Deck 1: Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior

Question 1

ACME Software Ltd has developed a training program to make employees more aware of how their job performance affects customers and other employees within the organization.This training program relates most closely with which of the following concepts?

A)Contingency anchor
B)Grounded theory
C)Open systems perspective
D)Marketing principles
E)Organizational efficiency

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Which of the following is a form of knowledge acquisition?

A)Hiring job applicants.
B)Research and development.
C)Information sessions where employees describe to colleagues unique incidents involving customers.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)Hiring job applicants and research and development.

Answer 2

E

Question 3

Knowledge management is an extension of:

A)traditional accounting methods of measuring corporate assets.
B)the organizational learning perspective of organizational behaviour.
C)microeconomic principles of supply and demand.
D)the efficiency model of industrial engineering.
E)None of the answers apply.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Which of the following relates to the perspective that organizations are open systems?

A)The organization adjusts its services to satisfy changing consumer demand.
B)The organization finds a substitute resource in anticipation of a future shortage of the resource previously used to manufacture the product.
C)Production and sales employees coordinate their work activities to provide a more efficient work process.
D)The organization changes its products to suit customer needs.
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 5

Intellectual capital consists of:

A)knowledge that employees possess and generate.
B)the knowledge captured in an organization's systems and structures.
C)the value of the organization's relationship with customers.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)knowledge that employees possess and generate and the knowledge captured in an organization's systems and structures.

Question 6

Which of the following perspective is consistent with the concept of organizational effectiveness?

A)Open systems perspective
B)Organizational learning perspective
C)High performance work practices perspective
D)Stakeholder perspective
E)All the answers are correct.

Question 7

Intellectual capital refers to:

A)how much money an organization spends on training and development.
B)the stock of knowledge that resides in an organization.
C)the percentage of information available that is actually used productively by the organization.
D)the total cost of computers and other 'intelligent' machines in the organization.
E)the cost of hiring a typical employee.

Question 8

According to the author of Canadian Organizational Behaviour,organizational behaviour knowledge:

A)should never be used to influence the behaviour of other people.
B)should be used mostly by managers and senior executives.
C)should never replace your commonsense knowledge about how organizations work.
D)is relevant to everyone who works in organizations.
E)should never be used to influence the behaviour of other people and should be used mostly by managers and senior executives.

Question 9

The amount of outputs relative to inputs in the organization's transformation process is referred to as:

A)organizational efficiency
B)organizational effectiveness
C)organizational deficiency
D)transformational quotient
E)organizational footprint

Question 10

Which of these statements about the field of organizational behaviour is FALSE?

A)Organizational behaviour scholars study individual,team and structural characteristics that influence behaviour within organizations.
B)Leadership,communication and other organizational behaviour topics were not discussed by scholars until the 1940s.
C)Organizational behaviour emerged as a distinct field around the 1940s.
D)The field of OB has adopted concepts and theories from other fields of inquiry.
E)OB scholars study what people think,feel and do in and around organizations.

Question 11

The open systems perspective of organizational behaviour states that:

A)organizations take their sustenance from the environment and in turn affect that environment.
B)organizations can operate efficiently by focussing on what they do best and ignoring changes in the external environment.
C)people are the only important and valued organizational input.
D)organizations should be viewed as machines with one working part.
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 12

Organizational behaviour knowledge:

A)originates mainly from models developed in chemistry and other natural sciences.
B)accurately predicts how anyone will behave in any situation.
C)is more appropriate for people who work in computer science than in marketing.
D)helps us to understand,and influence the behaviours of others in organizational settings.
E)None of the answers apply.

Question 13

Which organizational behaviour perspective discusses inputs,outputs and feedback?

A)Mechanistic perspective
B)Open systems perspective
C)Goal-attainment perspective
D)Organizational learning perspective
E)Stakeholder perspective

Question 14

Which of the following is included in the open systems perspective of organizations?

A)Inputs
B)Subsystems
C)Outputs
D)Feedback from the environment
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 15

Which of the following is an example of knowledge acquisition?

