Deck 17: Organizational Culture and Ethical Behavior

Question 1

Rites of affiliation mark an individual's entry to, promotion in, and departure from an organization.

Answer 1

False
Rites of passage mark an individual's entry to, promotion in, and departure from an organization.

Question 2

Organizational culture is the set of shared values, beliefs, and norms that influence the way employees think, feel, and behave towards each other and towards people outside of the organization.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The values and assumptions in an organization's culture have little effect on organizational effectiveness.

Answer 3

False
The values and assumptions in an organization's culture can promote work attitudes and behaviors that increase organizational effectiveness.

Question 4

Typical instrumental values include working hard, valuing traditions, being creative, taking risks, and maintaining high standards.

Question 5

Newcomers learn about an organization's culture by participating in its formal socialization program and by observing or working with other employees.

Question 6

Norms are formal rules and regulations that cultivate the work attitudes and behaviors that are valuable to an organization.

Question 7

The cultural values of an organization are often evident in the stories, ceremonies, and language found in the organization.

Question 8

Shared cultural values provide a common reference point and smooth interactions among organizational members.

Question 9

Values are general criteria, standards, or guiding principles that people use to determine which types of behaviors, events, situations, and outcomes are desirable or undesirable.

Question 10

Organizations develop specific norms to encourage members to adopt certain terminal and instrumental values, and to behave in certain ways as they pursue their goals.

Question 11

Over time, members internalize the organization's values and the specific rules, norms, and SOPs that govern behavior.

Question 12

As soon as employees are hired, longtime members of the organization accept them as insiders.

Question 13

The organization's culture does little to control the way employees perceive and respond to their environment.

Question 14

Employees learn pivotal values and norms from formal socialization practices and informal elements, such as signs, symbols, stories, and organizational language.

Question 15

Typical terminal values include quality, responsibility, innovativeness, excellence, economy, morality, and profitability.

Question 16

Norms are standards or styles of behavior that are considered acceptable or typical for a group of people.

Question 17

An organization's culture consists of its terminal values and the modes of behavior it encourages.

Question 18

An instrumental value is a desired end state or outcome that people seek to achieve.

Question 19

Instrumental values help the organization achieve its terminal values.

Question 20

The ability of an organization's culture to motivate employees and increase its effectiveness is directly related to the way in which members learn the organization's values.

Question 21

The ethics of an organization exist separate and apart from the ethics of the country or society in which it operates.

Question 22

Because personal ethics influence how a person will act in an organization, the culture of an organization is strongly affected by the people who are in a position to establish its ethical values.

Question 23

Organizational symbols convey an organization's cultural values to its members inside the organization, but seldom are they conveyed to those outside the organization.

Question 24

The fact that an organization's members become similar over time and come to share the same values may hinder their abilities to respond to changes in the environment.

Question 25

Stories about organizational heroes must be true because they provide important clues about cultural values and norms.

Question 26

The concept of organizational language is limited to spoken language.

Question 27

Most professional groups have the authority to enforce the ethical standards of their professions.

Question 28

Rites of integration build and reinforce common bonds between members.

Question 29

Ethical values are not an integral part of an organization's culture.

Question 30

The ultimate source of organizational culture is the people who make up the organization.

Question 31

Rites of enhancement give an organization the opportunity to acknowledge and reward employees' contributions, in public, and thereby enhance their commitment to its values.

Question 32

When societal ethics are codified into laws, an organization is legally required to follow them.

Question 33

The founder of an organization has a substantial influence on the organization's initial culture because of his or her personal values and beliefs.

Question 34

Individual ethics are the personal moral values that people use to structure their interactions with other people.

Question 35

Successful companies need a strong set of terminal values and a belief that their company will always be the best in the business.

Question 36

Professional ethics are values that people use to structure their interactions with other people.

Question 37

Organizational language, ceremonies, and stories help people "learn the ropes" and the organization's cultural values.

Question 38

People internalize the values and norms of their professions just as they do the values and norms of their societies.

Question 39

Stories and language of an organization are important media for communicating culture.

Question 40

Organizational ethics pertain to the moral values, beliefs, and rules that establish the appropriate way for an organization and its members to deal with people both within and without the organization.

