Deck 15: Strategic Human Resource Management of Technical Professionals

Question 1

An unsupportive culture is the number one reported obstacle to innovation in organizations.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Creating a respect for knowledge and knowledge development makes organizations more innovative.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

When Eli Lilly's former chief scientific officer, W. Leigh Thompson, threw failure parties he was trying to demonstrate that creating a respect for knowledge and knowledge development makes organizations more creative.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

In general you need to manage R&D employees the same as everyone else.

Question 5

R&D personnel will be more productive if you allow them to build strong links to, and exchange ideas with, technical personnel outside the organization.

Question 6

Open communication can enhance innovation and information sharing but is likely to increase misunderstandings.

Question 7

Strong external communication facilitates innovation because it improves decision making about potential innovations.

Question 8

In order to build strong links to external sources of information, you should encourage your employees to engage in boundary-spanning activities.

Question 9

Because innovation is risky, stressful and prone to failure, employees will not natural engage in it.

Question 10

While awarding equity for innovation is good, providing bonuses is better.

Question 11

An advantage of equity is that the employees will persist with innovative efforts even if they have a low probability of success.

Question 12

Intrinsic motivation comes from internal rewards as compared to external rewards (e.g. salary).

Question 13

Research has found that individual attributes that affect creativity include high self-efficacy, tolerance of risk, greater persistence, and an external locus of control.

Question 14

Creativity is enhanced by having a flexible environment where people have autonomy and the right to determine how to do their jobs.

Question 15

Georges de Mestral's idea for Velcro, developed after seeing burrs sticking to his dog, is a good example how innovation can enhanced by reasoning by analogy.

Question 16

If teams are too large, companies miss out on the benefits of joint effort and diversity of skills that teams provide.

Question 17

Functional teams can develop more specialized skills in their functional areas than cross-functional team members.

Question 18

A major disadvantage associated with a matrix structure is that employees report to two different bosses.

Question 19

Heavyweight teams are problematic for derivative projects because they cannot be managed as efficiently as lightweight teams, are less subject to senior management control, and do not conform well to a functional organizational structures.

Question 20

Heavyweight teams are very good at projects that exploit existing organizational capabilities and lightweight teams are needed to create new capabilities.

Question 21

Virtual teams reduce the cost of product development but are likely to increase the product development time.

Question 22

What is the set of beliefs, norms, and attitudes common to members of an organization called?

A) mission
B) culture
C) values
D) all of the above

Question 23

What is most likely to inhibit innovation?

A) process immaturity
B) workforce issues
C) unsupportive culture
D) insufficient access to information and data

Question 24

Which of the following is least likely to enhance innovation?

A) not tolerating failure
B) encouraging constructive criticism
C) having diversity of points of view
D) creating a respect of knowledge and knowledge development

Question 25

What can you do to welcome the involvement of all organizational members?

A) make all employees aware of the value of innovation and the company's strategy
B) make innovation a shared responsibility
C) make everyone's performance appraisal dependent on innovation
D) all of the above are effective at welcoming innovation from all organizational members

Question 26

What was Eli Lilly's former chief scientific officer, W. Leigh Thompson, attempting to demonstrate by throwing failure parties?

A) all employees were aware of the value of innovation and the company's strategy
B) making innovation a shared responsibility
C) demonstrating a tolerance for failure
D) making everyone's performance appraisal dependent on innovation.

Question 27

Why would you want to allow people to deviate from organizational norms in both defining problems and in identifying solutions to them?

A) to welcome the involvement of all organizational members
B) to increase diversity of viewpoints
C) to demonstrate a tolerance for failure
D) to make innovation a shared responsibility

Question 28

What is more common in R&D staff as compared to those working in other parts of the organization?

A) less interested in the commercial outcomes and more motivated by the work itself
B) less interested in the commercial outcomes and less motivated by the work itself
C) more interested in the commercial outcomes and more motivated by the work itself
D) more interested in the commercial outcomes and less motivated by the work itself

Question 29

What human resource practices would be most effective with R&D personnel?

