Deck 1: The Business and Society Relationship

Question 1

Although businesses are sometimes criticized for abusing power, they may use power positively.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Businesses generally feel that news coverage of their activities is negatively biased.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

It has been observed that business people are characterized on prime time television shows as greedy and unethical.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Expectations that businesses have of each other are a part of the social contract between them.

Question 5

The representation of business-oriented individuals in movies and television has no impact on public perceptions of the morality of business.

Question 6

Affluence and education often grow together in a society, bringing about eventual criticism of business.

Question 7

Business includes large corporations as well as partnerships and proprietorships.

Question 8

The macro level of power is at the level of the individual firm.

Question 9

Newspapers and magazines serve as a stronger medium for public awareness than television.

Question 10

People who exhibit an entitlement mentality feel they should work for everything they receive.

Question 11

Social problems in our society have decreased over the past three decades.

Question 12

Stakeholders of a business include only those people who directly own a share of the business.

Question 13

The recent spate of business scandals has had no impact on public perceptions of business ethics.

Question 14

One major benefit of a pluralistic society is that it prevents power from being concentrated in the hands of a few.

Question 15

Some people feel that a disadvantage of pluralism is that it encourages the extreme pursuit of self-interest by individual institutions.

Question 16

A social problem is a gap between society's expectations of social conditions and those of the federal government.

Question 17

Examples of the micro level of power are firms acting in concert to wield power.

Question 18

The abuse of power can lead to the eventual loss of power.

Question 19

Businesses have been criticized because they have brought about a more affluent, educated, and aware society.

Question 20

One cannot argue that our pluralistic society has become a special-interest society.

Question 21

A student expects his or her professor to be fair in grading, while the professor expects the student to be fair in evaluating the professor on teaching evaluation forms. This is an example of a

A) social contract.
B) social issue.
C) social problem.
D) Laws and regulations.

Question 22

Which of the following is an internal stakeholder?

A) Government
B) Employees
C) Consumers
D) Community members

Question 23

Which of the following was not discussed in the text as a factor in the social environment that has led to business criticism?

A) affluence
B) education
C) the growing number of senior citizens
D) awareness through television

Question 24

A social problem is defined as a gap between

A) What executives think is reality and what the media think is reality.
B) the past performance and the current performance of society in meeting social needs.
C) government polls and special interest group polls on society's most serious problems.
D) society's expectations of social performance and the present social realities.

Question 25

Which of the following best reflects the Iron Law of Responsibility?

A) Those who are in charge will be responsible.
B) The micro level of power is the responsibility of the board of directors.
C) In the long run, those who do not use power in a responsible way will tend to lose it.
D) When power and responsibility get out of balance, power usually wins.

Question 26

Ms. James has the power to fire Bob, her employee, if she feels that Bob is not performing his job adequately. Ms. James's power is in which of the following spheres?

A) technological
B) environmental
C) political
D) individual

Question 27

Which of the following comprise the social contract?

A) social environment
B) Rules of the game and shared understandings
C) expectations and performance
D) "letter" and "spirit" of the law

Question 28

A managerial approach to the business/society relationship confronts the individual manager with such questions as

A) What changes are occurring in society's expectations of business?
B) What impact is social change having on the organization and how should we best respond to it?
C) How can we best plan and organize for socially related business problems?
D) All of the above

Question 29

Power is

A) the ability or capacity to produce an effect or to bring influence to bear on a situation.
B) held exclusively by business so that this is the problem.
C) the right to expect compliance.
D) held by individuals but not corporations.

Question 30

Which of the following is not a characteristic of a pluralistic society?

A) diffusion of power
B) concentration of power among groups
C) dispersed individual allegiances
D) a widely diversified set of loyalties to many organizations and minimizes the danger that a leader of any one organization will be left uncontrolled
E) Built-in set of checks and balances

Question 31

The revolution of rising expectations is

A) a myth.
B) the attitude or belief that each succeeding generation ought to get more than its predecessors.
C)
C) behind the argument that a major reason business has been criticized today is because society's expectations of its performance have outpaced business's ability to meet these growing expectations.
D) Both b and

Question 32

Diversity, built-in checks and balances, and wide decentralization are key concepts in describing

A) entitlement mentality.
B) pluralism.
C) social change.
D) criticism.