Question 41

The concept of power distance measures the degree to which countries accept social and economic differences in wealth, status, and well-being as natural.

Question 42

Companies that decentralize authority and empower employees promote the cultural values of obedience and accountability.

Question 43

Inert cultures emphasize entrepreneurship and respect for employees.

Question 44

The values and norms of inert cultures neither motivate nor inspire employees; instead, they lead to stagnation and often failure over time.

Question 45

Companies with a bias for action emphasize entrepreneurship and autonomy, and employees are encouraged to take risks.

Question 46

In adaptive cultures, employees often receive rewards linked directly to their performance and to the performance of the company as a whole.

Question 47

Promoting from outside the organization will bolster strong values and norms and build loyalty.

Question 48

Innovation and flexibility are desired terminal values in an organic structure.

Question 49

Values and norms in adaptive cultures help an organization build momentum, grow, and change as needed to achieve its goals and be effective.

Question 50

Well-designed human resource policies can minimize "people problems" and help align an employee's goals with the goals of his or her company.

Question 51

According to Hofstede, in countries where individualism prevails, values of individual achievement, freedom, and competition are stressed.

Question 52

In collectivist cultures, group members follow norms that stress group rather than personal interests.

Question 53

Organizational structure is the formal system of task and reporting relationships that an organization establishes to coordinate and motivate its employees.

Question 54

The employment practices of adaptive cultures are based on short-term employment needs and minimal investment in employees.

Question 55

Evidence suggests that linking pay to performance creates a culture of committed and motivated employees who perform at high levels.

Question 56

An organic structure gives rise to a culture in which predictability and stability are desired end states.

Question 57

Companies with strong corporate cultures recognize the importance of switching their processes to try and earn additional profits whenever possible.

Question 58

The norms, rules, and cultural values promoted by mechanistic and organic organizational structures are the same.

Question 59

Companies with strong corporate cultures only hire people who are motivated to succeed. Therefore the companies do not have to worry about motivating their employees.

Question 60

National culture is the particular set of economic, political, and social values that exist in a particular country.

Question 61

In low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures, structured situations are preferred because they provide a sense of security.

Question 62

Pittsburgh-based Corning Glass and Mexican glassmaker Vitro could have formed a joint venture to take advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Question 63

Creating an ethical organizational culture has now become a major priority for many companies because failing to do so can be catastrophic.

Question 64

A long-term orientation toward life and work is likely to be the result of values that include thrift and persistence.

Question 65

Ethical behavior cannot help companies develop better relationships with their customers.

Question 66

Advanced Western countries like the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom score relatively low on power distance.

Question 67

Managers create an ethical culture by making a personal commitment to uphold ethical values and transmit them to subordinates.

Question 68

American managers doing business abroad should expect to do business the American way.

Question 69

Individuals within an organization know that any action that harms others is not acceptable.

Question 70

We normally confront ethical issues when we weigh our personal interests against the effects our actions will have on others.

Question 71

The United States and France, which tend to spend more and save less, have a long-term orientation.

Question 72

Many studies have found that the likelihood of unethical or criminal behavior increases when people feel outside pressure to perform.

Question 73

Fair and equitable human resource procedures signal workers that they are working for an ethical organization and should behave in an ethical manner.

Question 74

Research suggests that people who believe they have little at stake are the ones most likely to act unethically.

Question 75

Whistle-blowing occurs when an employee informs an outside organization or person about an organization's illegal or unethical behaviors.

Question 76

In order to prevent the emergence of different national subcultures within a global organization, management must promote cohesiveness by creating a global culture with organization-wide values and norms.

Question 77

One of the most important effects of ethical rules is to regulate and control the pursuit of unbridled self-interest.

Question 78

Employees typically become whistle-blowers when they feel powerless to prevent an organization from committing an unethical act or when they fear retribution from the company if they voice their concerns.

Question 79

According to Hofstede, achievement-oriented countries value assertiveness, performance, success, and competition.

Question 80

If two companies are located in countries with very different cultures it would be very difficult to develop a joint venture between them.