A) give them more interesting projects and reward them for commercial accomplishments
B) give them more interesting projects and reward them for technical accomplishments
C) give them more routine projects and reward them for commercial accomplishments
D) give them more routine projects and reward them for technical accomplishments

Question 30

How can you make your communication more open?

A) reduce goal setting and work planning
B) reduce misunderstanding
C) reduce information exchange
D) all of above make communication more open

Question 31

How are you trying to encourage technical communication if you move people in closer proximity to each other?

A) informal and social interaction
B) job rotation
C) use of technology
D) collocation

Question 32

How are you trying to encourage technical communication if you have people learn jobs in different functional areas?

A) informal and social interaction
B) job rotation
C) use of technology
D) collocation

Question 33

How are you trying to encourage technical communication if you establish company-wide intranets?

A) informal and social interaction
B) job rotation
C) use of technology
D) collocation

Question 34

How does social networks and external ties improve innovation?

A) provides access to information about sources of opportunity
B) improves decision making about potential innovations
C) provides information in a more timely manner
D) all of the above

Question 35

What type of activities are attending conferences, visiting customers and suppliers, and participating in trade associations called?

A) informal and social
B) vertical
C) horizontal
D) boundary-spanning

Question 36

Why are incentives necessary to motivate innovation?

A) its risky
B) its stressful
C) its prone to failure
D) all of the above

Question 37

What is the best compensation system to encourage innovation?

A) salary
B) bonus
C) equity
D) all work equally well

Question 38

What is an advantage of using equity as a method of compensation?

A) helps overcome the moral hazard that occurs when innovators bear the cost of failure
B) attracts personnel who are looking for steady and consistent earnings
C) provides employees with the potential for upside rewards for risk taking
D) all of the above are advantages

Question 39

DEKA Research does not give equity or stock options to its engineers because employees with equity ownership:

A) have an incentive to persist with innovative efforts even if they have a low probability of success
B) can fail to work on other projects even if they are better for the organization
C) have an incentive to focus their attention only on activities that are tied to the incentive
D) all of the above are reasons

Question 40

What is the ability to come up with novel solutions to problems called?

A) intrinsic motivation
B) creativity
C) extrinsic motivation
D) innovation

Question 41

Which of the following is not a characteristic of someone who is likely to be more creative?

A) external locus of control
B) tolerance of ambiguity
C) greater persistence
D) greater self-efficacy

Question 42

What is it called if you are driven to complete a task because of internal rewards?

A) self-efficacy
B) self-esteem
C) creativity
D) intrinsic motivation

Question 43

What is it called if you are driven to complete a task because of external rewards?

A) external locus of control
B) internal locus of control
C) external motivation
D) internal motivation

Question 44

What can be done to enhance creativity?

A) vary tasks
B) allow people to experiment with ideas
C) let people determine how to do their jobs
D) all of the above

Question 45

What is 3M trying to do when they allocate a portion of their employees' time to whatever ideas they see fit?

A) increase communication
B) increase creativity
C) increase intrinsic motivation
D) increase extrinsic motivation

Question 46

Which of the following would be least likely to enhance creativity?

A) hire people with an external locus of control
B) develop a flexible environment
C) create some slack in the system
D) increase diversity of work groups

Question 47

According to 3M's mission, what percentage of their revenue is to be generated from products launched in the last four years?

A) 30 percent
B) 40 percent
C) 50 percent
D) 60 percent

Question 48

What is 3M trying to do with its policy of the "benevolent blind eye"?

A) increase communication
B) increase motivation
C) increase creativity
D) increase self-efficacy

Question 49

Approximately how much time does it take to develop a new version of the Microsoft operating system?

A) less than 100,000 hours
B) around 300,000 hours
C) around 450,000 hours
D) more than 600,000 hours

Question 50

As a rule of thumb, what time period is too long for a team to stay together?

A) more than a year
B) more than three years
C) more than five years
D) there is no maximum time

Question 51

What type of team is made up of people from a single discipline?

