Deck 10: Power and Influence in the Workplace

Question 1

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

Answer 1

True

Question 2

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

Answer 2

True

Question 3

One potent form of legitimate power occurs where people withhold the right to control the information that others receive.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The norm of reciprocity creates a feeling of obligation to help someone who has helped you in the past.

Question 5

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

Question 6

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

Question 7

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

Question 8

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

Question 9

You cannot have power over others unless others believe you have that capacity

Question 10

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

Question 11

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

Question 12

Power is defined as influence in motion.

Question 13

The most powerful coping strategy to deal with uncertainty is prevention

Question 14

Employees with a high power distance tend to have higher deference to authority.

Question 15

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 16

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

Question 17

Legitimate power is created whenever the organization assigns a supervisor formal

Question 18

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

Question 19

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

Question 20

Peer pressure typically represents a form of coercive power.

Question 21

Social networking can potentially increase a person's power by increasing the person's visibility and centrality.

Question 22

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 23

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

Question 24

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

Question 25

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 26

By avoiding written documentation of special procedures, maintenance workers in a tobacco-processing factory are maximizing their expert power through nonsubstitutability.

Question 27

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

Question 28

Social networking generates power through socialism.

Question 29

Social networks exist everywhere because people have a drive to protect themselves.

Question 30

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

Question 31

The gap between two clusters of people in a social network is called a structural hole.

Question 32

People can gain power in organizations by knowing what the social networks around them look like.

Question 33

Social capital tends to be diluted with the number of network ties

Question 34

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

Question 35

Referent power is associated with charisma.

Question 36

Guanxi is an expressive activity because being part of a close-knit network of family and friends reinforces one's self-concept.

Question 37

Some writers describe charisma as both a "gift" and a "curse" within the charismatic person.

Question 38

Locating oneself within social networks helps to increase a person's expert power and centrality.

Question 39

Social network centrality is dependent on one's "betweenness."

Question 40

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

Question 41

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

Question 42

Silent authority and deference to authority are related concepts.

Question 43

Empirical research confirms that the effect of social networks can constrain the opportunities and advancement of women to corporate board memberships.

Question 44

People are more persuasive when listeners believe they have expertise and credibility.

Question 45

Extreme forms of assertiveness include blackmailing colleagues.

Question 46

Upward appeal is not considered a type of influence tactic.

Question 47

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 48

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

Question 49

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

Question 50

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

Question 51

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

Question 52

People who feel powerful usually are more likely to rely on stereotypes

Question 53

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

Question 54

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

Question 55

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

Question 56

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

Question 57

Research shows that the more brokering relationships you have, the more likely you are to get early promotions and higher pay.

Question 58

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

Question 59

The inoculation effect causes listeners to generate counterarguments to the anticipated persuasion attempts.

Question 60

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

Question 61

The preferred influence tactics vary across cultures

Question 62

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

Question 63

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

Question 64

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

Question 65

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

Question 66

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

Question 67

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

Question 68

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

Question 69

Establishing effective change management practices helps to minimize organizational politics.

Question 70

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

Question 71

Research indicates that ingratiation is more commonly used by managers in Canada than by managers in Hong Kong.

Question 72

The most appropriate influence tactic depends on personal, organizational, and cultural values.

Question 73

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

Question 74

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

Question 75

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

Question 76

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

Question 77

People who have expertise tend to have more influence using persuasion

Question 78

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

Question 79

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

Question 80

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