Subject: Psychology / General Psychology
Question
Exam: 050283RR – The Social Context of Work
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Questions 1 to 20: Select the best answer to each question. Note that a question and its answers may be split across a page
break, so be sure that you have seen the entire question and all the answers before choosing an answer.
1. Which organizational development technique has lost popularity due to reporting of occasional
detrimental effects?
A. Survey feedback
B. T-group
C. Management by objectives
D. Team building
2. The CEO has authority over the vice-president, who consequently has authority over the middle
manager, who has authority over the group leader, who then has authority over the assembly workers. This
is a description of
A. span of control.
B. line versus staff.
C. delegation of authority.
D. division of labor.
3. An organizational development effort is usually implemented by an individual called the
A. OD agent.
B. change consultant.
C. focus group leader.
D. change agent.
4. Jim is sent to a training group in which he's encouraged to experiment with his interpersonal behavior
and in turn will receive nonjudgmental feedback. Which type of organizational development technique is his
employer using?
A. Team building
B. T group
C. Survey feedback
D. Modeling
5. Joey drinks Coke simply because his favorite athlete drinks Coke. By influencing Joey, the athlete shows
he has _______ power.
A. legitimate
B. referent
C. expert
D. reward
6. Which aspect of bureaucracy is represented by an organization that defines specialized job positions
where each employee has a defined set of tasks to perform?
A. Division of labor
B. Span of control
C. Line versus staff
D. Delegation of authority
7. Which of the following statements is not true of leadership?
A. Leadership involves having superior influence on the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of other people.
B. The leader is the person in charge of other people.
C. In organizations, supervisors and managers are the only leaders.
D. A leader's power depends partially on his or her expertise and legitimacy.
8. _______ theory is partially based on the expectancy theory.
A. Path-goal
B. Leader-behavior
C. Transformational leadership
D. Leader-member exchange
9. At New Millennium Enterprises, each computer monitor is completely assembled by a small group of
employees. Additionally, these employees are also responsible for quality control and warranty repairs. It
can be observed that New Millenium Enterprises is using
A. polarized work groups.
B. autonomous work teams.
C. quality circles.
D. nominal work groups.
10. Some work groups are close knit and have a sense of team spirit. This closeness could possibly be
attributed to higher
A. groupthink.
B. group commitment.
C. group depolarization.
D. group cohesiveness.
11. Which of the following is not true of organizational development?
A. It's designed to help employees improve their interactions with one another.
B. It usually involves changing how people do their work.
C. It's based on behavioral-science principles and procedures.
D. It's concerned only with lower-level employees.
12. Which type of diversity consists of the demographic's knowledge, skills, and values?
A. Background
B. Cognitive
C. Demographic
D. Social
13. Your established work group is sent to a seminar in which the group engages in a series of planned
activities facilitated by a trainer and designed to accomplish a specific objective. Your work group has
taken part in which of the following?
A. A group cohesiveness training session
B. A quality circle exercise
C. A social experiment
D. A team-building exercise
14. The glass ceiling metaphor refers to
A. a term that symbolizes women's difficulty in getting beyond lower levels of management.
B. the symbolic level of performance above which top-level executives must attain.
C. a mythical belief that women managers don't get promoted if a male applies for the same promotion.
D. a belief that's held by many "old school" executives that women can't excel at top levels of management.
15. Which of the following statements about research conducted on the subject of management by
objectives (MBO) is correct?
A. Improvement in productivity following an MBO program is strongly related to the level of commitment given by top
management.
B. There have been few studies on the results of MBO.
C. Research results have revealed mixed effects on productivity, with almost as many negative results as positive results.
D. Research has shown strong effects of MBO on employee job satisfaction.
16. Organizational downsizing refers to
A. the decrease in profits that accompanies international competition.
B. a reduction in executives' fringe benefits such as luxury cars, company jets or expensive hotel suites.
C. the way in which companies sell food in smaller and smaller packages for the same amount of money.
D. a reduction in the number of employees.
17. You're part of a four-person group working on a class project. Whenever meetings between the group
get tense, Sally cracks a joke to relax the tension. Sally's consistent actions are an example of
A. social inhibition.
B. a formal role.
C. social loafing.
D. an informal role.
18. Five students in an advertising class collaborate to prepare a 60-second commercial with each student
taking on a separate production role. The quality of the commercial determines the project grade for all five
students. These five students constitute a
End of exam
A. collection of people.
B. work team.
C. nominal group.
D. work group.
19. The text deals with four organizational theories. Which is concerned with the interaction between
supervisors and subordinates?
A. Open-systems theory
B. Bureaucracy
C. Sociotechnical systems theory
D. Theory X/Theory Y
20. _______ is defined as the extent to which a person is able to influence others to engage in behavior
that's beneficial to that person or to the organization.
A. Legitimate power
B. Political skill
C. Coercive power
D. Control of decision processes
