Deck 1: An Overview of Organizational Behavior

Question 1

A manager who creates and staffs a new sales division within the organization is performing which managerial function?

A)Planning
B)Organizing
C)Controlling
D)Supervising
E)Leading

Answer 1

B

Question 2

A manager acting in the role of a resource allocator will

A)choose the best resources to most effectively and efficiently produce the organization's product or service.
B)verify the quality of resources that pass through the organization.
C)determine how organizational resources will be released in the environment.
D)decide how resources will be distributed among various individuals and groups within the organization.
E)identify the various suppliers the organization will utilize to

Answer 2

D

Question 3

suggests that in most organizations situations and outcomes are influenced by other variables.

A)The systems approach to management
B)The conceptual approach to management
C)The situational perspective
D)The interactionalism approach to management
E)None of these

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The manager's ability to communicate with, understand, and motivate individuals and groups is determined by her or his

A)conceptual skills.
B)time management skills.
C)diagnostic skills.
D)interpersonal skills.
E)technical skills.

Question 5

Evaluating performance, implementing reward systems, and verifying inventory levels are all examples of

A)leading.
B)decision making.
C)organizing.
D)planning.
E)controlling.

Question 6

Organizational behavior (OB) includes the study of all of the following, except

A)international trade laws.
B)the interface between people and organizations.
C)human behavior in organizations.
D)organizations themselves.
E)All of these are included in OB.

Question 7

No matter how effective a manager might be, all organizational successes, and failures, are the results of

A)effective strategic planning.
B)comprehensive human resource selection.
C)the organizations themselves.
D)the behaviors of many people.
E)the dynamics of the reward system of the organization.

Question 8

The four groups of resources that organizations use in the pursuit of their goals and objectives include

A)organizing, directing, decision making, and planning.
B)investors, employees, unions, and government regulators.
C)human, financial, physical, and/or information.
D)spokesperson, figurehead, liaison, and monitor.
E)time management skills, technical skills, transactional, and job design.

Question 9

Organizational behavior focuses on

A)the economic side of management.
B)the control side of management.
C)the human side of management.
D)the financial side of management.
E)the production side of management.

Question 10

In dealing with the work related activities of people, managers must have an understanding of all of the following except

A)leadership
B)decision-making
C)organizational structure and design
D)organizational culture
E)how to be an effective negotiator

Question 11

Leading is the process of

A)designing jobs, grouping jobs into units, and establishing patterns of authority between jobs and units.
B)determining the organization's desired future position and deciding how best to get there.
C)motivating the organization's members to work together toward the organization's goals.
D)monitoring and correcting the actions of the organization and its members to keep them directed toward their goals.
E)utilizing organizational resources with the ultimate goal of

Question 12

The goal of a consultant hired to solve a problem in an organization should be to

A)recognize that the organization has always been this way and little can be done to change it.
B)learn as much as possible about the organization and the people within it.
C)generate an action plan, with specific targets and dates.
D)focus exclusively on changing the reward system, since everything else depends on it.
E)make sure employees know the consultant has come to solve the company's problems.

Question 13

Which of the following managers would you be least likely to find in an organization?

A)Chief financial officer
B)Marketing manager
C)Director of public relations
D)Vice president for human resources
E)Organizational behavior manager

Question 14

The role of entrepreneur primarily involves

A)dealing with others outside the organization.
B)resolving disputes between various parties.
C)being the voluntary initiator of change.
D)serving as a representative of the organization.
E)seeking information for strategic decisions.

Question 15

In the role of liaison, a manager would be most likely to

A)attend the funeral of a former employee.
B)hold a press conference announcing the introduction of a new product.
C)hire, train, and motivate workers.
D)inform employees about new government safety standards.
E)negotiate the price of raw materials with an external supplier.

Question 16

A manager performing the role of disseminator is most likely to do which of the following?

A)Speak at a Chamber of Commerce meeting
B)Hire a new Human Resource Manager for the company
C)Inform subordinates of newly founded competitors
D)Develop a new strategic five-year plan for the company
E)Design a new customer response system for the company

Question 17

Which of the following managerial roles might include reading trade magazines to learn more about competitors?

