Deck 9: Foundations of Team Dynamics

Question 1

Companies with the best team dynamics are more likely to have team-based rewards and a physical arrangement that encourages face-to-face dialogue.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Employees tend to have a stronger sense of belongingness when they worked in teams rather than alone

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Task forces are temporary groups that typically investigate a particular problem and disband when the decision is made.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

In the United States and other Western countries,team members work together more effectively when they are rewarded only for team,not individual,performance.

Question 5

Employees in a department are considered a team only when they directly interact and coordinate work activities with each other.

Question 6

Informal groups exist primarily to complete tasks for the organization that management doesn't know about.

Question 7

All teams are groups,but some types of groups are not teams.

Question 8

Research concludes that individuals working alone are usually more successful than teams at identifying problems and developing alternatives to problems.

Question 9

Under stressful or dangerous conditions,people are more likely to stay together than disperse,even when the other people are strangers.

Question 10

Team effectiveness refers to how well a team accomplishes its objectives for the organization,even if this undermines the team's ability to survive for future tasks.

Question 11

All teams exist to fulfill some purpose,either for the organization or for its members.

Question 12

Teams are groups of two or more people who have equal influence over each other regarding the team's goals and means of achieving those goals.

Question 13

Social identity theory partly explains why people join informal groups.

Question 14

All groups are teams,but some types of teams are not groups.

Question 15

Team members are held together by their interdependence and need for collaboration to achieve common goals.

Question 16

A team's effectiveness is partly measured by how well its members' needs are fulfilled.

Question 17

Teams are groups with some degree of task interdependence and common objective.

Question 18

Some informal groups exist primarily to satisfy the drive to bond.

Question 19

Our desire for form informal groups is mostly influenced by our drive to defend.

Question 20

Teams potentially develop better products and services compared with employees working alone.

Question 21

Reciprocal interdependence is the highest level of task interdependence in organizations.

Question 22

The higher the level of task interdependence,the greater the need for individuals working alone than together in teams.

Question 23

As team size increases,members increase their frequency of interaction and are therefore more likely to increase their identity with the team's main objective.

Question 24

Office layout and other physical space characteristics influence the team's ability to accomplish tasks as well as shape team member perceptions about being part of a team.

Question 25

The optimal team size exists when the team is as small as possible,yet has enough people to accomplish the task.

Question 26

In effective teams,members must be motivated and able to work together,as well as contribute to the team's task.

Question 27

Students experience pooled interdependence when they are lined up at the laser printers trying to get their assignments done just before a class deadline.

Question 28

Teams are generally more effective when the task is complex and lacks definition.

Question 29

The three elements of team design include communication systems,organizational environment,and reward systems.

Question 30

Homogeneous teams take longer to work through the stages of team development than do heterogeneous teams.

Question 31

Forming,storming,and norming are the three main levels of task interdependence.

Question 32

In large teams,members tend to break into informal subgroups around common interests and work activities.

Question 33

Effective team leaders act as coaches and enablers.

Question 34

Two important elements of the team's environment are the team's size and composition.

Question 35

Teams work better when there are several layers of management and team members are encouraged to communicate mainly through their immediate supervisor.

Question 36

Teams are more effective when they are formed around work processes and are given more autonomy to accomplish their work.

Question 37

Tasks that are simple but poorly structured are best for teams rather than individuals working alone.

Question 38

Teams are best suited for tasks with low interdependence among team members.

Question 39

In effective teams,each member must possess the full set of competencies to perform the team's entire task alone.

Question 40

Reward systems,communication systems,and physical space are three elements of the organizational and team environment.

Question 41

The only way to alter team norms is to disband the group.

Question 42

To maximize cohesiveness,the team should be as small as possible without jeopardizing its ability to accomplish the task.

Question 43

Team members rarely conform to team norms unless other team members apply reinforcement or punishment.

Question 44

Homogeneous teams with relatively few members and a high level of interaction tend to have high cohesiveness.

Question 45

Heterogeneous teams tend to be more effective than homogeneous teams on simple tasks requiring a high degree of cooperation and coordination.

Question 46

Heterogeneous teams have faultlines that may split the team into subgroups along gender,ethnic or other dimensions.

Question 47

One way to change team norms in existing teams is to explicitly discuss the counterproductive norms with team members using persuasive communication strategies.

Question 48

The forming,storming,and norming model of team development is different from the team development experiences that most students report in their team projects.

Question 49

Team cohesiveness increases when entry into the group is very difficult and humiliates the new team member.

Question 50

Norms are the informal rules and standards established by a team to regulate the behavior of its members.

Question 51

Teams develop their first real sense of cohesion during the norming stage of team development.

Question 52

Cohesiveness tends to be higher in teams where the office design facilitates communication among team members.

Question 53

During the adjourning stage of team development,team members shift their attention away from relationships and instead focus mainly on completing the task.

