Deck 1: Introduction to the Field of Organisational Behaviour

Question 1

Workforce diversity potentially improves decision making and team performance on complex tasks.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Scholars have been studying behaviour in organisations at least since the time of Greek and Chinese philosophers.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Collective entities are called organisations only when their members have complete agreement on the goals they want to achieve.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Research indicates that baby boomers and Generation-X employees bring the same values and expectations to the workplace.

Question 5

All organisations have a collective sense of purpose,even though this purpose might not be fully understood or agreed upon.

Question 6

Teleworking is more successful when employers evaluate employee performance based on 'face time' rather than work output.

Question 7

Generation X and Generation Y expectations are causing employers to reduce hierarchy and command-and-control management.

Question 8

'Values' represent an individual's short-term beliefs about what will happen in the future.

Question 9

Evidence indicates that applying organisational behaviour knowledge tends to improve the organisation's financial performance.

Question 10

Surveys indicate that most Australian employees do not experience conflicting work-life balance.

Question 11

Reduced job security and increased work intensification in Australia are partly caused by globalisation.

Question 12

Successful teleworkers tend to be self-motivated,organised and able to fulfil their social needs outside of the work context.

Question 13

Virtual teams rely on information technology to keep team members connected to each other.

Question 14

Globalisation may have both positive and negative implications for people working in organisations.

Question 15

Education is a primary category of surface-level diversity.

Question 16

In order for something to be called an organisation it must have buildings and equipment.

Question 17

Australian employees are more diverse today than a few decades ago on many deep-level categories but have actually reduced their diversity on most surface categories.

Question 18

A team's 'virtualness' depends on how often and how many team members interact face-to-face.

Question 19

Teams with diverse employees usually take longer to perform effectively.If this is so,explain why and the reasons for still using them.

Question 20

Values have a strong influence on our priorities,our preferences and our desires.

Question 21

Fads,consulting models and pet beliefs are often embraced by corporate leaders without any evidence of their success.

Question 22

The open systems perspective emphasises that organisations survive by adapting to changes in the external environment.

Question 23

According to the systems perspective,most organisations have one working part rather than many sub-components.

Question 24

Communications and information systems are two emerging fields from which organisational behaviour is now acquiring knowledge.

Question 25

As organisations grow,they tend to develop more subsystems,and relationships among them become more complex requiring well tuned coordination.

Question 26

The field of organisational behaviour relies on quantitative-never qualitative-research to understand organisational phenomena.

Question 27

One reason why workplace values have become more important is that employees increasingly value work as a central life interest.

Question 28

'Stakeholders' are shareholders,customers,suppliers,governments and any other groups with a vested interest in the organisation.

Question 29

Conceptual anchors which are based on a set of basic beliefs or knowledge structures represent only one small aspect of knowledge from which organisational behaviour knowledge is developed and refined.

Question 30

Knowledge management develops an organisation's capacity to acquire,share and use knowledge in ways that improve its survival and success.

Question 31

Globalisation has brought increased benefits to individuals and organisations as well as increased the complexity in the workplace.

Question 32

'Ethics' refers to the study of moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right or wrong and outcomes are good or bad.

Question 33

The 'triple bottom line' philosophy says that successful organisations focus on financial performance three times more often than do less successful organisations.

Question 34

Most organisational events may be studied from all three levels of analysis-individual,team and organisation.

Question 35

The contingency anchor in organisational behaviour suggests that we need to diagnose the situation to identify the most appropriate action under those specific circumstances.

Question 36

The best organisational practices are those built on the notion that organisations are closed systems.

Question 37

'Intellectual capital' includes,among other things,the knowledge captured in an organisation's systems and structures.

Question 38

Organisations have a dynamic capability when they are able to change the outputs and transformational processes that produce those outputs.

Question 39

Psychology and sociology have contributed many theories and concepts to the field of organisational behaviour.

Question 40

Borrowing theories from other disciplines has helped bring a diversity of knowledge and perspectives to organisational behaviour but has created a potential 'trade deficit' in knowledge.

Question 41

Personalities,beliefs,values and attitudes are:

A) Deep-level categories of workforce diversity
B) Surface-level categories of workforce diversity
C) Necessary contingencies in all organisational behaviour theories
D) Never discussed in organisational behaviour

Question 42

Which of the following is a surface-level category of diversity?

A) Physical qualities
B) Gender
C) Ethnicity
D) All of the options listed here are correct

Question 43

Which of these statements about the field of organisational behaviour is FALSE?

A) Organisational behaviour scholars study individual,team and structural characteristics that influence behaviour within organisations
B) Leadership,communication and other organisational behaviour topics were not discussed by scholars until the 1940s
C) Organisational behaviour emerged as a distinct field around the 1940s
D) The field of organisational behaviour has adopted concepts and theories from other fields of inquiry

Question 44

Virtual work:

A) Is more common in Australia than in New Zealand
B) Occurs when job applicants are asked to pretend they are performing the job in the interview setting in order to determine their ability to perform that work
C) Tends to improve an employee's social involvement in the organisation
D) Is supported by information technology

Question 45

Which of these statements about the field of organisational behaviour is TRUE?

