Deck 10: Power and Influence in the Workplace

Question 1

Power is the act of changing another person's attitudes and behaviour.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

The right to control information flow in the organization is a form of legitimate power.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The all-channels information flow structure is difficult to maintain because it conflicts with knowledge management.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Peer pressure typically represents a form of coercive power.

Question 5

Power is defined as influence in motion.

Question 6

Subordinates have reward power over their bosses through 360-degree feedback systems.

Question 7

In any relationship,both parties have some degree of power over the other.

Question 8

Power does not exist until the power holder actually applies power to influence someone else.

Question 9

Countervailing power refers to the power that the dominant person in a relationship uses as a backup when the primary source of power fails to work as planned on the dependent person.

Question 10

People might gain power by convincing others that they have something of value.

Question 11

Legitimate power is created whenever the organization assigns a supervisor formal authority over subordinates.

Question 12

Three general strategies to help organizations cope with uncertainty are prevention,creation and deception.

Question 13

Some employees and departments gain power by forecasting uncertainties in the organization's environment.

Question 14

The wheel formation information flow structure prevents employees from gaining power through information control.

Question 15

Prevention,forecasting and absorption are three contingencies of power in organizations.

Question 16

Employees are losing their expert power as society moves from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy.

Question 17

Employees in Canada and other low power distance countries are more likely to accept legitimate power than are employees in Mexico and other high power distance countries.

Question 18

Legitimate power is an agreement between people that one person has the right to request specific behaviours from the other person.

Question 19

Referent power is mainly developed through a person's interpersonal skills.

Question 20

Employees with low power distance are more likely to comply with legitimate power.

Question 21

Networking can potentially leverage a person's power by increasing the person's visibility and centrality.

Question 22

People who have more power over others tend to engage in more automatic rather than mindful thinking.

Question 23

Research suggests that as people become more powerful they are less goal oriented and become more focused on gaining additional power.

Question 24

Influence is an essential process in organizations through which people coordinate their effort.

Question 25

An employee's ability to influence others increases as the source of his or her power becomes more substitutable.

Question 26

Women have difficulty getting into senior management because they are usually excluded from male networks.

Question 27

Displaying one's diplomas and degrees on office walls is one way professionals increase their visibility.

Question 28

Professions gain power in the marketplace by reducing their substitutability through the control of tasks and knowledge.

Question 29

One feature of influence is that it operates down the corporate hierarchy but not up or across that hierarchy.

Question 30

Studies have found that people with power over others have more difficulty empathizing.

Question 31

First-line supervisors may have legitimate,reward and coercive sources of power,but their actual power is often limited by a lack of discretion.

Question 32

People have more power when their actions quickly affect many other people throughout the organization.

Question 33

The four contingencies of power include substitutability,visibility,referent and utilitarian.

Question 34

Networking increases one's socialistic capital.

Question 35

Networking is a form of influence that tends to increase the individual's expert and referent power.

Question 36

Playing the "face game" instead of working productively behind closed doors is a strategy for gaining increased visibility at work.

Question 37

Even though you should be visiting clients most of the time,you make a point of stopping by the office each day so your boss sees that you are working.This increases your power by increasing your centrality.

Question 38

A good strategy for women who want to network is to learn how to play golf.

Question 39

By avoiding written documentation of special procedures,maintenance workers in the French tobacco-processing industry were maximizing their expert power through non-substitutability.

Question 40

Networking helps to increase a person's expert power and centrality.

Question 41

'Soft' influence tactics such as persuasion tend to build compliance rather than commitment to the influencer's request.

Question 42

Exchange,ingratiation,and persuasion are considered hard influence tactics.

Question 43

Negotiation and the norm of reciprocity are associated with the influence process of exchange.

Question 44

In persuasive communication,the inoculation effect involves warning listeners that others will try to influence them in the future and that they should be aware of the opponent's arguments.

Question 45

Extreme forms of assertiveness include blackmailing colleagues.

Question 46

Impression management is a common strategy for people trying to get ahead in the workplace.

Question 47

A coalition attempts to influence people outside the group by pooling the resources and power of its members.

Question 48

Silent authority,assertiveness,and exchange are three sources of power.

