Deck 16: Creating and Maintaining High-Performance Organizations

Question 1

High-performance organizations do not need selection methods that identify more than technical skills.

Answer 1

False
Explanation: High-performance organizations need selection methods that identify more than technical skills like ability to perform accounting and engineering tasks. Employers may use group interviews, open-ended questions, and psychological tests to find employees who innovate, share ideas, and take initiative.

Question 2

Most administrative and information-gathering activities in human resource management cannot be a part of e-HRM.

Answer 2

False
Explanation: Most administrative and information-gathering activities in human resource management can be part of e-HRM.

Question 3

According to research,organizations that introduce integrated high-performance work practices usually experience increases in productivity and long-term financial performance.

Answer 3

True
Explanation: According to research, organizations that introduce integrated high-performance work practices usually experience increases in productivity and long-term financial performance.

Question 4

People experience occupational intimacy when they love their work,when they and their co-workers care about one another,and when they find their work meaningful.

Question 5

A standard feature of a modern HRIS is the use of relational databases,which store data in separate files that can be linked by common elements.

Question 6

Measures of employees' performance should take the effects of situational constraints into account.

Question 7

The reward systems of an organization include the performance measures by which employees are judged and the methods of measuring performance.

Question 8

Employee participation in decisions about pay policies has no proven link with job satisfaction.

Question 9

To set up a performance management system that supports the organization's goals,managers need to understand the process of employee performance.

Question 10

The most popular way to empower employees is to design work so that it can be performed single-handedly by individuals.

Question 11

Performance measures should not include ethical standards.

Question 12

Transaction processing includes the activities required to meet government reporting requirements.

Question 13

Research supports the idea that employees' job satisfaction and job performance are unrelated.

Question 14

An expert system can increase efficiency by enabling more highly skilled employees to do work that otherwise would require many less-skilled employees.

Question 15

High-performance work systems are characterized by high employee turnover.

Question 16

For an organization's human resource division,"customers" are the organization's top management.

Question 17

To create a learning organization,one challenge is to shift the focus of training away from merely generating and sharing knowledge toward a stronger focus on teaching skills.

Question 18

An organization's HR department makes most decisions about organizational structure.

Question 19

Research suggests that it is more effective to improve HRM practices as a whole than to focus on one or two isolated practices.

Question 20

A benefit of e-HRM is that employees can help themselves to information they need when they need it,instead of contacting an HR staff person.

Question 21

Each employee's and each group's ongoing efforts to gather information and apply the information to their decisions in a learning organization is referred to as:

A) continuous learning.
B) critical thinking.
C) innovation.
D) cognition.
E) groupthink.

Question 22

A learning organization:

A) actively resists organizational change.
B) considers organizational learning a barrier to the dissemination of corporate culture.
C) supports lifelong learning by enabling all employees to continually acquire and share knowledge.
D) places a relatively low importance on innovation.
E) considers training a superfluous corporate ritual.

Question 23

One of the most popular ways to empower employees is to:

A) narrow the scope of jobs.
B) design work so that it is performed by teams.
C) adopt a centralized decision making approach.
D) pay bonuses to all employees regardless of contribution.
E) provide them with simple, repetitive jobs.

Question 24

As an element of a high-performance work system,_____ determine(s)how the details of the organization's necessary activities will be grouped,whether into jobs or team responsibilities.

A) information systems
B) reward systems
C) performance
D) organizational structure
E) task design

Question 25

_____ is the way the organization groups its people into useful divisions,departments,and reporting relationships.

A) Job structure
B) Organizational structure
C) Value chain
D) Corporate design
E) Relationship management

Question 26

A high-performance work system refers to:

A) an arrangement of machinery and equipment that streamlines the workflow and results in maximum efficiency and cost savings.
B) the right combination of people, technology, and organizational structure that makes full use of the organization's resources and opportunities in achieving its goals.
C) a computer software system designed to help managers solve problems by showing how results vary when the manager alters assumptions or data.
D) a system used to collect, record, store, analyze, and retrieve data concerning an organization's human resources.
E) a performance management system that customer satisfaction.

Question 27

In a learning organization,training is viewed as:

A) a superfluous corporate ritual.
B) an investment in the organization's human resources.
C) the only driver of continued growth and sustainability.
D) the primary means of retaining good employees.
E) a tool to minimize organizational anarchy.

Question 28

Which of the following is true of high-performance work systems?

