Deck 10: Power and Influence in the Workplace

Question 1

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

Answer 1

False

Question 2

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

Answer 2

True

Question 3

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

Answer 3

False

Question 4

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

Question 5

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

Question 6

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

Question 7

Power is defined as influence in motion.

Question 8

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

Question 9

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

Question 10

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

Question 11

Peer pressure typically represents a form of coercive power.

Question 12

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 13

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

Question 14

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

Question 15

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

Question 16

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

Question 17

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

Question 18

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

Question 19

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

Question 20

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

Question 21

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

Question 22

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

Question 23

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

Question 24

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

Question 25

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

Question 26

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

Question 27

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 28

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

Question 29

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

Question 30

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

Question 31

By avoiding written documentation of how to operate equipment or serve customers, employees are maximizing their expert power through non-substitutability.

Question 32

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

Question 33

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 34

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

Question 35

Networking increases one's socialistic capital.

Question 36

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

Question 37

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

Question 38

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

Question 39

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

Question 40

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

Question 41

Silent authority and deference to authority are related concepts.

Question 42

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

Question 43

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

Question 44

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

Question 45

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

Question 46

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

Question 47

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

Question 48

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

Question 49

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

Question 50

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

Question 51

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

Question 52

Extreme forms of assertiveness include blackmailing colleagues.

Question 53

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

Question 54

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

Question 55

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

Question 56

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

Question 57

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 58

Upward appeal is not considered a type of influence tactic.

Question 59

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

Question 60

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

Question 61

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

Question 62

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

Question 63

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

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

Question 64

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 exchanged in the 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 65

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

Question 66

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

Question 67

The preferred influence tactics vary across cultures.

Question 68

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

Question 69

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.

Question 70

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

Question 71

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

Question 72

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

Question 73

Power is _____, whereas influence is _______.

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

Question 74

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

Question 75

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

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

Question 76

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 77

Which source of power originates from the powerholder's own characteristics?

A)Legitimate power
B)Coercive power
C)Expert power
D)Reward power
E)All of the above

Question 78

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 79

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 behaviors.
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 80

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