Question 54

Critical events,such as a colleague's serious injury,may alter team norms.

Question 55

Team norms usually remain the same even when the group is disbanded and replaced with people with different values and experiences.

Question 56

The longer that team members work together,the better they develop common mental models to help them complete the work together.

Question 57

Highly cohesive teams invariably perform organizational objectives better than teams with moderate or low cohesiveness.

Question 58

Process losses are the resources expended to develop and maintain an effective team.

Question 59

The norming stage of team development is marked by interpersonal conflict as team members compete for leadership and other positions on the team.

Question 60

Team members typically hold one or more formal roles in the team as well as roles that they informally fulfill at various times.

Question 61

Which of the following is usually an informal group?

A) Task force
B) Team-oriented department
C) Management team
D) Production team
E) People you regularly meet for lunch.

Question 62

Some ____ are just people assembled together without any necessary ________.

A) groups, interdependence
B) production teams, norms
C) teams, cohesiveness
D) task forces, goals
E) teams, norms

Question 63

Royal Dutch/Shell Group formed a team to improve revenues for its service stations along major highways in Malaysia.This team,which included a service station dealer,a union truck driver and four or five marketing executives,disbanded after it had reviewed the Malaysian service stations and submitted a business plan.The Malaysian group is called:

A) a friendship group.
B) a commuter group.
C) an informal group.
D) a community of practice.
E) task force.

Question 64

Teams have which of the following features?

A) Two or more people
B) Perceive themselves as a social entity
C) Exist to fulfill some purpose.
D) Team members influence each other
E) All of these are features of teams.

Question 65

According to social identity theory:

A) teams are never as productive as individuals working alone.
B) the most effective teams have as many members as the organization can afford.
C) the team development process occurs more rapidly for heterogeneous teams than for homogeneous teams.
D) people are motivated to become members of groups that are similar to themselves.
E) team members identify with their team only when they are publicly recognized as members of that team.

Question 66

Forming smaller teams and measuring individual rather than team performance tends to increase the likelihood of social loafing.

Question 67

Social loafing is more common among people with collectivist values.

Question 68

Employees working in a department would be considered a team only when:

A) they operate without any supervisor.
B) everyone in the department has the same set of skills.
C) they directly interact with each other and coordinate work activities.
D) they are all located in the same physical area.
E) all of these conditions exist.

Question 69

Companies can minimize social loafing by dividing the team's work into distinct units and assigning those unique tasks to each team member.

Question 70

The drive to bond and the dynamics of social identity theory both explain why people:

A) join informal groups.
B) tend to ignore team norms whenever possible.
C) have difficulty feeling cohesiveness in teams.
D) engage in social loafing.
E) work better alone than in teams.

Question 71

Which of these statements about teams is FALSE?

A) All groups are teams.
B) Teams are held together by their interdependence and need for collaboration to fulfill goals.
C) Team members perceive themselves as a social entity within the organization.
D) Team members influence each other, although some members are more influential than others.
E) All teams exist to fulfill some purpose.

Question 72

A team that achieves its organizational goals,satisfies member needs,and survives in its environment:

A) is an effective team.
B) is called a task force.
C) has not yet reached its highest level of team development.
D) has a strong communication system but inappropriate reward system.
E) has too many members for the required task.

Question 73

The motivation to be part of an informal group is influenced mainly by the drive to:

A) defend
B) learn
C) acquire
D) bond
E) be fair

Question 74

______ is one explanation why people belong to informal groups.

A) Rewards
B) Social identity theory
C) Stages of team development
D) Social loafing
E) None of these factors explains why people belong to informal groups.

Question 75

Employees working in a department would be considered a team only when:

A) they have the same skills.
B) they report to the same supervisor.
C) they manage their own work activities without a supervisor.
D) they are encouraged to directly interact and coordinate work activities with each other.
E) Never, because work teams never include all employees from the same department.

Question 76

Which of the following statements about teams and groups is FALSE?

A) Some teams exist without any goal or purpose.
B) A team can have dozens of members.
C) Departments are teams when employees interact with each other.
D) All members of a work team have influence, although some may have more influence than others.
E) A team always requires some form of communication among its members.

Question 77

Which of these statements is TRUE?

A) All groups are teams.
B) Groups are teams with a high level of task interdependence.
C) Unlike teams, groups are associated with an organizational objective.
D) Some groups are just people assembled together in the same physical area.
E) Groups are teams that have no purpose for their members.

Question 78

Organizational behavior scholars have concluded that employees always work better in teams than alone.

Question 79

Social loafing is least common in situations where team members work alone towards a common output.

Question 80

A task force refers to:

A) any informal group that has the same members as the permanent task-oriented group.
B) any formal group whose members work permanently and most of their time in that team.
C) any formal group whose members must be able to perform all tasks on the team.
D) any temporary team that investigates a particular problem and typically disbands when the decision is made.
E) None of these statements describes a task force.