A) Creating a high-performance work system is akin to traditional management practices.
B) To function as a high-performance work system, people, technology, and organizational structure must be completely independent of one another.
C) To develop a a high-performance work system, organizations need to determine what kinds of people fit their needs, and then locate, train, and motivate those special people.
D) A high-performance work system rarely includes reward systems.
E) Integrated high-performance work practices usually have little impact on productivity and long-term financial performance.

Question 29

Which of the following is an outcome of a high-performance work system?

A) Simple, repetitive jobs
B) High employee turnover
C) High production costs
D) High product quality
E) Centralized decision making

Question 30

In a high-performance work system,organizational structure:

A) promotes high employee turnover.
B) promotes cooperation and learning.
C) discourages competition.
D) helps the organization select the right people with the required qualifications.
E) encourages people to strive for objectives that support the organization's overall goals.

Question 31

In a high-performance work system,task design makes jobs:

A) narrow in scope.
B) high in task significance but low in autonomy.
C) highly specialized.
D) efficient while encouraging high quality.
E) simple and more repetitive.

Question 32

The usual way to measure customer satisfaction in the course of an HRM audit is to conduct experiments in controlled environments.

Question 33

Training dollars per employee is a business indicator of the success of an HR department's training programs.

Question 34

An organization's _____ usually makes most of the decisions about organizational structure.

A) top management
B) HR department
C) supervisors
D) middle-level managers
E) technical analysts

Question 35

An HRM audit is a formal review of the outcomes of HRM functions.

Question 36

Which of the following is a condition that contributes to high performance?

A) Employees' rewards and compensation relate to the company's financial performance.
B) Work design allows employees to use a single skill.
C) Employee participation is planning changes pertaining to work method is limited.
D) Employees do not receive formal performance feedback.
E) Training is discouraged because of high costs.

Question 37

A recruiter's colleagues are most useful as a source of leads to qualified job candidates than are people the recruiter communicates with only occasionally.

Question 38

Which of the following elements in a high-performance work system contribute(s)to high performance by encouraging people to strive for objectives that support the organization's overall goals and includes the performance measures by which employees are judged?

A) Organizational goals
B) Task design
C) Reward systems
D) Information systems
E) Training and development

Question 39

Which of the following is a way in which a work team can be empowered?

A) By minimizing the team's interaction with other department or teams
B) By keeping roles independent and separate from one another
C) By charging the team with making decisions traditionally made by managers
D) By narrowing the scope of work done by the team and its members
E) By assigning management of work schedules to the manager

Question 40

One way to measure HRM effectiveness is to measure a program's success in terms of whether it achieved its objectives and whether it delivered value in an economic sense.

Question 41

Which one of the following is a selection method that organizations can adopt to identify employees who innovate,share ideas,and take initiative?

A) Technical proficiency test
B) Psychological test
C) Structured interview
D) Aptitude test
E) Physical ability test

Question 42

Job design aimed at empowerment:

A) is complex.
B) limits flexibility.
C) includes access to resources.
D) increases employee turnover.
E) includes a rigid pay structure.

Question 43

At a high-performance organization,recruitment and selection aim at obtaining the kinds of employees who can thrive in this type of setting.These employees are _____.

A) primarily individual contributors
B) enthusiastic about knowledge sharing
C) averse to risk taking
D) averse to experimentation
E) averse to taking initiatives

Question 44

Decision support systems refer(s)to:

A) computer software systems that allow users to see how outcomes vary when assumptions or data are altered.
B) the network of remote servers used to store reusable data.
C) systems that incorporate the decision rules used by people who are considered to have expertise in a certain area.
D) the set of topics on which a human resource information system collects and maintains information.
E) online training and development materials which employees can access at their own convenience from anywhere around the world.

Question 45

Merit pay,gainsharing,and profit sharing are all methods of:

A) including employees in organizational planning.
B) disassociating compensation from performance measures.
C) disseminating organizational learning.
D) increasing employee participation in strategic decision making.
E) linking compensation to performance measures.

Question 46

A high-performance work system is most likely to place employees in work teams where:

A) employee empowerment is considerably low.
B) employees primarily work as individual contributors.
C) employees collaborate to make decisions and solve problems.
D) the affective job satisfaction among employees is low.
E) Technology is used to the minimum.

