Deck 1: Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior

Question 1

One of the fastest ways to acquire knowledge is to hire individuals or purchase entire companies that have valued knowledge.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The best organizational practices are those built on the notion that organizations are closed systems.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Intellectual capital represents the stock of knowledge held by an organization.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Open system organizations are unable to maintain a close alignment of the organization's systems with the external environment.

Question 5

A perspective that effective organizations incorporate several workplace practices that leverage the potential of human capital is called high-performance work practices.

Question 6

Organizational effectiveness depends on the organization's capacity to acquire, share, use and store valuable knowledge.

Question 7

Social entities are called organizations only when their members have complete agreement on the goals they want to achieve.

Question 8

The knowledge, skills and abilities of employees is an example of structural capital.

Question 9

According to the systems perspective, most organizations have one working part rather than many sub-components.

Question 10

Accounting, OB, and Marketing are three business fields that have a clearly-defined career path.

Question 11

All organizations have a collective sense of purpose, whether it's producing oil or creating the fastest Internet search engine.

Question 12

Three challenges organizations are facing are globalization, increasing workforce diversity and emerging employment relationships.

Question 13

Everyone is a manager.

Question 14

Intellectual capital includes, among other things, the knowledge captured in an organization's systems and structures.

Question 15

One way organizations can retain intellectual capital is to have high employee turn around.

Question 16

In order for something to be called an organization it must have buildings and equipment.

Question 17

An important principle in organizational behavior is that OB theories should never be used to predict or influence organizational events.

Question 18

The open systems perspective emphasizes that organizations survive by adapting to changes in the external environment.

Question 19

Given that OB experts have been accumulating a distinct knowledge about behavior within organizations, OB is referred to as a field of study.

Question 20

Structural capital includes knowledge embedded in the organization's systems and structures.

Question 21

Values guide an individual but are not an important subject within an organization.

Question 22

The "triple bottom line" philosophy says that in addition to their own profitability, successful organizations focus on the financial performance of their suppliers and customers.

Question 23

Working on a self-directed team actually reduces employee motivation because employees feel they have no direction.

Question 24

Stakeholders are shareholders, customers, suppliers, governments and any other groups with a vested interest in the organization.

Question 25

Task performance refers to goal-directed behaviors under the individual's control that support organizational objectives.

Question 26

Employees who experience job dissatisfaction or work-related stress are more likely to be absent or late for work.

Question 27

Joining the organization is a type of work-related behavior.

Question 28

Dark-side workplace behaviors are collectively known as counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs).

Question 29

One example of organizational citizenship behaviors is assisting co-workers with their work problems.

Question 30

One widely mentioned high-performance work practice is employee involvement.

Question 31

Values represent an individual's short-term beliefs about what will happen in the future.

Question 32

There are five individual-level dependent variables found in most OB research.

Question 33

Companies thrive when employees with talent and potential leave the company.

Question 34

Counterproductive work behaviors are voluntary.

Question 35

Counterproductive work behaviors include threats and work avoidance.

Question 36

Organizations need to anticipate and adjust to environmental changes in order to fit in their environment.

Question 37

Organizations are more effective when they invest in employee skills and knowledge development.

Question 38

Ethics refers to the study of moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right or wrong and outcomes are good or bad.

Question 39

Absenteeism is lower in organizations with generous sick leave.

Question 40

Globalization may have both positive and negative implications for people working in organizations.

Question 41

Most organizational behavior theories have been developed by OB scholars rather than from other disciplines.

Question 42

Which of these statements about the field of organizational behavior is TRUE?

A)Organizational behavior emerged as a distinct field during the 1940s.
B)The origins of some organizational behavior concepts date back to Taylor and Mayo.
C)Information technology has almost no effect on organizational behavior.
D)The field of organizational behavior relies exclusively on ideas generated within the field by organizational behavior scholars.
E)The origins of organizational behavior are traced mainly to the field of economics.

Question 43

The systematic research anchor relies mainly on qualitative data and subjective procedures to test hypothesis.

Question 44

Workforce diversity potentially improves decision making and team performance on complex tasks.

Question 45

The contingency anchor in organizational behavior suggests that we need to diagnose the situation to identify the most appropriate action under those specific circumstances.

Question 46

The field of organizational behavior relies on qualitative rather than quantitative research to understand organizational phenomena.

Question 47

Marketing is one of the disciplines that have not made any contribution to organizational behavior knowledge.

Question 48

Deep level diversity is the observable demographics such as age, gender and race.

Question 49

Reduced job security and increased work intensification are partly caused by globalization.

Question 50

Psychology and sociology have contributed many theories and concepts to the field of organizational behavior.

Question 51

Research indicates that Baby Boomers and Generation-X employees bring the same values and expectations to the workplace.

Question 52

Which of these statements about the field of organizational behavior is FALSE?

A)Organizational behavior scholars study individual, team and structural characteristics that influence behavior within organizations.
B)Given the specific utility of the field, OB is useful for the managers in the organizations and not the employees.
C)Organizational behavior emerged as a distinct field around the 1940s.
D)The field of OB has adopted concepts and theories from other fields of inquiry.
E)OB scholars study what people think, feel and do in and around organizations.

Question 53

Communications and information systems are two emerging fields from which organizational behavior is now acquiring knowledge.

Question 54

Most organizational events may be studied from all three levels of analysis: individual, team and organization.

Question 55

_____ is the study of what people think, feel, and do in and around organizations.

A)OB
B)Marketing
C)Sociology
D)Psychology
E)Communication

Question 56

According to research, although telecommuting significantly increases employee stress and reduces productivity and job satisfaction, it makes employees feel more empowered.

