Deck 14: Organizational Culture

Question 1

Organizational cultures include shared assumptions

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Organizational countercultures further strengthen the organization's dominant culture

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Artifacts refer mainly to the paintings and other tangible objects that appear throughout the organization.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Most organizational culture models oversimplify the diversity of cultural values in organizations.

Question 5

Values represent an important invisible part of an organization's culture.

Question 6

Organizational countercultures can potentially create conflict and dissension among employees.

Question 7

Organizational countercultures can potentially help the organization maintain its ethical conduct.

Question 8

Values represent the deepest part of an organization's culture.

Question 9

An organization's culture is usually quite fuzzy and difficult to define using simple models and surveys.

Question 10

Organizational culture consists of the values and assumptions shared within an organization.

Question 11

Organizational culture models and surveys present a distorted view of organizational culture.

Question 12

Shared assumptions are easily uncovered by surveying employees.

Question 13

Popular organizational culture models and measures falsely presume that organizations have a fairly clear, unified culture.

Question 14

An organizational counterculture is a type of subculture

Question 15

Organizational culture is not represented by espoused values.

Question 16

Artifacts of organizational culture may include the building's design, the way people are greeted, and the food served in the company's cafeteria.

Question 17

Subcultures are groups of employees whose values are opposed to the organization's dominant values.

Question 18

An organization's culture is defined by its espoused values.

Question 19

Organizational culture defines what is important and unimportant in the company and, consequently, directs everyone in the organization toward the "right way" of doing things.

Question 20

The most accurate way to determine an organization's culture is by interviewing senior executives about their perceptions of that culture.

Question 21

Researchers have found that an organization's culture may be identified very easily and quickly by looking at one or two observable artifacts.

Question 22

The stronger the corporate culture, the more difficult it is for employees to embrace the dominant values.

Question 23

A strong organizational culture exists when most employees understand and accept the dominant values.

Question 24

Office space and paintings hung on walls can be artifacts that symbolize the organization's culture.

Question 25

A strong corporate culture exists when employees are forced to abide by a particular set of organizational values whether or not they believe in those values.

Question 26

Language reflects an organization's dominant values, but not the values of its subcultures.

Question 27

Organizational stories support organizational culture by providing social prescriptions of the ways things should or should not be done around the organization.

Question 28

A ritual would include how visitors are greeted as they enter the company's offices.

Question 29

Rituals represent the organization's deliberate and usually dramatic displays of its dominant culture.

Question 30

A strong corporate culture bonds employees together and makes them feel part of the organization.

Question 31

Companies with strong organizational cultures are potentially more effective.

Question 32

Stories have the greatest effect on communication corporate culture when they describe real people and are assumed to be true.

Question 33

In corporate cults, the culture is so strong that it focuses employees so much on one mental model that they may fail to see issues from different perspectives.

Question 34

A strong organizational culture improves the firm's effectiveness, but only if the cultural values are aligned with its external environment.

Question 35

Organizational culture is not directly observable, but it may be loosely interpreted through visible artifacts.

Question 36

Companies with strong corporate cultures invariably have much higher performance than companies with weak cultures.

Question 37

Ceremonies are more formal artifacts than rituals

Question 38

The organization's physical structure and use of space often communicate its dominant cultural values.

Question 39

Organizational culture is a deeply embedded form of social control that influences the thoughts and actions of organizational members.

Question 40

Organizational stories are most effective at communicating corporate culture when they describe real people and seem to represent true past events.

Question 41

Adaptive cultures focus employees on the changing needs of customers and other stakeholders and support initiative and leadership to keep pace with these changes.

Question 42

Two companies should not merge if a bicultural audit determines that they have substantially different cultures.

Question 43

Compared to other strategies for merging two organizations, assimilation is most likely to result in a culture clash.

Question 44

Deculturation is the best strategy for combining corporate cultures in most mergers.

Question 45

The integration strategy for combining corporate cultures usually creates conflict as employees from the acquired firm resist the cultural intrusions.

Question 46

Corporate cults are preferred, because they help suppress subcultures within organizations.

Question 47

Organizations with adaptive cultures are unable to maintain a stable value system and, consequently, tend to perform poorly in the long run.

Question 48

Studies suggest that only 30 to 50 percent of corporate acquisitions add any financial value.

Question 49

An adaptive culture has a strong learning orientation.

Question 50

Organizations with very strong cultures may become dysfunctional because they suppress dissenting subcultural values.

Question 51

An organization's culture can either support or undermine ethical conduct among employees.

Question 52

The assimilation strategy of merging corporate cultures should be applied when the acquired firm has a weak culture and is willing to embrace the acquiring company's culture.

Question 53

One of the first steps in a bicultural audit is to identify cultural differences between the merging companies.

Question 54

An adaptive organizational culture is one where employees pay attention to organizational goals, not the processes to achieve those goals.

Question 55

The company founder is arguably the most influential leader in an organization's culture.

Question 56

The bicultural audit process consists of three steps.

Question 57

A few experts argue that an organization's culture cannot be managed.

Question 58

Most organizational behaviour writers suggest that organizations are more effective when they become corporate cults.

Question 59

In mergers and acquisitions, companies with clashing cultures tend to undermine employee performance and customer service.

Question 60

The separation strategy is most appropriate when the merging companies are unrelated industries.

Question 61

Organizational citizenship behaviours are more likely to prevail under relational than transactional psychological contracts.

Question 62

Organizational socialization is the process of meeting other employees and spending more time with them throughout the work day.

Question 63

New employees learn corporate culture through the process of organizational socialization.

Question 64

A strong culture depends on a stable workforce.

Question 65

The two types of psychological contracts are transactional and reciprocal.

Question 66

Most studies have found that reward systems have little or no effect on strengthening corporate culture.

Question 67

The three stages of organizational socialization are psychological contract, confirmation, and role management.

Question 68

Nearly all of the socialization adjustment process occurs during and after the first day of work.

Question 69

Every organization should discourage "tribal storytellers" since they are typically unproductive workers.

Question 70

According to the attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) theory, alignment with the company's culture is often a factor when deciding which applicant to hire.

Question 71

Organizational socialization begins on the first day of employment and continues throughout one's career within the company.

Question 72

The psychological contract continues to develop and evolve even after a job applicant becomes an employee.

Question 73

Organizational socialization does not occur until a person becomes a member of the organization.

Question 74

A psychological contract refers to the psychological effect after someone signs an employment contract.

Question 75

Companies strengthen corporate culture by selecting applicants whose values are compatible with the company's dominant values.

Question 76

Reality shock improves the organizational socialization process by forcing newcomers to pay more attention to the realities of the workplace.

Question 77

Organizational socialization is a process of both learning and adjustment

Question 78

The transactional type of psychological contract is primarily a short-term economic exchange.

Question 79

The attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) theory explains why companies are able to attract, and select people who fit the culture, but later on have difficulty forcing them out.

Question 80

Employees are more likely to quit if values incongruence is sufficiently low