A)Surveying employees about their attitudes towards recent corporate changes.
B)Developing a training program for employees to learn the latest software for their jobs.
C)Encouraging employees to share their knowledge with co-workers.
D)Hiring people who bring valuable knowledge that is not available from current employees.
E)All of the answers are examples of knowledge acquisition.

Question 16

Which of these statements about the field of organizational behaviour is TRUE?

A)Organizational behaviour emerged as a distinct field during the 1980s.
B)The origins of some organizational behaviour concepts date back to Plato and other Greek philosophers.
C)Information technology has almost no effect on organizational behaviour.
D)The field of organizational behaviour relies exclusively on ideas generated within the field by organizational behaviour scholars.
E)The origins of organizational behaviour are traced mainly to the field of economics.

Question 17

Which of these statements about the field is FALSE?

A)Organizational behaviour scholars study individual,team and structural characteristics that influence behaviour within organizations.
B)The field of OB has adopted concepts and theories from other fields of inquiry.
C)Organizational behaviour emerged as a distinct field around the 1940s.
D)Given the specific utility of the field,OB is useful for the managers in the organizations and not the employees.
E)OB scholars study what people think,feel,and do in and around organizations.

Question 18

A computer maintenance company wants to 'capture' the knowledge that employees carry around in their heads by creating a database where employees document their solutions to unusual maintenance problems.This practice tries to:

A)transform intellectual capital into knowledge management.
B)transfer human capital into structural capital.
C)prevent relationship capital from interfering with human capital.
D)reduce the amount of human capital.
E)transfer structural capital into relationship capital.

Question 19

The organizational learning perspective states that an organizations' effectiveness depends on:

A)extracting information and ideas from the external environment and through experimentation.
B)ensuring that knowledge is shared throughout the organization.
C)ensuring that employees effectively use the knowledge available to them.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)ensuring that knowledge is shared throughout the organization and ensuring that employees effectively use the knowledge available to them.

Question 20

In the field of organizational behaviour,organizations are best described as:

A)legal entities that must abide by government regulations and pay taxes.
B)physical structures with observable capital equipment.
C)social entities with a publicly stated set of formal goals.
D)groups of people who work interdependently towards some purpose.
E)any social entity with profit-centred motives and objectives.

Question 21

Employees,suppliers and governments:

A)are organizational stakeholders.
B)are rarely considered in organizational behaviour theories.
C)represent the three levels of analysis in organizational behaviour.
D)are excluded from the open systems anchor.
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 22

Eastern University performs a daily computer search through newspaper articles to identify any articles about the university or its faculty members.University administrators use this information to receive feedback about how the public reacts to university activities.In knowledge management,searching for newspaper articles and other external writing about the organization is mainly a form of:

A)knowledge acquisition
B)communities of practice
C)organizational unlearning
D)knowledge sharing
E)documentation

Question 23

The triple bottom line philosophy says that:

A)companies should pay three times more attention to profits than to employee wellbeing.
B)the main goal of all companies is to satisfy the needs of three groups: employees,shareholders,and suppliers.
C)business success increases by having three times more contingent workers than permanent employees.
D)companies should pay attention to local,national,and global customers.
E)companies should try to support the economic,social,and environmental spheres of sustainability.

Question 24

As part of the knowledge management process,experimentation mainly affects:

A)measuring intellectual capital
B)knowledge acquisition
C)organizational memory
D)knowledge sharing
E)unlearning

Question 25

A technology company wants to move into the field of wireless communications.Unfortunately,few of its employees know enough about the basic technology to acquire emerging knowledge about that field or to launch a separate business unit to enter that market.With respect to learning about wireless technology knowledge,this organization has:

A)too much structural capital.
B)low organizational memory.
C)high human capital but low relationship capital.
D)too much of an open system.
E)low human capital.

Question 26

The topic of ethics is most closely associated with:

A)workplace values.
B)the scientific method.
C)workforce diversity.
D)the open systems anchor.
E)the contingency approach to organizational behaviour.

Question 27

Which of the following best describes the high performance work practices perspective?

A)Organizations that want to be effective should strive for "one best practice" strategy.
B)A particular action may have different consequences depending on the situation.
C)All organizations should be viewed as being made up of many different parts which contribute to high performance.
D)Effective organizations incorporate several workplace practices that leverage the potential of human capital.
E)All of the above are correct.