A) cross-functional
B) functional
C) autonomous
D) matrix

Question 52

What type of team is made up of people brought together from different disciplines?

A) cross-functional
B) functional
C) creative
D) innovative

Question 53

With which type of team are the members more likely to develop specialized skills?

A) matrix
B) autonomous
C) cross-functional
D) functional

Question 54

With which type of team are you more likely to exploit the benefits of comparative advantage?

A) matrix
B) autonomous
C) functional
D) cross-functional

Question 55

What is true regarding functional teams compared to cross-functional teams?

A) functional teams are easier to administer and less expensive
B) functional teams are more difficult to administer and less expensive
C) functional teams are easier to administer and more expensive
D) functional teams are more difficult to administer and more expensive

Question 56

When are functional teams better than cross-functional teams?

A) when the rate of technical changes is high, the length of the project is short, and interdependency between projects is high
B) when the rate of technical change is high, the length of the project is long, and interdependency between projects is low
C) when the rate of technical change is low, the length of the project is short, and the interdependency of the projects is high
D) when the rate of technical change is low, the length of the project is long, and interdependency between projects is low

Question 57

What is true when looking at cross-functional teams versus functional teams?

A) cross-functional teams are worse for radical change but better for incremental innovation
B) cross-functional teams are worse for radical change and worse for incremental innovation
C) cross-functional teams are better for radical change and better for incremental innovation
D) cross-functional teams are better for radical change but worse for incremental innovation

Question 58

What type of organizational arrangement has one person reporting to two bosses?

A) functional team
B) cross-functional team
C) virtual team
D) matrix

Question 59

What is true of the matrix structure?

A) it lacks the specialized benefits of a functional team and the interdisciplinary benefits of a cross-functional team
B) it lacks the specialized benefits of a functional team but has the interdisciplinary benefits of a cross-functional team
C) it has the specialized benefits of a functional team but lacks the interdisciplinary benefits of a cross-functional team
D) has the specialized benefits of a functional team and the interdisciplinary benefits of a cross-functional team

Question 60

What type of team is composed of people who reside in their functional areas but have a liaison relationship with a project management committee?

A) lightweight team
B) matrix team
C) heavyweight team
D) autonomous team

Question 61

What types of teams are collocated teams composed of people from each of the functional areas of the organization?

A) lightweight teams
B) matrix teams
C) heavyweight teams
D) autonomous teams

Question 62

What types of teams are composed of people from different functional areas who are assigned to the team?

A) lightweight teams
B) matrix teams
C) heavyweight teams
D) autonomous teams

Question 63

What type of team is problematic for derivative projects?

A) lightweight teams
B) matrix teams
C) heavyweight teams
D) autonomous teams

Question 64

What type of team would be least effective if your company does not currently have capabilities in the areas in which you are conducting your product development project?

A) lightweight teams
B) matrix teams
C) heavyweight teams
D) autonomous teams

Question 65

Which type of team is best if innovation is incremental?

A) matrix teams
B) heavyweight teams
C) lightweight teams
D) autonomous teams

Question 66

What type of team is not collocated but collaborates through electronic means?

A) cross-functional team
B) functional team
C) virtual team
D) matrix team

Question 67

What is most likely to be associated with virtual teams?

A) reduced cost of product development and faster product development
B) reduced cost of product development but slower product development
C) increased cost of product development but faster product development
D) increased cost of product development and slower product development

Question 68

Define corporate culture and discuss how can be used to influence innovation.

Question 69

Explain why R&D personnel are typically different than those working in other parts of the organization. Describe what can be done to enhance their innovation.

Question 70

Explain how to organize technical communication.

Question 71

Describe the process you would follow if you were going to develop an incentive package for your R&D employees.

Question 72

Define creativity and explain what can be done to increase overall organizational creativity.

Question 73

Compare and contrast the different types of product development teams. Explain the different situations when each type would be preferable.

Question 74

Define a virtual team and explain how they affect product development.