Deck 4: Measuring Work Performance

Question 1

An employee steals printer toner cartridges from the copy room every Monday morning. What type of behavior is this?

A) task performance
B) counter-organizational citizenship behavior
C) Absenteeism
D) counterproductive work behavior

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Congratulating a coworker on a job well done represents _____.

A) contextual performance
B) adaptive performance
C) task performance
D) proactive performance

Answer 2

A

Question 3

A team of advertising employees works to generate as many unique ideas as possible for a new advertising campaign. What dimension of job performance would best capture this aspect of their work?

A) creative performance
B) adaptive performance
C) task performance
D) contextual performance

Answer 3

A

Question 4

A company uses four actual criterion measures to capture the job performance domain of administrative assistants. These 4 measures, averaged together, will be used evaluate a training program. This approach is best described as a _____.

A) subjective criterion
B) composite criterion
C) objective measure
D) multiple criteria

Question 5

Company A uses supervisor ratings to assess employees' customer service behaviour. However, it was found that those ratings also measure how much the supervisor likes the employee. Based on this information, one could conclude that the measure has some _______.

A) composite criteria
B) criterion deficiency
C) criterion contamination
D) objective measurement

Question 6

Of the following, which is NOT a subjective criterion measure:

A) customer satisfaction
B) sales revenue
C) supervisor ratings
D) coworker ratings

Question 7

An HR consultant decides to combine three different criteria by calculating the average score across these three criteria for each employee. The HR consult has created a(n) _______.

A) objective measure
B) singular criterion
C) multiple criteria
D) composite criterion

Question 8

Donna is behind on making a deadline. Specifically, she has to write a 50-page financial report that is due in just two days-and she hasn't even started yet. To support Donna and help her meet her deadline, a co-worker brings her a sandwich and coffee. This co-worker is exhibiting _____.

A) organizational citizenship behavior
B) counterproductive work behavior
C) adaptive behavior
D) agreeableness

Question 9

Criterion relevance refers to the _____.

A) degree to which the actual criterion overlaps with the conceptual criterion
B) degree to which actual criterion fails to overlap with the conceptual criterion
C) degree to which actual criterion includes other factors not related to the job
D) actual criterion is based on objective outcomes

Question 10

After collecting job analysis data for the job of computer programmer, a company determines that a good measure of performance was how many lines of code the programmers could produce in one week. What type of performance measure is this?

A) conceptual criterion
B) objective measure
C) composite criterion
D) actual criterion

Question 11

Marcia has developed a training program for the office workers in her company. She has also developed 5 criterion measures to evaluate how effective the training program is. Marcia wants to understand, in detail, how effective the training program is. Her boss, the HR director, just wants to know if the training worked or not. Most likely, Marcia is interested in treating the measures as ____, whereas her boss would want to see ____.

A) a composite; multiple criteria
B) multiple criteria; a composite
C) a composite; objective criteria
D) subjective criteria; objective criteria

Question 12

What term that describes the "essence" of the job, that is, the core job behaviors that can never be completely measured?

A) job outcome
B) work characteristics
C) conceptual criterion
D) actual criterion

Question 13

What is the criterion problem?

A) degree to which the actual criterion overlaps with the conceptual criterion
B) degree to which actual criterion fails to overlap with the conceptual criterion
C) degree to which actual criterion includes something it should not, leading to error
D) difficulty of completely and accurately capturing performance with actual criterion measures

Question 14

Ben has been training for a 400 meter running race. During practice sessions, his times for usually range from 52 seconds to 55 seconds. But in a recent race, he ran the 400 meters in 49 seconds. Ben's 49-second race time most likely represents his _______ for 400 meters.

A) typical performance
B) maximum performance
C) subjective performance
D) reliable performance

Question 15

Staying late to help a coworker get caught up on his/her work is an example of:

A) contextual performance
B) adaptive performance
C) creative performance
D) task performance

Question 16

Adaptive performance includes all of the following behaviors EXCEPT:

A) Dealing with uncertain and unpredictable work situations
B) Handling work stress
C) Assisting coworkers
D) Handling emergencies in crisis situations

Question 17

A group of I-O psychology experts concludes that they are unable to capture the entirety of what goes into being a good employee. This is an example of _____.

A) criterion deficiency
B) multiple criteria
C) composite criterion
D) criterion contamination

Question 18

______ refers to the level of performance an employee usually exhibits.

A) Typical performance
B) Optimal performance
C) General performance
D) Maximum performance

Question 19

When choosing actual criterion measures, it is important that the actual criterion measures _____.