Question 28

Stable,long-lasting beliefs about what is important in a variety of situations are:

A)called intellectual capital.
B)the foundations of the open systems anchor.
C)the main reason why organizations fail to adapt.
D)rarely studied in the field of organizational behaviour.
E)called values.

Question 29

Which of the following typically results in a loss of organizational memory?

A)The processes used to make a unique product are incorrectly documented.
B)The company lays off nearly one-quarter of its workforce.
C)The company sells one of its divisions (including employees in that division)to another organization.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)Only "A" and "B" are correct.

Question 30

Organizational memory is best described as:

A)the total terabytes of hard disk space available on computers throughout an organization.
B)the ability of senior executives to recall important information about the company's products,services and employees.
C)the storage and preservation of intellectual capital within an organization.
D)the ability of employees throughout the organization to recall important information about the company's products and services.
E)the extent to which potential customers are able to recall specific products and services provided by an organization.

Question 31

The relatively new field of research that has emerged with the objective of identifying internal systems and structures that are associated with successful companies is called:

A)the organizational behaviour systems perspective.
B)the comparative organizations perspective.
C)the organizational learning perspective.
D)the organizational effectiveness perspective.
E)the high performance work practices perspective.

Question 32

Two of the most widely mentioned high-performance work practices in organizational behaviour are:

A)effective recruitment and hiring practices.
B)ethical business practices and corporate social responsibility.
C)avoiding counterproductive work behaviours and increasing workforce diversity.
D)minimizing political behaviours and encouraging cooperation among organizational members.
E)increasing employee involvement and job autonomy.

Question 33

Corporate social responsibility is most closely related to which of these organizational behaviour trends?

A)Workforce diversity.
B)Employment relationships.
C)Virtual work.
D)Globalization.
E)Workplace values and ethics.

Question 34

Values have become more important in organizational behaviour because of:

A)increased demand for corporate social responsibility.
B)increased pressure on organizations to engage in ethical practices.
C)direct supervision is expensive and incompatible to today's workforce.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers apply.

Question 35

Organizations should 'unlearn':

A)in many situations involving organizational change.
B)whenever new knowledge is brought into the organization.
C)whenever the organization shifts from communities of practice to experimentation in the knowledge acquisition process.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers apply.

Question 36

Organizational memory refers to:

A)its ability to hire more people with good memorization skills.
B)its level of current knowledge so it can bring in new knowledge from the environment.
C)its storage and preservation of intellectual capital.
D)its ability to unlearn knowledge.
E)its ability to conduct memorable work.

Question 37

Twice each year,a major car parts manufacturer brings together production and engineering specialists from its eight divisions to discuss ideas,solutions and concerns.This helps to minimize the 'silos of knowledge' problem that exists in many organizations.This practice is primarily an example of:

A)relationship capital
B)experimentation
C)knowledge sharing
D)documentation
E)organizational unlearning

Question 38

Stakeholders include:

A)shareholders
B)employees
C)suppliers
D)governments
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 39

Organizations can retain intellectual capital by:

A)transferring human capital into structural capital.
B)encouraging employees to take early retirement.
C)discouraging employees from communicating with each other.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers apply.

Question 40

Which of the following is NOT a concern expressed with respect to high performance work practices (HPWP)perspective?

A)HPWPs increase work stress for employees.
B)Even when HPWPs are successful,management is reluctant to share the financial benefits with workers.
C)The HPWP perspective lacks theoretical understanding of why such practices improve performance.
D)HPWPs satisfy shareholder and customer needs at the expense of employee well-being.
E)The HPWP perspective fails to consider the impact of such practices on the environment and society.

Question 41

Which of the following is NOT a conceptual anchor in organizational behaviour?

A)Contingency anchor
B)Systematic research
C)Organizational effectiveness anchor
D)Multidisciplinary anchor
E)Multiple levels of analysis anchor

Question 42

Which of the following concept is most closely associated with corporate social responsibility?

A)knowledge management
B)sociological theories
C)entrepreneurship
D)open systems perspective
E)triple bottom line philosophy

Question 43

Which of the following statements about Canada's population and workforce is FALSE?

