Exam 6: Applied Performance Practices

Adam Smith introduced the principles of Scientific Management.

Which of the following is considered an individual incentive?

One problem with seniority-based rewards is that they cause higher turnover.

Comment on the accuracy of the following statement: "Job enrichment is more effective than job specialization at creating a productive work force."

Which of the following is most consistent with employability - namely, that employees are expected to continuously learn skills that will keep them employed?

One problem with empowerment is that it tends to make employees less responsive to the company's needs and objectives.

Which of these statements about empowerment is FALSE?

Companies should use individual-level performance-based pay when jobs are highly interdependent.

Mental imagery helps us to anticipate and work out solutions to potential obstacles in our work.

Jobs with a high level of task significance provide freedom, independence, and discretion in scheduling the work and determining the procedures to be used to complete the work.

One of the most important characteristics of empowerment is that it is a personality trait.

The largest portion of most pay checks is based on the person's membership and seniority.

Empowerment flourishes in organizations with a learning orientation.

Employees are more likely to feel empowered in jobs with a high degree of autonomy, task identity, and task significance.

The extent of a person's self-leadership is dependant on _________ and ________ factors.

ABC Ltd.has a large secretarial pool on the third floor of company headquarters where professional and lower-level managers have their reports and other documents word-processed.The tasks are received by the secretarial pool coordinator and assigned randomly (on an availability basis) to secretaries in the pool.The secretaries often do not know the managers or professionals for whom the word-processing assignment is being completed.They rarely find out about the quality of their work because revisions are often sent to other secretaries in the pool due to the rotating work assignment system.Some assignments involve simple word-processing while others require complex formatting using more sophisticated word-processing software.Some secretaries don't mind working in the pool, but most are there because it represents the entry-level secretarial position.They resent the lack of control over work assignments and look forward to being transferred to other secretarial jobs in the firm where there is more freedom to schedule their own work activities.Turnover in the pool is much higher than for other support staff at ABC Ltd.Explain whether or not job enlargement (combining tasks) would be an effective job design strategy for employees in ABC's secretarial pool and why.

Employees assembling complete computer modems would have higher task identity than those assembling only one component and passing it along to others for further assembly.

Research suggests that increasing job enlargement increases employee motivation almost as much as job enrichment.

Companies are applying job specialization when employees are made directly responsible for specific customers and having them communicate directly with those customers.

Self-leadership calls for employees to engage in negative self-talk to help them recognize their limitations.