Deck 9: Communicating in Teams and Organizations

Question 1

Talking with others can be a soothing balm during difficult times. This demonstrates which drive?

A) drive to succeed
B) drive to defend
C) drive to bond
D) drive to acquire
E) drive to achieve

Answer 1

drive to bond

Question 2

When conveying information to others, we are often trying to alter their beliefs, feelings, and ultimately their

A) behavior.
B) decisions.
C) support.
D) drives.
E) emotions.

Answer 2

behavior.

Question 3

After the receiver decodes the message, what happens next in the communication process model?

A) The sender receives confirmation that the message has been understood.
B) The receiver confirms with the sender that the message sent was intended to be a message.
C) The receiver decodes the received message.
D) The receiver encodes the message.
E) The receiver forms feedback in response to the received message.

Answer 3

The receiver forms feedback in response to the received message.

Question 4

The sender and receiver encode and decode more effectively when they have

A) different backgrounds.
B) shared noise levels.
C) similar codebooks.
D) conflicting conversations.
E) low social presence.

Question 5

Shared ________ enable more accurate transmission of the message content and reduce the need for communication about the message context.

A) supervisors
B) mental models
C) dictionaries
D) workspaces
E) digital communication platforms

Question 6

Which of the following is an advantage of using email communication?

A) It reduces the problem of information overload.
B) It reduces the frequency of flaming.
C) It is easier to interpret emotional meaning in email messages as they are less formal.
D) It increases the politeness and respect of communication.
E) It can reduce status differences between sender and receiver.

Question 7

The two main types of communication channels are

A) synchronous and nonsynchronous.
B) verbal and nonverbal.
C) verbal and digital.
D) online and offline.
E) email and telephone.

Question 8

What distinguishes verbal communication from nonverbal?

A) Verbal communication uses words, either spoken or written, whereas nonverbal communication does not.
B) Verbal communication is spoken, any other form of communication is nonverbal.
C) Verbal communication is necessary when there is a high level of noise, which makes nonverbal communication ineffective.
D) Verbal communication is less rule bound than nonverbal.
E) Verbal communication is mostly nonconscious and automatic, while nonverbal is conscious.

Question 9

Email and other forms of written digital communication tend to

A) reduce stereotyping and prejudice between sender and receiver.
B) reduce the volume of messages transmitted throughout the organization.
C) reduce communication between executives and employees further down the hierarchy.
D) increase status differences between the sender and receiver.
E) increase the frequency of face-to-face communication.

Question 10

Senders try to clarify the emotional tone of their messages by using all of the following except

A) expressive language.
B) highlighting phrases.
C) inserting emojis.
D) sending short messages.
E) using boldface fonts or quotation marks.

Question 11

The sheer volume of emails transmitted annually greatly contribute to ________.

A) more politeness.
B) less flaming.
C) shared mental models.
D) information overload.
E) more diverse communication codebooks.

Question 12

Unlike traditional websites that merely "push" information from the creator to the audience, ________ are more conversational and reciprocally interactive between sender and receiver, resulting in a sense of community.

A) nonverbal behaviors
B) emails
C) social media
D) newsletters
E) electronic corporate magazines

Question 13

One difference between verbal and nonverbal communication is that the former is typically conscious, whereas most nonverbal communication is

A) ineffective.
B) universal.
C) automatic.
D) standardized.
E) asynchronous.

Question 14

The organizational use of email is waning, while the use of ________ is growing.

A) nonverbals
B) voice-only channels
C) ARPANET
D) the telephone
E) instant messaging

Question 15

What are the two reasons why the preferred types of digital communication are changing in the workplace?

A) employee skills and costs
B) costs and shifting preferences
C) reliability and bandwidth
D) shifting preferences and opportunity
E) opportunity and costs

Question 16

Digital communication channels that enable people to collaborate in the creation and exchange of user-generated content is one definition of

A) email.
B) social media.
C) nonverbals.
D) instant messaging.
E) chat.

Question 17

One benefit of social media platforms is that they allow for ________, which can give employees voice.

A) noise
B) encoding
C) feedback
D) flaming
E) decoding

Question 18

Senders and receivers become users in a community of shared content in which type of communication channel?

A) social media
B) traditional Web pages
C) digital voice conversations
D) email
E) PDF files

Question 19

Employees can expand the data-carrying capacity of a digital communication channel if they

A) avoid emotional contagion.
B) are highly proficient with that communication channel.
C) are unfamiliar with the receiver of the information.
D) avoid using jargon and short-hand symbols in the communication.
E) are new to using that communication medium.

