Reading Multiple Choice Questions

1) According to your textbook, stress
A) must concern some significant or important issue.
B) is rooted in people’s perceptions.
C) can consist of both opportunities and threats.
D) All of the above
2) Jay Ross is in charge of producing the catalogs for Look @ U, Inc. The number of
catalogs produced has almost doubled over the previous year. At the same time, his
production assistant was laid off due to downsizing, and his editor is on long-term sick
leave. Jay is now spending over 80 hours a week producing the catalogs. Jay is likely
to feel stress from
A) role ambiguity.
B) physiological causes.
C) underload.
D) overload.
3) Layoffs in the U.S.
A) often come with little or no advance notice.
B) create stress for the organizational survivors.
C) create stress for those being laid off.
D) All of the above
4) Which of the following can be a source of negative workplace stress?
A) Uncomfortable working conditions
B) Unsafe working conditions
C) Cross-cultural misunderstandings
D) All of the above
5) ________, assigning employees to different jobs (which themselves do not change) on a regular basis, can sometime alleviate stress.
A) Job enhancement
B) Job enlargement
C) Job escalation
D) Job rotation
6) Providing child care so that parents do not have to worry about their children and
allowing flexible work schedules to help employees manage work-life linkages are both
examples of
A) organizational methods of emotion-focused coping.
B) organizational methods of problem-focused coping.
C) organizational methods of behavior-focused coping.
D) personal methods of emotion-focused coping.
7) Organizations can use all of the following except ________ to help employees cope with stressful feelings and emotions.
A) personal days and sabbaticals
B) on-site exercise facilities
C) reengineering of jobs
D) employee assistance programs
8) A ________ is a collection of people who come together to accomplish a specific goal.
A) task force
B) friendship group
C) corporate cluster
D) command group
9) Teams differ from groups in that teams
A) have a higher level of interaction than groups.
B) have fewer members than do groups.
C) last longer than groups.
D) consist of members from one functional area.
10) Members of the International Expansion Research Task Force at Hands-on Corporation
come from manufacturing, research and development, marketing, and engineering.
The youngest member is 23 years old; the oldest will retire next spring at age 65. Two
of the members have bachelor’s degrees, several have no college degree, and one has
a doctorate in theology. Based on these factors, the International Expansion Research
Task Force should expect
A) to have communication and coordination problems.
B) to perform at a high level because the group has a variety of resources at its disposal.
C) to make good decisions because more points of view are represented.
D) All of the above
11) All of the members of the New Product Research Team at Teaching Tools Co. are
women in their mid-thirties who all graduated at the top of their classes at major state
universities in the Midwest and received their MBAs at prestigious schools before they
joined Teaching Tools. All have serious family commitments and at least one child.
Based on these factors, the New Product Research Team should be characterized by
A) more intense infighting among group members than that found in other groups.
B) good group decisions based on a wide diversity of viewpoints.
C) more coordination problems than in most groups.
D) improved information sharing within the group.
12) Group responses to the violation of a norm by a group member do not usually include
A) dissolving the group.
B) attempting to expel the deviant from the group.
C) changing the norm to align more with the deviant behavior.
D) trying to get the deviant to change.
13) New recruits, or “cast members” at Disney, receive formal training at Disney University
in groups of around 45. Disney uses a(n) ________ socialization tactic.
A) variable
B) individual
C) fixed
D) collective
14) Groups between ________ and ________ people tend to promote cohesiveness.
A) 7; 20
B) 3; 15
C) 2; 4
D) 5; 10
15) All of the following are signs that a group has a very high level of cohesiveness,
except
A) group members socialize excessively on the job
B) deviant behavior of group members is tolerated
C) the group achieves its goals at the expense of the organization, as a whole
D) there is a high level of conformity in the group
16) Top management teams are characterized by
A) pooled task interdependence.
B) sequential task interdependence.
C) reciprocal task interdependence.
D) None of the above
17) Self-managed work teams
A) provide workers with some protection against social loafing.
B) consist of members who decide how the team will perform its tasks.
C) consist of members who pick their own supervisors.
D) maximize process losses and minimize process gains.
18) In order to promote the success of self-managed teams, managers must
A) help team members resolve serious disagreements fairly.
B) provide coaching and offer advice, as needed.
C) relinquish task-related decision-making authority to the teams.
D) All of the above
19) The leader trait approach asserts that ________ helps a leader to influence followers and to motivate them in the face of obstacles or difficulties.
A) dominance
B) task-relevant knowledge
C) integrity and honesty
D) self-confidence
20) Which of the following is true regarding the trait and behavior approaches to leadership?
A) They have nothing in common.
B) They focus only on leaders in the upper levels of management.
C) They focus on the role of subordinates in the leadership process.
D) They essentially ignore the situation in which leadership takes place.
21) The two distinct leadership styles in Fiedler’s contingency model of leadership are referred to as
A) task-oriented and relationship-oriented.
B) job-oriented and relationship-oriented.
C) job-oriented and employee-oriented.
D) initiating structure and consideration.
22) According to Fiedler, which of the following is true?
A) A relationship-oriented leader cannot be trained to be a task-oriented leader, and vice versa.
B) The leader style cannot easily be changed.
C) A leader’s style is an enduring personal characteristic.
D) All of the above
23) When different managers champion different solutions to a problem and use their power to promote these solutions, the ensuing debates over the best course of action can help
A) move the organization in new directions.
B) improve the quality of organizational decision making.
C) adapt the organization to its changing environment.
D) All of the above
24) ________ is based on the ability to give or withhold punishment.
A) Information power
B) Coercive power
C) Charismatic power
D) Reward power
25) An important tactic for influencing decision making is to ________, that is, to determine what issues and problems decision makers will consider.
A) bring in an outside expert
B) control the agenda
C) build coalitions and alliances
D) All of the above