Question 49

People are more persuasive when they rely on logical arguments and avoid emotional appeals.

Question 50

How we dress and the way we behave politely towards others represents a type of influence strategy.

Question 51

A coalition gains power by symbolizing the legitimacy of the issue supported by the coalition.

Question 52

Persuasion generally works better in face-to-face interaction than through email or written letters.

Question 53

Persuasion is the most common form of influence in high power distance cultures.

Question 54

Silent authority and deference to authority are related concepts.

Question 55

Because impression management is inherently unethical,it is discouraged by career professionals.

Question 56

People who have expertise tend to have more influence using persuasion.

Question 57

The most appropriate influence tactic depends in part on the influencer's power base and position in the organization.

Question 58

Exaggerating one's resumé is categorized within the influence strategy of persuasion.

Question 59

Upward appeal is not considered a type of influence tactic.

Question 60

When the issue is extremely important to listeners,the speaker's personal characteristics are more important than the message content in persuading listeners.

Question 61

People with an internal locus of control and strong Machiavellian values are more likely to engage in organizational politics.

Question 62

Research indicates that ingratiation is more commonly used by managers in high power distance cultures than by managers in low power distance cultures.

Question 63

Supervisors who use ingratiation and impression management tactics tend to lose the respect of their staff.

Question 64

Forming coalitions is considered a political tactic,whereas cultivating networks is not.

Question 65

Which of the following statements about power is FALSE?

A) Power exists only when the dependent party is aware that the power holder controls valued resources.
B) Power requires interdependence in the relationship.
C) Power is the capacity to influence, rather than the actual practice of influencing others.
D) Power exists only when one person has something of value for a second person, but the second person has nothing of value for the first person.
E) People sometimes gain power by convincing others that they have something of value for them.

Question 66

Organizational politics occurs when someone attempts to influence others for the purpose of promoting personal interests.

Question 67

Which of the following statements about countervailing power in organizational relationships is TRUE?

A) Countervailing power is like an umbrella; it prevents anyone else from having any power over you.
B) Countervailing power is used by the stronger party to prevent the weaker party from leaving the relationship.
C) Countervailing power is the weaker party's power to maintain the stronger party's continued participation in the relationship.
D) Countervailing power is one of the ways that people have power by coping with uncertainty.
E) Countervailing power is a personality characteristic of people who crave power.

Question 68

Establishing a free flow of information and using effective change management practices help to minimize organizational politics.

Question 69

The power that the dependent party has over the dominant party in order to maintain the exchange relationship is known as:

A) reverse dependence
B) substitutability
C) countervailing power
D) visibility
E) legitimate power

Question 70

Organizational politics tends to increase in situations where decisions become routinized and programmed.

Question 71

Organizational leaders can minimize organizational politics by making decision rules more complex and ambiguous.

Question 72

In organizational settings,power is defined as:

A) the practice of trying to influence another person.
B) the capacity to influence others.
C) the act of changing another person's attitudes and behaviours.
D) the extent to which one person is required to follow another person's commands even though he or she does not want to follow those commands.
E) any situation where one person is dependent on another person, who is not at all dependent on the first person.

Question 73

Countervailing power refers to:

A) a second source of power held by the power holder in case the main source of power is ineffective.
B) the initial feeling of power employees experience when they are given more freedom and control over their jobs.
C) the capacity to keep someone who is more powerful than you in the exchange relationship.
D) a method of measuring the number of times an employee uses his or her power each day.
E) the ability of a person or department to gain more power through unethical organizational politics.

Question 74

Power is _____,whereas influence is _______.

A) good, bad
B) weak, strong
C) potential, behaviour
D) apparent, hidden
E) intended, unintended

Question 75

The preferred influence tactics vary across cultures.

Question 76

Organizational politics refers to any use of power to influence others.

Question 77

Organizational politics can result in lower job satisfaction,and high levels of work-related stress.

Question 78

Organizational politics flourish when resource allocation decisions are ambiguous and complex with no formal rules.

Question 79

Machiavellian values help employees to recognize and avoid using political tactics in organizational settings.

Question 80

The capacity to influence others in organizational settings is known as:

A) organizational politics
B) the inoculation effect
C) impression management
D) Machiavellianism
E) organizational power