Question 33

A social problem exists when

A) a company's expected net income is higher than its actual net income.
B) a company's share of the consumer market falls below a target set by the company.
C) society's expectations of business's performance are higher than business's actual social performance.
D) business's actual social performance is higher than society's expectations of business's performance.

Question 34

Which of the following is not an example of the use of power?

A) IBM supplies a large grant to a university and in turn has a say in how the computers it contributed are used.
B) A firm supports a political candidate, contributing a large portion of the funds of his or her winning campaign election.
C) A firm operates in a competitive market, meeting consumer demand.
D) The president of Ford Motor Company appears in a television commercial to advertise the company's product.

Question 35

Which of the following statements about the macro-environment is not correct?

A) It includes the total environment outside of the firm.
B) It is just another way of thinking about society.
C) It is the total context in which the organization resides.
D) It is comprised of eight segments.

Question 36

The philosophy of entitlement holds that

A) the elderly are more entitled to social benefits than youth are.
B) someone is owed something just because he or she is a member of society.
C) stakeholders are entitled to be dealt with ethically by business organizations.
D) social problems take precedence over economic problems.

Question 37

Several domestic car manufacturers lobby to pass legislation that will raise the import taxes on foreign automobiles. This is an example of which of the following levels of power?

A) macro
B) intermediate
C) micro
D) individual

Question 38

Which of the following levels of power is manifested by the actions of one firm?

A) macro
B) intermediate
C) micro
D) individual

Question 39

Pluralism is defined as

A) the idea of embracing those activities that are expected are probabilities by societal members.
B) the diffusion of power among the societies many groups and organizations.
C) the process of focusing by which laws get passed and officials get elected and all other aspects of the interaction between the firmly political processes and government.
D) the backbone of the socially conscious investing movement.

Question 40

This segment of the macro environment focuses on demographics, life-styles, and social values.

A) economic segment
B) technological segment
C) political segment
D) None of the above

Question 41

The government, consumers, and community members belong to which stakeholder group:

A) external
B) internal
C) manager
D) None of the above

Question 42

The recent spate of corporate scandals, has had what impact on public perception?

A) No change in perception
B) The press is to blame for over-reporting
C) We live in a very ethical period because the few organizations caught are reported
D) Worsening public perception with regard to business ethics

Question 43

Internal stakeholder refers to

A) government.
B) consumers.
C) community members.
D) all of the above.

Question 44

Which of the following is not one of the factors that compose the social environment?

A) demographics
B) lifestyles
C) social values of the society
D) all of the above

Question 45

The attitude or a belief that each succeeding generation ought to have a standard living higher than that of its predecessor and that its expectations of major institutions, such as business, should be greater also is

A) Economic power.
B) Ethics.
C) Revolution of rising expectations.
D) Stakeholder management.

Question 46

Which of the following is not one of the broad types or classes of social issues?

A) issues or crisis that arise on the spur of the moment
B) issues or problems that management has time to deal with on a more long-term basis
C) Both a & b
D) None of the above

Question 47

The managerial approach consists of

A) the challenge of treating fairly the groups with which business interacts, management faces the equally important task of creating an organization a pleasant climate
B) clarifies the nature of the social or ethical issues that affect organizations
C) suggests alternative managerial responses to these issues in a rational and responds to these issues in a traditional and ethical fashion
D) Both b & c

Question 48

The revolution of rising expectations, the entitlement mentality, and factors have contributed somewhat to what might be termed as:

A) Rights movement.
B) Ethics management.
C) "Iron Law of Responsibility".
D) Political power.

Question 49

Which of the following is not an element if the social contract?

A) Laws and regulations
B) business
C) society or societal stakeholder groups
D) None of the above

Question 50

The level of wealth, disposable income, and standard of living of the of the society is

A) Education.
B) Television.
C) Rising expectations.
D) Affluence.