Deck 14: Managing and Enhancing

Question 1

Individual incentive systems are most likely to be used in cases where performance can only be assessed subjectively.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Mechateron Inc., a product manufacturing company, pays its employees $1 for every 10 fiberglass pipes they weld. In this scenario, which of the following performance-based reward systems is Mechateron Inc. most likely using?

A) A fixed incentive system
B) A piece-rate system
C) Profit sharing
D) Gainsharing

Answer 2

B

Question 3

The typical form of the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) involves a company:

A) offering restricted stock plans to all its employees, with the aim of retaining these employees rather than rewarding their individual performance.
B) taking out a loan, which is then used to buy a portion of the company's stock in the open market, with the purpose of gradually giving employees a major stake in the ownership of the company.
C) offering shares of stock to its employees only if they remain with the company for a specified period of time.
D) providing its employees with an option to buy its stock in the future at a predetermined fixed price.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Values based on the Qur'an are the most important part of Muslim human resource management systems.

Question 5

In the context of incentive plans, a stock option plan is typically offered to all the employees of a firm rather than just the executives.

Question 6

In the context of work teams, if work is designed to be done by teams, then _____.

A) there is less likelihood of shirking
B) it becomes easy to motivate employees who exert exceptional effort
C) all rewards must be based on team performance
D) it becomes easy to reward individuals in true teamwork settings

Question 7

Which of the following is awarded to employees on the basis of the relative value of their contributions to their organization?

A) A stock option
B) Merit pay
C) Base pay
D) A sales commission

Question 8

The Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization and Management (PRISM) program does not allow the National Security Agency to access information about American citizens under any circumstance.

Question 9

James, an employee at a hospital, has different duties for each day of the week. On Mondays, he reviews and files patient charts. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he collects lab specimens from patients. On Wednesdays, he enters lab results into the computer database. On Fridays, he is in charge of paperwork. This scenario most likely exemplifies a motivational approach to redesign of work called _____.

A) onboarding
B) employee offshoring
C) job outsourcing
D) job rotation

Question 10

Job rotation involves increasing the number of tasks that a worker performs in a particular job.

Question 11

Which of the following is an arrangement in which a group is given responsibility for designing the work system to be used in performing an interrelated set of jobs?

A) Groupshift
B) Groupthink
C) A home work program
D) A work team

Question 12

Performance feedback should focus exclusively on effective performance.

Question 13

Which of the following statements is true of enhancing organizational performance?

A) Performance appraisal and performance management interventions have been proven to improve firm-level performance drastically.
B) The most basic level of performance is at the team level.
C) Performance in any organization exists at multiple levels.
D) There is strong evidence to support the idea that improving individual-level performance will directly lead to improvements in firm-level performance.

Question 14

Compensation plans that formally base at least some meaningful portion of compensation on the relative value of an employee's contributions to the organization are called _____.

A) fixed incentive plans
B) merit-pay plans
C) stock-option plans
D) stock-purchase plans

Question 15

Unlike stock-option plans, stock-purchase plans:

A) are typically offered to the executives of a firm.
B) are typically offered to all the employees of a firm.
C) lack effectiveness as they are useful only so long as the price of the stock is rising.
D) do not require employees to remain with a company for a specified period of time to be entitled to the stock.

Question 16

Which of the following statements is true of firm-level performance?

A) It determines a firm's stock price.
B) There is strong evidence to support the idea that improved individual-level performance translates into improved firm-level performance.
C) It is exclusively used to indicate the chances of a firm's short-term survival.
D) The most basic level of performance in any firm is that of the firm itself, and this is the level that most people find easiest to conceptualize.

Question 17

In the United States, most faith-based businesses incorporate Christian beliefs into their day-to-day management practices.

Question 18

The Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization and Management (PRISM) program prevents the National Security Agency (NSA) from collecting information that can help the agency track foreign agents.

Question 19

Employee training should emphasize vigilance for Internet scams, as well as simple security measures such as locking all devices and keeping passwords secret.