A)Spokesperson
B)Disseminator
C)Leader
D)Resource allocator
E)Monitor

Question 18

A manager who develops a new chemical formula for a Dow Corning product is demonstrating effective

A)interpersonal skills.
B)technical skills.
C)diagnostic skills.
D)conceptual skills.
E)leadership skills.

Question 19

Interpersonal roles of a manager include all of the following except

A)figurehead
B)leader
C)monitor
D)liaison
E)All of these are interpersonal roles.

Question 20

A manager who can see how the various tasks within the organization fit together and how each task contributes toward the "big picture" has strong

A)problem-solving skills.
B)diagnostic skills.
C)technical skills.
D)conceptual skills.
E)interpersonal skills.

Question 21

Which of the following perspectives argues that universal rules, solutions, guidelines, predictions, and principles are not feasible when applied to organizations?

A)The situational perspective
B)Behavioral organization theory
C)The systems perspective
D)The interactional perspective
E)Classical organization theory

Question 22

Information from which of the following disciplines would be least helpful in your study of organizational behavior?

A)Political science
B)Agriculture
C)Medicine
D)Anthropology
E)Economics

Question 23

Which of the following is not studied as an individual-level outcome in organizational behavior?

A)Productivity
B)Absenteeism
C)Turnover
D)Performance
E)Cohesiveness

Question 24

Upper-level managers must depend upon their for success in the organization.

A)diagnostic and interpersonal skills
B)conceptual and diagnostic skills
C)problem-solving and time management skills
D)technical skills and interpersonal skills
E)conceptual and technical skills

Question 25

A manager who understands cause and effect relationships and recognizes optimal solutions to problems has strong

A)interpersonal skills.
B)problem-solving skills.
C)conceptual skills.
D)diagnostic skills.
E)technical skills.

Question 26

Which perspective of management would most likely refute the notion that one style of leadership would enhance employee satisfaction and job performance under any condition?

A)Situational perspective
B)Classical perspective
C)Behavioral perspective
D)Interactional perspective
E)Universal perspective

Question 27

Which of the following disciplines has helped to understand the behavior of people in organizational settings?

A)Psychology
B)Organizational Psychology
C)Anthropology
D)Engineering
E)Medicine

Question 28

All of the following are inputs an organization receives from its environment, except

A)money.
B)materials.
C)people.
D)services.
E)information.

Question 29

The field of engineering has helped managers better understand

A)the causes and consequences of stress.
B)productivity measurement.
C)how and why people acquire power.
D)conflict.
E)coalition formation.

Question 30

The descriptive nature of organizational behavior allows researchers to

A)predict with certainty that changing a specific set of workplace variables will improve an individual's performance.
B)suggest that certain general concepts or variables tend to relate to one another in a particular setting.
C)prescribe the correct way to manage people.
D)stabilize the complexities inherent in studying human behavior.
E)increase the job satisfaction of nearly all workers.

Question 31

First-line managers need to depend more on their for success in the organization.

A)diagnostic and interpersonal skills
B)conceptual and diagnostic skills
C)problem-solving and time management skills
D)technical skills and interpersonal skills
E)conceptual and technical skills

Question 32

The central processes of interest in organizational behavior can be grouped into which of the following basic categories?

A)Contextual, situational, and industrial
B)Individual, interpersonal, and organizational
C)Referential, supplemental, and complementary
D)Transactional, transformational, and interactional
E)Dynamic, static, and semi-static

Question 33

Compared to lower-level and top-level managers, middle managers require more of which skill?

A)Diagnostic
B)Interpersonal
C)Conceptual
D)Technical
E)Middle managers require an even distribution across all four above skills.

Question 34

Organizational behavior is the study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organizational itself.

Question 35

attempts to explain how people select, interpret, and change various situations.

A)Interactionalism
B)Contextualism
C)Universalism
D)Individualism
E)Systems theory

Question 36

The systems view is important to managers because it

A)underscores the importance of the organization's environment.
B)gives them a set procedure for making decisions.
C)allows them to eliminate the interaction among various elements of the organization.
D)reduces their risk of human error.
E)shifts the focus from outside the company to inside the company.

Question 37

Under the systems view, the information Wal-Mart managers receive concerning expected customer demand for certain products is one type of

A)technology.
B)output.
C)input.
D)transformation.
E)contingency.