A) overlap as much as possible with the conceptual criterion and with each other
B) overlap as little as possible with the conceptual criterion and with each other
C) overlap as little as possible with the conceptual criterion but overlap a lot with each other
D) overlap as much as possible with the conceptual criterion but overlap very little with each other

Question 20

Which of the following is the best strategy when choosing criterion measures?

A) Use objective measures as much as possible
B) Focus on a combination sales and units produced
C) Use a combination of measures that complement each other in terms of strengths and weaknesses
D) Focus on supervisor and co-worker performance ratings to better understand what is actually going on

Question 21

An employee comes to work sick, perhaps because they believe their boss expects it. This is referred to as _____.

A) reverse-absenteeism
B) the work-sick phenomenon
C) counterproductive work behavior
D) presenteeism

Question 22

Which of the following is true of absenteeism as a performance criterion?

A) It can be difficult to measure whether absences are excused or not.
B) Some outstanding workers may occasionally take unexcused days off.
C) Unexcused absences can cause extra work for other workers.
D) All of the above are true.

Question 23

John Campbell's comprehensive model of job performance describes job performance in terms of _____.

A) task and contextual performance
B) adaptability and task performance
C) contextual performance, task performance, and organizational citizenship
D) eight broad dimensions

Question 24

The idea that an individual's job performance changes over time (even within the same day) is referred to as _____.

A) task performance
B) adaptive criteria
C) dynamic criteria
D) criterion change

Question 25

Which of the following is true about the use of actual criteria in organizations?

A) All actual criteria have some degree of measurement error.
B) Objective criteria have very little measurement error and can best capture performance.
C) Dynamic criteria are the best to use in today's organizations.
D) All of the above are true.

Question 26

The actual criterion is an abstract idea of the "essence" of a job and cannot be measured directly.

Question 27

The criterion problem is the difficulty of capturing the conceptual criterion with the actual criterion measures.

Question 28

Contextual performance includes behaviors that support the social environment in the workplace.

Question 29

A situation in which a worker comes to work sick, perhaps because they thought that the boss expected them to do so, is called reverse-absenteeism.

Question 30

Shrinkage is the degree to which organizational materials, inventory, or supplies disappear.

Question 31

Shrinkage includes work behaviors such as theft, derailment of others, and abusive leadership.

Question 32

The best strategy for measuring job performance is to use multiple types of job performance measures that can complement each other in terms of strengths and weaknesses.

Question 33

Criterion deficiency is when an actual criterion measure includes something that it should not (e.g., bias), leading to error.

Question 34

Citizenship fatigue can occur when people perform too many OCBs.

Question 35

Multiple criteria involves treating each criterion measure separately in an analysis.

Question 36

_____ are outcome variables such as measures of employee knowledge, job performance, or attitudes.

Question 37

_____ is an abstract idea of the "essence" of a job and cannot be measured directly.

Question 38

The difficulty of capturing the conceptual criterion with the actual criterion measures is called _____.

Question 39

The concept that performance for an individual employee may change over time, even in the same time, is referred to as _____.

Question 40

Behaviors that support the social environment in the workplace are called _____.

Question 41

If a person carries out too many OCBs, over time this can lead to _____.

Question 42

_____ are work behaviors such as theft, derailment of others, and abusive leadership.

Question 43

_____ is a situation in which a worker comes to work sick, perhaps because they thought that the boss expected them to do so.

Question 44

The degree to which organizational materials, inventory, or supplies disappear is called _____.

Question 45

When an organization averages criteria together to get a "bottom line" measure of work performance it is called _____.

Question 46

What are criterion measures, and why are they important?

Question 47

How do actual criteria differ from conceptual criteria?

Question 48

What are two major problems associated with measuring job performance?

Question 49

When choosing multiple actual criterion measures that are intended to overlap with the same conceptual criterion, what is an important consideration?

Question 50

What are two characteristics of good actual criterion measures?

Question 51

Provide an example of a situation (real or hypothetical) in which it would be preferable to use a multiple-criteria approach (as opposed to a composite-criteria approach).

Question 52

Describe one challenge associated with using objective measures of performance. Give an example.

Question 53

Given the respective challenges associated with both subjective and objective measures of performance, what should an organization do to measure performance?

Question 54

Given that performance can change over time, what are the implications of conducting performance appraisals once a year?

Question 55

Differentiate task performance from contextual performance.

Question 56

What are problems with using absenteeism as a performance measure?

Question 57

What is shrinkage and why are measures of shrinkage used for in performance measurement?

Question 58

What is the "dark side" of OCBs?

Question 59

What are problems with using tardiness as a performance measure?