Question 20

The extent to which communication channels require or allow both sender and receiver to be actively involved in the conversation at the same time is called

A) synchronicity.
B) social presence.
C) social acceptance.
D) media richness.
E) bandwidth.

Question 21

Asynchronous communication is better when

A) the issue is difficult.
B) the issue has high time urgency.
C) getting both parties together at the same time is costly.
D) the receiver would not benefit from time to reflect on the message before responding.
E) the information is required quickly.

Question 22

________refers to how much the communication channel creates psychological closeness to others, awareness of their humanness, and appreciation of the interpersonal relationship.

A) Synchronicity
B) Social presence
C) Social acceptance
D) Media richness
E) Communication hierarchy

Question 23

The leadership team meets weekly to update each other on what events are taking place in each unit. Each division director completes an update report to be attached to the minutes. Since many of the division directors meet with each other, there are rarely any surprises. This weekly communication calls for

A) an active corporate grapevine.
B) high emotional contagion in communication.
C) the use of nonverbal communication.
D) an increased number of face-to-face meetings.
E) lean media.

Question 24

During a personal meeting with the company's vice president, you concentrate more on how the vice president perceives you than on what he is saying to you. In fact, you ask him to repeat a question/statement more than once. In this scenario, ________ has disrupted the efficient flow of information.

A) communication proficiency
B) low social presence
C) high social presence
D) multitasking
E) emotional contagion

Question 25

A colleague responds slowly or not at all to your voicemails, but responds quickly to most of your emails. This indicates that voice mail has less ________ compared to email when communicating with this colleague.

A) synchronicity
B) symbolic meaning
C) social acceptance
D) media richness
E) persuasion

Question 26

Digital channels have more richness than media richness theory would suggest. One reason for this is

A) the ability to multi-communicate.
B) they have less noise.
C) employees are less proficient with digital channels.
D) the channels lack social presence.
E) their symbolic value.

Question 27

To offset the potential negative impact of certain words, corporate leaders sometimes

A) use email to send the message.
B) use well known phrases.
C) use ambiguous language.
D) share their codebook.
E) avoid jargon.

Question 28

Senior executives at a large tire company learned that a line of tires had a tendency to fall apart in very warm weather. This resulted in several vehicle accidents in the Middle East and South America. However, the executives did not hear about these problems until several weeks after the lower-level managers learned about the same. Although the senior executives encourage staff to openly communicate all information, the lower-level staff held back the information for fear that they might lose their jobs. Which communication concept best describes this communication situation?

A) media richness
B) persuasive communication
C) filtering
D) flaming
E) information overload

Question 29

Report talk is characterized by

A) giving advice indirectly.
B) asserting power.
C) flexible conversation style.
D) sensitivity to nonverbal cues.
E) relationship building.

Question 30

In the communication process, filtering is less likely to occur when

A) the sender carefully selects words that the receiver is most likely to understand correctly.
B) the receiver removes noise from the communication process so that the sender's message is more accurately understood.
C) corporate leaders create a culture of candor.
D) people communicate mainly positive information about themselves by screening out negative information.
E) the receiver avoids receiving messages from a sender.

Question 31

People in Brazil, France, and a few other countries tend to view ________ favorably as an indication of the other person's interest and involvement in the conversation.

A) silence
B) jargon
C) report talk
D) rapport talk
E) conversational overlaps

Question 32

Rita only reads the executive summary of corporate reports. Rita is reducing information load by

A) summarizing.
B) omitting.
C) buffering.
D) filtering.
E) avoiding jargon.

Question 33

In which country is silence practically revered?

A) France
B) Japan
C) Brazil
D) India
E) United States

Question 34

Men engage in more ________, in which the primary function of the conversation is impersonal and efficient information exchange.

A) jargon
B) rapport talk
C) report talk
D) empathy talk
E) gender talk

Question 35

Layton and Lester have had a disagreement. Douglas is coming into the conversation at the end. His first strategy would be to

A) evaluate.
B) sense.
C) respond.
D) buffer.
E) filter.

Question 36

Repeating the message and empathizing are two ways to improve

A) active listening.
B) filtering.
C) getting the message across.
D) sensing.
E) evaluating.

Question 37

One concern with wikis is that they

A) are used mainly by managers.
B) promote MBWA.
C) are used mainly by females.
D) rely on the grapevine.
E) have failed to gain employee support.

Question 38

As originally conceived by Hewlett-Packard, when does MBWA occur?

A) annually
B) semiannually
C) quarterly
D) monthly
E) daily or regularly

Question 39

Which of the following is true about the organizational grapevine?