Question 47

Compensation systems can help create the conditions that contribute to high performance.Consequently,organizations can increase empowerment and job satisfaction by:

A) communicating the basis for decisions about pay.
B) disassociating compensation from performance measures.
C) discouraging negotiations regarding pay.
D) limiting employee participation in management.
E) limiting the use of gainsharing and profit sharing.

Question 48

A learning culture creates the conditions in which managers:

A) encourage flexibility.
B) discourage experimentation.
C) help sustain the status quo.
D) encourage groupthink.
E) demonstrate a high degree of risk aversion.

Question 49

Performance management systems support organizational goals best if they:

A) define and measure performance in broad behavioral terms.
B) link performance measures to meeting internal and external customers' needs.
C) ignore situational constraints.
D) are outsourced to professional behavior management firms.
E) choose business goals based on employees' skills and abilities.

Question 50

A manager wishes to test a range of assumptions on the availability of a certain skill in the labor market.He plans to enter different assumptions or data to check how the likely outcomes alter in accordance with the corresponding change in data.Which one of the following is the most suitable system for such a purpose?

A) Decision support system
B) Expert system
C) e-HRM system
D) Transactional processing system
E) Transitional matrix

Question 51

Which one of the following is an HRM practice that helps organizations achieve high performance?

A) Work is performed by individuals.
B) Organization discourages continuous learning.
C) Performance management system measures customer satisfaction and quality.
D) Pay systems primarily reward loyalty to the company.
E) Technology increases costs.

Question 52

People experience _____ when they love their work,when they and their co-workers care about one another,and when they find their work meaningful.

A) burnout
B) cognitive job satisfaction
C) occupational intimacy
D) diminished personal accomplishment
E) emotional dissonance

Question 53

_____ is the process of ensuring that HR policies,practices,and programs support or are congruent with an organization's overall culture or brand,including its products and services.

A) Brand reinforcement
B) Brand alignment
C) Crowdsourcing
D) Brand dilution
E) Corporate social responsibility

Question 54

Which of the following occurs when organizations encourage employees to see relationships among ideas and to test assumptions and observe the results of their actions?

A) High employee turnover
B) Critical, systematic thinking
C) Disruptive learning
D) Organizational change
E) Organizational anarchy

Question 55

Organizations can promote job satisfaction by:

A) making jobs more repetitive.
B) setting up subjective performance management systems.
C) setting highly abstract goals.
D) empowering supervisors.
E) making jobs more interesting.

Question 56

New technology usually involves _____-that is,using equipment and information processing to perform activities that had been performed by people.

A) downsizing
B) outsourcing
C) offshoring
D) automation
E) diversification

Question 57

_____ are computer systems that incorporate the decision rules used by people who are considered to have proficiency in a certain area.

A) Decision support systems
B) Expert systems
C) E-HRM systems
D) Transactional processing systems
E) Clouds

Question 58

Which of the following practices is most likely to enhance occupational intimacy?

A) Lowering emphasis on organizational learning
B) Narrowing the scope of work
C) Setting highly abstract goals
D) Establishing rigid and enduring pay structures
E) Establishing policies that show concern for employees' needs

Question 59

Ethical behavior is a necessary condition of high performance because:

A) It fosters competitiveness.
B) It empowers first-line managers and supervisors.
C) It helps eliminate organizational anarchy.
D) it contributes to good long-term relationships with employees, customers, and the public.
E) it encourages people to be highly innovative.

Question 60

Which one of the following refers to the computations and calculations involved in reviewing and documenting HRM decisions and practices?

A) e-HRM
B) Transaction processing
C) Automation
D) Expert systems
E) Decision support systems

Question 61

Which one of the following is an advantage of a relational database?

A) It facilitates the storage of employee information in a single, large file.
B) It replicates the traditional method of filing employee data by name, a system that is strongly preferred by organizations worldwide.
C) It helps HR staff in retrieving information about specific applicants.
D) It helps people arrive at decisions that reflect expert knowledge.
E) It is designed to exclusively meet the needs of the HR department.

Question 62

Which of the following is true of e-HRM?

A) Most administrative and information-gathering HRM activities can be part of e-HRM.
B) E-HRM is less economical than traditional HR systems.
C) E-HRM has adversely affected employee manageability.
D) The number of organizations actively engaged in e-HRM is steadily decreasing.
E) A major drawback of e-HRM is that employees cannot help themselves to the information they need when they need it.