Question 20

In the context of HR systems in Muslim societies, sharia does not allow stoning to death as a punishment for fornication and adultery.

Question 21

Which of the following is an alternative to job specialization that takes into account the work system and employee preferences?

A) The job enlargement approach
B) Job shadowing
C) The job characteristics approach
D) Employee outsourcing

Question 22

Which of the following is a group-based incentive system?

A) A knowledge-based pay plan
B) A skill-based pay plan
C) A stock-purchase plan
D) A piece-rate incentive plan

Question 23

A job with high skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback most likely leads to high _____.

A) turnover
B) motivation
C) ethnocentrism
D) xenophobia

Question 24

The arrangements in which an employee works the required number of hours, typically 40, but does so in fewer than 5 days are called _____.

A) flexible work hour plans
B) part-time work programs
C) freelancing work programs
D) compressed workweeks

Question 25

Under which of the following plans does an organization pay an employee a certain amount of money for every unit he or she produces?

A) A piece-rate incentive plan
B) The merit-pay plan
C) The Scanlon plan
D) A gainsharing plan

Question 26

Which of the following is a critical component of a behavior-modification plan?

A) Providing employees with easy and unspecific goals
B) Making sure that desirable conduct is never punished and that undesirable conduct is never rewarded
C) Making sure that behavior is never reinforced using the continuous schedule of reinforcement
D) Ensuring that punishment is not used to eliminate undesirable behavior

Question 27

Identify a true statement about faith-based businesses.

A) They tend to be publicly owned.
B) They offer benefit packages that extend coverage to same-sex partners of their employees.
C) They provide meagre compensation to their employees.
D) They tend to be closed on Sunday.

Question 28

Which of the following statements is true of Muslim HRM systems?

A) They are based on the Qur'an and therefore allow favoritism and nepotism in all aspects of decision-making.
B) They are completely different from HR systems in Western companies in terms of the employee values they promote.
C) They consider employee layoffs and downsizing as the first resort to maintaining business survival.
D) They give importance to maintaining due process when dealing with employee grievances.

Question 29

Home work programs include arrangements that are often referred to as _____.

A) housing industries
B) chartered businesses
C) cottage industries
D) regulatory businesses

Question 30

In the context of cybersecurity, which of the following statements is true of Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization and Management (PRISM)?

A) It can intentionally access information about American citizens.
B) It can access information about American citizens when information is collected incidentally as part of a sweep of information about a foreign operative.
C) It helps the secretary of homeland security facilitate national efforts to protect sensitive information from cyberthreats.
D) It is a tool used to ensure good cyberhygiene in terms of computer-usage policies.

Question 31

Which of the following was developed to increase the total number of tasks workers perform based on the assumption that doing the same basic task over and over is the primary cause of worker dissatisfaction?

A) Job enlargement
B) Job rotation
C) Job shadowing
D) Employee offshoring

Question 32

Which of the following is a difference between the job characteristics approach and job specialization?

A) Job specialization considers task identity and task significance as core dimensions of job design, whereas the job characteristics approach does not.
B) The job characteristics approach takes into account the work system and employee preferences, whereas job specialization does not.
C) The job characteristics approach has been proven to increase turnover, whereas job specialization has been proven to decrease turnover.
D) Job specialization has been proven to increase work quality, whereas the job characteristics approach has been proven to decrease work quality.

Question 33

Who among the following managers is most likely to be effective at providing performance feedback?

A) Meena, who focuses exclusively on the negative aspects of the performance of her subordinates
B) Daniel, who focuses on providing developmental feedback targeted at his subordinates' behavior
C) Emily, who focuses exclusively on the effective performance of her employees
D) Farhan, who focuses on each employee's character rather than on the employee's work quality

Question 34

Which of the following is an advantage of faith-based businesses?

A) They tend to provide reasonable compensation and benefits packages for their employees.
B) They have high sales because they are open 7 days a week.
C) They offer benefit packages that extend coverage to the same-sex partners of their employees.
D) They tend to be publicly owned and have high business growth.