A) The grapevine presents a true picture of reality by providing fine details to substantiate the content.
B) The grapevine typically works by sending information downward rather than upward through the organizational hierarchy.
C) The grapevine is usually founded on organizational charts or job descriptions rather than social relationships.
D) The grapevine is a structured and formal network for transmitting organizational information.
E) The typical pattern of a grapevine is a cluster chain, whereby a few people actively transmit rumors to many others.

Question 40

Which of the following should corporate leaders do with the organizational grapevine?

A) Try to use the grapevine as a channel of communication from executives to employees as much as possible because of its high speed and low cost.
B) Use the grapevine as a signal of employee anxiety.
C) Use the grapevine when the communication requires high media richness, but otherwise use meetings when communicating with employees.
D) Make every effort to destroy the grapevine, including firing employees who actively support it.
E) Ignore grapevines because providing more attention to it would increase the speed of grapevine communication.

Question 41

Some organizations are improving communication among staff by tearing down walls. This increases all of the following except

A) noise.
B) distraction.
C) privacy.
D) happenstance gatherings
E) face-to-face communication.

Question 42

Jennifer, a new manager, walks through the unit every morning and casually chats with employees. She is employing which communication approach?

A) management by wandering around
B) buffering communication
C) filtering communication
D) internet-based organizational communication
E) the grapevine

Question 43

Disadvantages of the grapevine include

A) it reduces anxiety.
B) it fulfills the drive to bond.
C) the information can be distorted.
D) it is the main conduit of organizational stories.
E) it is a sign of inclusion.

Question 44

What do employees think about the grapevine?

A) Employees turn to the grapevine when they have many other options.
B) Employees actively transmit information to just a few.
C) It is less active where employees have similar backgrounds and are able to communicate easily.
D) Almost all employees use the grapevine, but very few of them prefer this source of information.
E) It reduces rather than escalates employee anxiety.

Question 45

At Sunshine Toys, several employees must work together to develop a new product. No one in this group has worked with any of the others before, and the development of this product has not been attempted previously.The most effective medium in this situation would be one that is

A) routine.
B) symbolic.
C) lean.
D) lean
E) digital.

Question 46

At the end of a long meeting with many new people, four people are overheard having a heated conversation. Isabel and Linda are debating the project outcomes. Pietro keeps interrupting them trying to share his opinions, and Yuki is standing with her arms folded waiting for her chance to speak.

-To help calm Isabel and Linda, you begin by

A) sensing the situation.
B) evaluating the situation.
C) filtering the situation.
D) buffering the situation.
E) responding to the situation.

Question 47

At the end of a long meeting with many new people, four people are overheard having a heated conversation. Isabel and Linda are debating the project outcomes. Pietro keeps interrupting them trying to share his opinions, and Yuki is standing with her arms folded waiting for her chance to speak

-Based on Pietro's reaction, he might be from

A) England.
B) Brazil.
C) Japan.
D) Canada.
E) India.

Question 48

At the end of a long meeting with many new people, four people are overheard having a heated conversation. Isabel and Linda are debating the project outcomes. Pietro keeps interrupting them trying to share his opinions, and Yuki is standing with her arms folded waiting for her chance to speak.

-Yuki is from Japan, so she views Pietro's reaction as

A) appropriate.
B) rude.
C) empathetic.
D) polite.
E) desirable.

Question 49

At the end of a long meeting with many new people, four people are overheard having a heated conversation. Isabel and Linda are debating the project outcomes. Pietro keeps interrupting them trying to share his opinions, and Yuki is standing with her arms folded waiting for her chance to speak.

-Now that you have assessed the situation, you can get your message across by ________ to help end the disagreement.

A) buffering
B) filtering
C) active listening
D) being descriptive
E) social acceptance

Question 50

Codebooks are visual or relational images of the communication setting.

Question 51

In quiet face-to-face meetings, most information is communicated verbally rather than nonverbally.

Question 52

Online chat and instant messaging have become less common forms of digital communication over the past five years.

Question 53

Email and other forms of digital communication can potentially reduce stereotyping.

Question 54

Synchronicity is the extent which a communication channel allows or requires the sender and receiver to communicate with each other at the same time.

Question 55

In general, studies have concluded that written communication is more persuasive than spoken communication.

Question 56

Most digital communication channels allow people to multicommunicate.

Question 57

Language differences among people can be a huge source of communication noise.

Question 58

Research indicates that women tend to be more sensitive than are men to nonverbal cues in face-to-face meetings.

Question 59

One workplace design strategy is to cloister employees into team spaces to ensure that they have no communication with other teams.