Question 63

Which of the following is a measure of customer satisfaction that indicates the success of the staffing efforts of an HR department?

A) Anticipation of personnel needs
B) Average years of experience/education of hires per job family
C) Average days taken to fill open requisitions
D) Ratio of acceptances to offers made
E) Ratio of minority/women applicants to representation in local labor market

Question 64

How can the HR department meet the needs of line managers?

A) By providing qualified staffing
B) By assisting in performance management
C) By designing a rewards system
D) By providing training and development
E) By enforcing labor law regulations

Question 65

Most of the human resource information is confidential,so organizations engaging in e-HRM are:

A) continuously limiting the amount and type of information made available to company personnel.
B) increasingly placing company-specific information on a secure intranet with links to resources on the broader Internet.
C) consolidating information into a single file and restricting access to the database to only top-level personnel within the company.
D) not in favor of knowledge sharing within the organization.
E) encouraging employees to restrict the use of intranet.

Question 66

For an organization's human resource division,customers:

A) refer specifically to the organization's shareholders.
B) refer specifically to the organization's offshore clients.
C) usually refer to the top management.
D) refer to the organization as a whole and its other divisions.
E) refer to the labor law enforcement agencies.

Question 67

Which of the following is a customer satisfaction measure that indicate the success of the compensation system designed by the HR department of an organization?

A) Competitiveness in local labor market
B) Ratio of average salary offers to average salary in community
C) Per capita (average) merit increases
D) Percentage of overtime hours to straight time
E) Ratio of recommendations for reclassification to number of employees

Question 68

Expert systems:

A) can only be used by those employees who have proven expertise in a certain area.
B) could cause errors if the user is fatigued or biased.
C) are typically unstable.
D) deliver quality at a very high cost.
E) help many people to arrive at decisions that reflect the expert's knowledge.

Question 69

Which of the following is a business indicator of the success of the compensation system designed by the HR department of an organization?

A) Competitiveness in the local labor market
B) Ratio of average salary offers to average salary in community
C) Relationship between pay and performance
D) Employee satisfaction with pay
E) Fairness of existing job evaluation system in assigning grades and salaries

Question 70

Which of the following exemplifies one of the most creative developments in human resource information systems technology?

A) Decision support system
B) Transactional processing system
C) HR dashboard
D) Expert system
E) Intranet

Question 71

Which of the following is a business indicator for staffing activities with regard to an HRM audit?

A) Treatment of applicants
B) Skill in handling terminations
C) Competitiveness in local labor market
D) Employee satisfaction with pay
E) Ratio of acceptances to offers made

Question 72

A standard feature of a modern HRIS is the use of _____,which store data in separate files that can be linked by common elements.

A) graph databases
B) hypermedia databases
C) relational databases
D) unstructured databases
E) parallel databases

Question 73

How can the HR department of an organization meet the needs of employees?

A) By providing qualified staffing
B) Through performance management
C) By hiring people with niche skills
D) By providing training and development
E) By enforcing labor law regulations

Question 74

Which of the following refers to an HRM function?

A) production
B) appraisal
C) export
D) import
E) copyright protection

Question 75

How can the HR department of an organization meet the needs of strategic planners?

A) By providing qualified staffing
B) Through performance management
C) Through rewards systems
D) By providing training and development
E) By enforcing labor law regulations

Question 76

A formal review of the outcomes of HRM functions,based on identifying key HRM functions and measures of business performance,is referred to as a(n)_____.

A) balanced scorecard
B) profit-and-loss statement
C) evidence-based HRM
D) job description
E) HRM audit

Question 77

Which of the following helps in making confidential HR-related information widely available to authorized users within an organization?

A) A decision support system
B) An expert system
C) The intranet
D) A transactional processing system
E) The Internet

Question 78

The primary focus of an HRM audit is on:

A) motivating customers.
B) estimating the costs of implementing an HR practice.
C) reviewing the various outcomes of HRM functions.
D) determining the dollar value of the HRM program.
E) determining the legality of HR practices.

Question 79

Generally speaking,_____ bring(s)networks of people together to collaborate on projects,solve problems,or socialize.

A) cloud computing
B) social media
C) social discrimination
D) grid computing
E) primary group

Question 80

_____ is a display of a series of HR measures,showing human resource goals and objectives and progress toward meeting them.

A) Performance review template
B) Job preview
C) Expert system
D) HR dashboard
E) Relational database