Question 35

Which of the following is the most basic form of incentive compensation?

A) Merit pay
B) A sales commission
C) Profit sharing
D) A stock-option plan

Question 36

In the context of performance-based rewards, the most general form of a merit-pay plan is to:

A) contribute some portion of the company's profits to a profit-sharing pool.
B) share the cost savings from productivity improvements with employees.
C) provide annual salary increases to employees based on the relative value of their contributions to their organization.
D) reward the individual performance of employees on a real-time basis rather than by increasing their base salary at the end of a fiscal year.

Question 37

In almost every organization offering flexible work hour plans, the time of the day during which every employee must be at work is called _____.

A) down time
B) core time
C) flextime
D) overtime

Question 38

Which of the following is a difference between gainsharing and profit-sharing incentive systems?

A) Gainsharing is a group incentive system, whereas profit sharing is an individual incentive system.
B) Gainsharing involves distributing savings among all the employees in a company, whereas profit sharing involves distributing savings among the members of a specific team.
C) Gainsharing involves sharing cost savings from productivity improvements with employees, whereas profit sharing involves distributing a portion of a company's gains to all employees.
D) Gainsharing is independent of a team's performance, whereas profit sharing is specific to the contributions of a work group.

Question 39

Which of the following is an alternative work site arrangement in which employees may do almost all of their work at home and may receive assignments electronically?

A) A flexible work hour plan
B) Flextime
C) A compressed workweek
D) Telecommuting

Question 40

Heter and Co., a multinational firm, invited groups of employees to suggest strategies for reducing cost. The firm implemented one of the strategies suggested by a group and made huge gains. If the firm uses the Scanlon plan to distribute the gains, the firm is most likely to:

A) distribute the majority of the total gain to its executives.
B) distribute about one-third of the total cost savings among its employees.
C) distribute the cost savings to the entire organization.
D) distribute the total gain equally and exclusively among all the members of the group that came up with the strategy.

Question 41

Which of the following statements is true of the stock-purchase plans offered by a company?

A) It is offered only to the senior managers and the top executives of the company.
B) It is used more as a performance incentive than as a retention tool.
C) It is an individual incentive system.
D) It is applicable to employees only if they remain with the company for a specified period of time.

Question 42

What is the productivity measurement and evaluation system (ProMES)?

Question 43

In the context of the job characteristics approach, feedback is the:

A) degree to which a worker is selected for the same job repeatedly.
B) perceived importance of a task.
C) extent to which a worker knows how well a job is being performed.
D) extent to which a worker does a complete or identifiable portion of a total job.

Question 44

Identify a true statement about compressed workweeks.

A) They require employees to work at least 5 days a week.
B) They exempt employees from working the required number of hours a week.
C) They may affect some social aspects of a job.
D) They are related to decreased accidents in all settings.

Question 45

The management of Jeremynt Inc., a public relations firm, gives each of its teams the responsibility of increasing their productivity through measures developed by the team members and approved by the respective team managers. The company then measures the team-level productivity, and the cost savings resulting from the improvements in productivity are split among its employees. In this scenario, Jeremynt Inc. is most likely using a group incentive system called _____.

A) profit sharing
B) a fixed incentive plan
C) a sales commission
D) gainsharing

Question 46

Identify a true statement about the productivity measurement and evaluation system (ProMES).

A) It incorporates ideas from goal setting to feedback and includes incentives for improvement.
B) It posits that the relationship between performance and attaining outcomes is irrelevant in productivity measurement and evaluation.
C) It focuses exclusively on individual-level performance.
D) It relies on intrinsic rewards to motivate employees.

Question 47

Romero Inc. manufactures paper products. One set of workers at Romero Inc. has the full-time job of sorting scrap as it enters the manufacturing facility. The quality of sorting is regularly monitored by checking the quality of the paper products, and necessary instructions are given to the scrap sorters. The scrap sorters are also provided with information regarding the quality of their work. In the context of the core dimensions of the job characteristics approach, Romero Inc. stresses on _____.