Question 57

People born between 1946 and 1964 are referred to as Generation X employees.

Question 58

Work/life balance refers to minimizing conflict between work and non-work demands.

Question 59

Globalization refers to economic, social, and cultural connectivity with people in other parts of the world.

Question 60

Which of the following statements about the field of organizational behavior is FALSE?

A)OB is the study of what people think, feel and do in and around organizations.
B)OB emerged as a distinct field of inquiry in the 1940s.
C)OB is a self-contained discipline, independent of other disciplines.
D)OB theories are usually tested using the scientific method.
E)Many OB theories are contingency-oriented.

Question 61

According to the authors of your text, organizational behavior knowledge:

A)should never be used to influence the behavior of other people.
B)should be used mostly by managers and senior executives.
C)should never replace your commonsense knowledge about how organizations work.
D)is relevant to everyone who works in organizations.
E)both 'A' and 'B'.

Question 62

Which of these describes groups of people who work interdependently towards some purpose?

A)OB
B)Globalization
C)Work/Life balance
D)Knowledge management
E)Organizations

Question 63

Knowledge management is an extension of:

A)traditional accounting methods of measuring corporate assets.
B)the open systems perspective of organizational behavior.
C)microeconomic principles of supply and demand.
D)the efficiency model of industrial engineering.
E)none of the above.

Question 64

From the open systems view of the organizations, which of these is NOT an input?

A)Human resources
B)Raw materials
C)Equipment
D)Information
E)Profits

Question 65

Organizational behavior knowledge:

A)originates mainly from models developed in chemistry and other natural sciences.
B)accurately predicts how anyone will behave in any situation.
C)is more appropriate for people who work in computer science than in marketing.
D)helps us to understand, predict, and influence the behaviors of others in organizational settings.
E)does none of the above.

Question 66

Which of the following is a form of knowledge acquisition?

A)Grafting
B)Experimentation
C)Information sessions where employees describe to colleagues unique incidents involving customers
D)All of the above
E)'A' and 'B' only

Question 67

Eastern University performs a daily computer search through newspaper articles to identify any articles about the university or its faculty members.University administrators use this information to receive feedback about how the public reacts to university activities.In knowledge management, searching for newspaper articles and other external writing about the organization is mainly a form of:

A)knowledge acquisition.
B)grafting.
C)organizational unlearning.
D)knowledge sharing.
E)documentation.

Question 68

The open systems anchor of organizational behavior states that:

A)organizations affect and are affected by their external environments.
B)organizations can operate efficiently by ignoring changes in the external environment.
C)people are the only important organizational input.
D)organizations basically have only one working part.
E)all of the above.

Question 69

As part of the knowledge management process, experimentation is conducive to:

A)measuring intellectual capital.
B)knowledge acquisition.
C)organizational memory.
D)knowledge sharing.
E)unlearning.

Question 70

Which organizational behavior perspective discusses inputs, outputs, and feedback?

A)Contingency
B)Open systems
C)Multidisciplinary
D)Systematic research
E)None of the above

Question 71

Organizational behavior views organizations as:

A)non-systems.
B)a single unitary subsystem.
C)open systems.
D)closed systems.
E)none of the above.

Question 72

Intellectual capital refers to:

A)how much money an organization spends on training and development.
B)the stock knowledge that resides in an organization.
C)the percentage of information available that is actually used productively by the organization.
D)the total cost of computers and other 'intelligent' machines in the organization.
E)the cost of hiring a typical employee.

Question 73

Which of these refers to the perspective that companies take their sustenance from the environment and, in turn, affect that environment through their outputs?

A)Contingency anchor
B)Systematic research
C)Closed system
D)CSR
E)Open system

Question 74

In the field of organizational behavior, organizations are best described as:

A)legal entities that must abide by government regulations and pay taxes.
B)physical structures with observable capital equipment.
C)social entities with a publicly stated set of formal goals.
D)groups of people who work interdependently towards some purpose.
E)any social entity with profit-centered motives and objectives.

Question 75

Twice each year, a major car parts manufacturer brings together production and engineering specialists from its eight divisions to discuss ideas, solutions, and concerns.This helps to minimize the 'silos of knowledge' problem that exists in many organizations.This practice is primarily an example of:

A)grafting.
B)experimentation.
C)knowledge sharing.
D)documentation.
E)organizational unlearning.

Question 76

ACME Software Inc.has developed a training program to make employees more aware of how their job performance affects customers and other employees within the organization.This training program relates most closely with which of the following concepts?

A)Contingency anchor
B)Grounded theory
C)Open systems
D)Virtual teams
E)Telecommuting

Question 77

Which of the following relates to the idea that organizations are open systems?

A)The organization adjusts its services to satisfy changing consumer demand.
B)The organization finds a substitute resource in anticipation of a future shortage of the resource previously used to manufacture the product.
C)Production and sales employees coordinate their work activities to provide a more efficient work process.
D)The organization changes its products to suit customer needs.
E)All of the above.

Question 78

Organizations retain intellectual capital by:

A)transferring employee capital into structural capital.
B)encouraging employees to take early retirement.
C)discouraging employees from communicating with each other.
D)all of the above.
E)none of the above.

Question 79

Intellectual capital consists of:

A)knowledge that employees possess and generate.
B)the knowledge captured in an organization's systems and structures.
C)the value that customers provide to the organization.
D)all of the above.
E)'A' and 'B' only.

Question 80

Companies 'manage' knowledge by:

A)extracting information and ideas from the external environment and through experimentation.
B)ensuring that knowledge is shared throughout the organization.
C)ensuring that employees effectively use the knowledge available to them.
D)all of the above.
E)doing only 'B' and 'C'.