A)More than half of immigrants to Canada over the past decade were born in Europe.
B)The participation of visible minorities in the workforce has increased over the past few decades.
C)Generation-X employees bring somewhat different needs and expectations to the workplace than their baby-boomer counterparts.
D)Canada is becoming a more multicultural society.
E)Workforce diversity presents both opportunities and challenges to organizations.

Question 44

What effect does teleworking have in the workplace?

A)Teleworking tends to improve the teleworker's work/life balance.
B)Teleworking forces corporate leaders to evaluate employees more from their work results rather than their 'face time'.
C)Under some circumstances,teleworking increases the teleworker's productivity.
D)Teleworking increases the risk that employees feel socially isolated from each other.
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 45

Workforce diversity:

A)includes the entry of younger people to the workforce.
B)can potentially improve decision making and team performance in organizations.
C)is increasing in Canada.
D)includes the increasing proportion of visible minorities in the workforce.
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 46

The degree to which a person minimizes conflict between work and nonwork demands refers to:

A)life choice balance.
B)stress management.
C)quality of life issues.
D)Personal-professional actualization.
E)None of the answers apply.

Question 47

Which of these statements about corporate social responsibility (CSR)is FALSE?

A)Most companies now publically report on their CSR practices.
B)CSR emphasizes the economic,social,and environmental spheres of sustainability.
C)Most Canadians expect companies to engage in CSR.
D)CSR is closely related to the topics of values and ethics.
E)An organization's perceived level of CSR influences whether people apply for work with that organization.

Question 48

Globalization occurs when an organization:

A)actively participates in other countries and cultures.
B)serves diverse customers within the firm's home country.
C)has a diverse workforce within the firm's home country.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)serves diverse customers within the firm's home country

Question 49

Personality,beliefs,values,and attitudes are:

A)secondary categories of workforce diversity.
B)primary categories of workforce diversity.
C)categories of deep-level workforce diversity.
D)not considered categories of diversity
E)a result of generational psychometrics.

Question 50

According to a recent survey how many Canadians would be willing take a pay cut to improve their work-life balance?

A)About one-third would agree.
B)Nearly half would refuse.
C)Fewer than 10 percent would accept.
D)Nearly no one would agree.
E)The percentage is unknown.

Question 51

Which of these statements is consistent with the four anchors of organizational behaviour?

A)Organizational behaviour theories must apply universally to every situation.
B)Organizations are like machines that operate independently of their external environment.
C)Each OB topic relates to only one level of analysis.
D)The field of organizational behaviour should rely on other disciplines for some of its theory development.
E)None of these statements is consistent with the OB anchors.

Question 52

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A)Employment relationships are shifting towards the idea that companies must provide employees a high degree of job security,possibly even a job for life.
B)Generation-X employees bring somewhat different values and needs to the workplace than those of baby boomers.
C)The workforce is becoming more diverse.
D)Successful firms increasingly rely on values rather than direct supervision to guide employee decisions and behaviour.
E)More work/life balance is an emerging issue in the employment relationship.

Question 53

Which of the following statements about the field of organizational behaviour is FALSE?

A)OB is the study of what people think,feel and do in and around organizations.
B)OB emerged as a distinct field of inquiry in the 1940s.
C)OB is a self-contained discipline,independent of other disciplines.
D)OB theories are usually tested using the scientific method.
E)Many OB theories are contingency-oriented.

Question 54

Virtual work:

A)is more common in Canada than in the United States.
B)occurs when job applicants are asked to pretend they are performing the job in the interview setting in order to determine their ability to perform that work.
C)tends to improve an employee's social involvement in the organization.
D)can potentially reduce employee stress.
E)None of the answers apply.

Question 55

Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A)Canada is becoming a more homogeneous society.
B)Deep-level diversity includes characteristics over which we have some control.
C)Most Canadians believe that the government should disband multiculturalism.
D)Diversity offers tremendous advantages to organizations with almost no disadvantages.
E)Nearly one-half of all immigrants to Canada over the past decade were born in the United States.

Question 56

Which of the following does NOT represent a belief that anchors organizational behaviour?

