customers.
E) companies should try to support the economic, social, and environmental spheres of sustainability.

Question 62

Which of these statements is consistent with the five anchors of organizational behavior?

A) Organizational behavior theories must apply universally to every situation.
B) Organizations are like machines that operate independently of their external environment.
C) Each OB topic relates to only one level of analysis.
D) The field of organizational behavior should rely on other disciplines for some of its theory development.
E) None of these statements is consistent with the OB anchors.

Question 63

Which of the following is NOT a conceptual anchor in organizational behavior?

A) Contingency anchor
B) Open systems anchor
C) Economic anchor
D) Multidisciplinary anchor
E) Multiple levels of analysis anchor

Question 64

Which of these statements about corporate social responsibility (CSR)is FALSE?

A) Most companies now publicly report on their CSR practices.
B) CSR emphasizes the economic, social, and environmental spheres of sustainability.
C) Most Canadians expect companies to engage in CSR.
D) CSR is closely related to the topics of values and ethics.
E) An organization's perceived level of CSR influences whether people apply for work with that organization.

Question 65

Employees,suppliers and governments:

A) are organizational stakeholders.
B) are rarely considered in organizational behavior theories.
C) represent the three levels of analysis in organizational behavior.
D) are excluded from the open systems anchor.
E) are all of the above.

Question 66

Which of the following does NOT represent a belief that anchors organizational behavior?

A) OB should view organizations as closed systems.
B) OB should assume that the effectiveness of an action usually depends on the situation.
C) OB should draw on knowledge from other disciplines.
D) OB should rely on the systematic research methods to generate knowledge.
E) OB topics can be studied from multiple levels of analysis.

Question 67

Which of the following statements about the field of organizational behavior is FALSE?

A) OB is the study of what people think, feel and do in and around organizations.
B) OB emerged as a distinct field of inquiry in the 1940s.
C) OB is a self-contained discipline, independent of other disciplines.
D) OB theories are usually tested using the scientific method.
E) Many OB theories are contingency-oriented.

Question 68

Free agents:

A) are employees whose values oppose the company's values.
B) represent people who avoid teleworking.
C) are less common today than two decades ago.
D) are a type of contingent worker.
E) lack any career expectations and aspirations.

Question 69

Free agents are contingent workers who:

A) usually want permanent employment and have the high demand skills to get that type of work.
B) lack skills and would rather stay out of the labor force if they were independently wealthy.
C) possess values skills and do not seek permanent employment.
D) lack experience and are unwilling or unable to abide by the confined work schedules.
E) work only in part-time positions as 'on-call' staff.

Question 70

Which of the following concepts are closely associated with corporate social responsibility?

A) knowledge management
B) triple bottom line
C) stakeholders
D) all of the above
E) both 'B' and 'C'

Question 71

What effect does teleworking have in the workplace?

A) Teleworking tends to improve the teleworker's work/life balance.
B) Teleworking forces corporate leaders to evaluate employees more for their work results rather than their 'face time'.
C) Under some circumstances, teleworking increases the teleworker's productivity.
D) Teleworking increases the risk that employees feel socially isolated form each other.
E) Teleworking has all of the above effects.

Question 72

Stakeholders include:

A) shareholders
B) employees
C) suppliers
D) governments
E) all of the above

Question 73

Corporate social responsibility is most closely related to which of these organizational behavior trends?

A) Workforce diversity.
B) Employment relationships.
C) Virtual work.
D) Globalization.
E) Workplace values and ethics

Question 74

Stable,long-lasting beliefs about what is important in a variety of situations are:

A) called intellectual capital.
B) the foundations of the open systems anchor.
C) the main reason why virtual teams fail.
D) rarely studied in the field of organizational behavior.
E) called values.

Question 75

Virtual work:

A) is more common in Canada than in the United States.
B) occurs when job applicants are asked to pretend they are performing the job in the interview setting in order to determine their ability to perform that work.
C) tends to improve an employee's social involvement in the organization.
D) can occur when employees work temporarily in a client's office.
E) is none of the above.

Question 76

Which of the following would NOT be a contingent worker?

A) A full-time, permanent employee whose future promotions are contingent on good performance in the current job.
B) An information systems professional contracted for a fixed time by the organization to implement a new computer network.
C) Maintenance people who work for a maintenance service company and are assigned to a specific client.
D) A nurse who is employed part-time by a hospital and works 'on-call'--that is, works only when called in.
E) A salesperson hired by a department store only for the four weeks around Christmas.

Question 77

The topic of ethics is most closely associated with:

A) workplace values.
B) the scientific method.
C) workforce diversity.
D) the open systems anchor.
E) the contingency approach to organizational behavior.

Question 78

Contingent work is any job in which:

A) the size of the employee's paycheck is contingent on the number of units produced.
B) the likelihood of long-term employment with the organization depends on the employee's job performance.
C) the individual does not have an explicit or implicit contract for long-term employment.
D) the minimum hours of work can vary in a non-systematic way, such as 'on-call' part-time employment.
E) both 'C' and 'D'.

Question 79

Values have become more important in organizational behavior because of:

A) increased globalization.
B) increased pressure on organizations to engage in ethical practices.
C) direct supervision is expensive and incompatible to today's workforce.
D) all of the above.
E) none of the above.

Question 80

Cross-functional groups that operate across space,time and organizational boundaries are most commonly called:

A) functional teams.
B) virtual teams.
C) multicultural teams.
D) contingent teams.
E) non-existent teams.