Question 38

Contemporary organizational behavior is both in focus and in nature.

A)dynamic; prescriptive
B)stable; consistent
C)interdisciplinary; descriptive
D)cross-cultural; proscriptive
E)interactional; behavioral

Question 39

Under the systems perspective, a system is defined as

A)an interrelated set of elements that functions as a whole.
B)a procedure for fair and impartial performance appraisals.
C)a collection of independent organizations.
D)the central technology of the organization.
E)the ideal process for completing a particular job.

Question 40

Some outcomes can be studied at the individual, group and organization levels.Which of the following is generally assessed only at the organizational level?

A)Satisfaction
B)Performance
C)Organizing
D)Profitability
E)Planning

Question 41

The controlling function includes designing jobs, grouping jobs into manageable units, and establishing patterns of authority among jobs and groups of jobs.

Question 42

Leading is the process of motivating members of the organization to work together toward the organization's goal.

Question 43

The organizational system has four basic categories of input from its environment: information, financial, material, and human.

Question 44

Organizational behavior is a designated business function just like marketing and accounting.

Question 45

Managers use their interpersonal skills to motivate individuals and groups.

Question 46

Organizational behavior draws on research from the fields of psychology, sociology, and engineering.

Question 47

Deciding to gain a larger market share by charging a lower price for the organization's product is part of the planning function.

Question 48

Organizing is the process of determining what the organization's position and situation should be at some point in the future and deciding how best to get there.

Question 49

The ability to think in the abstract comes from a manager's diagnostic skills.

Question 50

A system is an interrelated set of elements that function as a whole.

Question 51

An organizational system receives inputs from the environment, combines and transforms them, and then returns them to the environment.

Question 52

Over time, organizational behavior has gradually shifted from a universal perspective to a situational perspective.

Question 53

Decision-making roles include disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.

Question 54

Figurehead, leader, and liaison are all interpersonal roles that a manager can perform in an organization.

Question 55

Anthropology is concerned with the interactions between people and their environments, especially their cultural environment.

Question 56

In organizations, most situations and outcomes are contingent; the precise relationship between any two variables is likely to be situational, dependent on other variables.

Question 57

The best managers try to understand workers' behavior and the organization.

Question 58

Top managers need stronger conceptual and diagnostic skills more than technical and interpersonal skills.

Question 59

A systems perspective keeps managers focused on internal processes and prevents them from being distracted by the environment.

Question 60

Managers in the roles of liaison and spokesperson both deal with people outside of the organization.

Question 61

A manager in the role of might tell employees about the company's retirement plan.

Question 62

allow managers to better understand cause- and-effect relationships and to recognize the optimal solution to problems.

Question 63

The serves as a representative of the organization in reaching agreements with other organizations, such as labor unions.

Question 64

Performance evaluation, reward systems, and motivation all apply to _.

Question 65

By designing jobs and establishing patterns of authority, the manager is performing the function.

Question 66

is concerned with the interactions between people and their environments, especially their cultural environment.

Question 67

Interactionalism attempts to explain how people select, interpret, and change various situations.

Question 68

is the process of motivating employees of an organization to work together toward the organization's goals.

Question 69

Productivity can be measured at the individual and organizational levels.

Question 70

Regardless of size, scope, or location, all organizations have at least one thing in common; they are made up of .

Question 71

The role of involves speaking to external constituencies on behalf of the organization.

Question 72

Attending a business convention to gather information about new industry developments would be part of the role.

Question 73

The study of can greatly clarify the factors that affect how managers manage.

Question 74

The role includes setting up ongoing purchasing arrangements for the organization with an external supplier.

Question 75

A manager who pays workers high wages may increase workers satisfaction, but may also lower important organizational-level outcomes.

Question 76

Managers that hire, train, and motivate employees are filling the role of .

Question 77

The notion that the relation between workers' skill levels and their performance levels depends on their degree of loyalty illustrates a situational perspective.

Question 78

The helps settle disputes between various parties, such as other managers and their subordinates.

Question 79

can be defined as the study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself.

Question 80

Whether a business is large or small, domestic or international, growing or stagnating, its managers perform their work within a
.