A)OB should view organizations as closed systems.
B)OB should assume that the effectiveness of an action usually depends on the situation.
C)OB should draw on knowledge from other disciplines.
D)OB should rely on the systematic research methods to generate knowledge.
E)OB topics can be studied from multiple levels of analysis.

Question 57

Which discipline has provided organizational behaviour with much of its theoretical foundation for team dynamics,organizational power and organizational socialization?

A)Sociology
B)Psychology
C)Economics
D)Industrial engineering
E)Political science

Question 58

Which of these statements about globalization and organizational behaviour is TRUE?

A)Globalization has little or no effect on organizational behaviour.
B)Globalization has forced organizational behaviour researchers to study only large multinational businesses.
C)Globalization emphasizes the need to recognize the contingencies of effective organizational behaviour practice in diverse cultures.
D)Globalization has forced organizational behaviour textbooks to study only companies with headquarters in North America.
E)Globalization has forced organizational behaviour researchers to study only large multinational businesses and forced organizational behaviour textbooks to study only companies with headquarters in North America.

Question 59

Which of the following is NOT a benefit of telecommuting according to research?

A)It reduces stress.
B)It improves job satisfaction.
C)It makes employees feel more empowered.
D)It reduces costs for the employer.
E)It reduces pollution.

Question 60

Which of the following is considered surface-level diversity?

A)Physical qualities.
B)Gender.
C)Ethnicity.
D)Age
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 61

Social entities are called organizations only when their members work interdependently toward some purpose.

Question 62

Organizational effectiveness,and not profitability,is considered the "ultimate dependent variable" in organizational behaviour.

Question 63

In order for something to be called an organization it must have buildings and equipment.

Question 64

Organizational behaviour knowledge helps us influence people and organizational events.

Question 65

Scholars have been studying organizational behaviour since the days of Greek philosophers.

Question 66

The study of OB wasn't formally organized until the 1970s.

Question 67

Evidence indicates that applying organizational behaviour knowledge tends to improve the organization's financial performance.

Question 68

Which of the following is NOT and anchor of organizational behaviour?

A)Contingency anchor
B)Open systems anchor
C)Multidisciplinary anchor
D)Systematic research anchor
E)Multiple levels of analysis anchor

Question 69

According to the multiple levels of analysis anchor:

A)organizational behaviour is mainly the study of how all levels of the organizational hierarchy interact with the external environment.
B)OB topics typically relate to the individual,team and organizational levels of analysis.
C)there are eight levels of analysis that scholars should recognize when conducting OB research.
D)organizational events can be studied from only one level of analysis.
E)Our understanding of organizational behaviour increases with the level of mathematical analysis applied to create the models.

Question 70

Which of the following is NOT one of the anchors of organizational behaviour knowledge?

A)multidisciplinary anchor.
B)systematic research anchor.
C)open systems.
D)contingency anchor.
E)multiple levels of analysis anchor.

Question 71

To form research questions,collect data,and test hypotheses against those data organizational behaviour scholars rely on:

A)systematic research.
B)closed systems theory.
C)grounded theory.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)contingency theory.

Question 72

All organizations have a collective sense of purpose.

Question 73

Which of the following is identified as an emerging field from which organizational behaviour is acquiring new knowledge?

A)Industrial engineering
B)Information systems
C)Anthropology
D)Economics
E)Psychology

Question 74

The contingency anchor of organizational behaviour states that:

A)we should have a second OB theory to explain the situation in case our first choice doesn't work.
B)OB theories must view organizations as systems that need to adapt to their environments.
C)there is usually one best way to resolve organizational problems.
D)a particular action may have different consequences in different situations.
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 75

An important principle in organizational behaviour is that OB theories should never be used to question or rebuild one's mental models.

Question 76

The goal attainment definition of effectiveness focuses on whether the organization achieves its stated goals.

Question 77

More than 1,000 years ago,Chinese factories were producing 125,000 tonnes of iron each year.

Question 78

One problem with the term "organizational effectiveness' is that it has too many substitute labels,and almost as many definitions.

Question 79

Organizational behaviour emerged as a distinct field around the 1940s.

Question 80

Almost all organizational behaviour theories share an implicit or explicit objective of making organizations more effective.