A) skill variety
B) task identity
C) autonomy
D) feedback

Question 48

In the context of alternative work schedules, which of the following are plans in which employees usually must work 40 hours per week and, typically, 5 days a week in the office but in which they have control over the starting and ending times for work on each day?

A) Flexible work hour plans
B) Compressed workweeks
C) Home work programs
D) Part-time work plans

Question 49

Which of the following statements is true of stock-based incentive programs?

A) They are more typically used with hourly employees rather than with executive employees.
B) They result in a line-of-sight problem among employees.
C) They are individual incentive programs.
D) They have special problems because employees' incentives are tied to the price of their organization's stock.

Question 50

Identify a true statement about performance feedback.

A) It should be provided annually rather than on a daily or weekly basis.
B) It should follow a nondevelopmental approach.
C) It should involve one-way communication, with the manager as the initiator.
D) It should focus on both effective and ineffective performance.

Question 51

Which of the following statements is true of skill- and knowledge-based pay systems?

A) They reward employees for increased performance.
B) They reward employees for increasing their capacity to perform well in the future.
C) They are based on an organization's present needs.
D) They are traditional group incentive systems that focus on short-term goals.

Question 52

Which of the following arrangements allows organizations to use the services of individuals who may not be able to work at a given site?

A) A compressed workweek
B) Telecommuting
C) Job shadowing
D) A flexible work hour plan

Question 53

In the context of evaluating performance-enhancement programs, which of the following is a human resource indicator?

A) Stock price
B) Return on investment
C) General labor cost
D) Market share

Question 54

Rodrigo, the owner of a hardware store, pays incentives to the members of his sales team based on their ability to sell products to industrial buyers. Each salesperson receives 20 percent of the amount earned from his or her total sales. In this scenario, which of the following incentive systems is Rodrigo most likely using to reward his employees?

A) Gainsharing
B) Profit sharing
C) A piece-rate reward plan
D) A sales commission

Question 55

Which of the following statements is true of the productivity measurement and evaluation system (ProMES)?

A) It is based on a model of motivation similar to expectancy theory.
B) It is exclusively aimed at improving individual-level productivity.
C) It relies on intrinsic rewards, such as job satisfaction, employee contentment, and a sense of meaningfulness, to motivate employees.
D) It posits that the relationship between performance and attaining outcomes is irrelevant in productivity measurement and evaluation.

Question 56

Goal theory suggests that:

A) goals should be qualifiable rather than quantifiable.
B) impossible goals are the most effective in motivating employees.
C) employees are most motivated by vague and undefined goals.
D) employees will exert the greatest effort when they have specific, difficult goals to work toward.

Question 57

Which of the following is a team- and group-based incentive system that is designed to split the cost savings from productivity improvements with employees?

A) Gainsharing
B) Profit sharing
C) A fixed incentive system
D) A sales commission

Question 58

In the context of evaluating performance-enhancement programs, which of the following is an explicit financial indicator?

A) Return on investment
B) General labor cost
C) Turnover rate
D) Accident rate

Question 59

Which of the following statements is true of performance-based rewards?

A) The most general form of a merit-pay plan is to reward the individual performance of employees on a real-time basis.
B) Performance appraisal has the most meaning to employees if it is subsequently connected with a reward such as a salary increase.
C) Incentive compensation systems are among the most recent forms of performance-based rewards.
D) Incentive compensation systems work best in situations that involve ambiguous performance indicators.

Question 60

Maria, a senior accountant in an insurance company, has a 2-year-old son who needs her frequent attention. In order to spend more time with him, she takes her office work home with her and completes it on her personal computer. She only returns to office for important meetings or to collect more work. In this scenario, which of the following alternative work arrangements is Maria using?

A) A compressed workweek
B) A flexible work hour plan
C) An electronic cottage
D) A self-directed work team

Question 61

Explain the concept of alternative work sites.

Question 62

Explain the significance of performance feedback in performance management.

Question 63

Briefly explain the HR systems in Muslim countries.

Question 64

Explain privacy and cybersecurity in the 21st century.