A) Organisational behaviour emerged as a distinct field during the 1980s
B) The origins of some organisational behaviour concepts date back to Greek and Chinese philosophers
C) Information technology has almost no effect on organisational behaviour
D) The field of organisational behaviour relies exclusively on ideas generated within the field by organisational behaviour scholars

Question 46

Values have become more important in organisational behaviour because of:

A) Increased globalisation
B) Increased pressure on organisations to engage in ethical practices
C) Direct supervision is expensive and incompatible with today's workforce
D) All of the options listed here are correct

Question 47

In the field of organisational behaviour,organisations are best described as:

A) Legal entities that must abide by government regulations and pay taxes
B) Physical structures with observable capital equipment
C) Social entities with a publicly stated set of formal goals
D) Groups of people who work interdependently towards some purpose

Question 48

'Organisational memory' includes knowledge embedded in the organisation's systems and structures.

Question 49

'Absorptive capacity' refers to how easily the field of organisational behaviour can bring in new knowledge from other fields of study.

Question 50

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) Employment relationships are shifting towards the idea that companies must provide employees with a high degree of job security,possibly even a job for life
B) Generation X employees bring somewhat different values and needs to the workplace than do baby boomers
C) The workforce is becoming more diverse
D) Successful firms increasingly rely on values rather than direct supervision to guide employee decisions and behaviour

Question 51

What effect can teleworking have in the workplace?

A) Teleworking can improve the teleworker's work-life balance
B) Teleworking forces corporate leaders to evaluate employees more for their work results rather than their 'face time'
C) Teleworking increases the risk that employees feel socially isolated from each other
D) All of the options listed here are correct

Question 52

One of the fastest ways to acquire knowledge is to hire individuals or purchase entire companies that have the valued knowledge.

Question 53

Workforce diversity:

A) Includes the entry of younger people into the workforce
B) Can potentially improve decision making and team performance in organisations
C) Includes the increasing proportion of women in the workforce
D) All of the options listed here are correct

Question 54

Successful organisations never 'unlearn' knowledge that they have previously gained.

Question 55

Stable,long-lasting beliefs about what is important in a variety of situations are:

A) Called 'intellectual capital'
B) The foundations of the open systems anchor
C) Rarely studied in the field of organisational behaviour
D) Called 'values'

Question 56

Which of the following statements about Australia's population and workforce is FALSE?

A) More than half of immigrants to Australia over the past decade were born in Europe
B) The participation of women in the workforce has increased over the past few decades
C) Generation X employees bring somewhat different needs and expectations to the workplace than their baby-boomer counterparts
D) Australia is becoming a more multicultural society

Question 57

Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A) Australia is becoming a more homogeneous society
B) Deep-level diversity is evident in a person's decisions,statements and actions
C) Most Australians believe that the government should disband multiculturalism
D) Diversity offers tremendous advantages to organisations with almost no disadvantages

Question 58

According to the authors of Organisational Behaviour,organisational behaviour knowledge:

A) Should never be used to influence the behaviour of other people
B) Should be used mostly by managers and senior executives
C) Should never replace your commonsense knowledge about how organisations work
D) Is relevant to everyone who works in organisations

Question 59

'Intellectual capital' represents the stock of knowledge held by an organisation.

Question 60

Organisational behaviour knowledge:

A) Originates mainly from models developed in chemistry and other natural sciences
B) Accurately predicts how anyone will behave in any situation
C) Is more appropriate for people who work in computer science than in marketing
D) Helps us to understand,predict and influence the behaviours of others in organisational settings

Question 61

Which of these statements is consistent with the four anchors of organisational behaviour?

A) Organisational behaviour theories must apply universally to every situation
B) Organisations are like machines that operate independently of their external environment
C) Each organisational behaviour topic relates to only one level of analysis
D) The field of organisational behaviour should rely on other disciplines for some of its theory development

Question 62

Which of these statements about corporate social responsibility (CSR)is FALSE?

A) All Australian companies now publicly report on their CSR practices
B) CSR emphasises the economic,social and environmental spheres of sustainability
C) Many Australians expect companies to engage in CSR
D) CSR is closely related to the topics of values and ethics

Question 63

According to the multiple levels of analysis anchor:

A) Organisational behaviour is mainly the study of how all levels of the organisational hierarchy interact with the external environment
B) Organisational behaviour topics typically relate to the individual,team and organisational levels of analysis
C) There are eight levels of analysis that scholars should recognise when conducting organisational behaviour research
D) Organisational events can be studied from only one level of analysis

Question 64

'Stakeholders' include:

A) Shareholders
B) Suppliers
C) governments
D) All of the options listed here are correct

Question 65

Which of the following is identified as an emerging field from which organisational behaviour is acquiring new knowledge?

A) Industrial engineering
B) Information systems
C) Anthropology
D) Economics

Question 66

Employees,suppliers and governments:

A) Are organisational stakeholders
B) Are rarely considered in organisational behaviour theories
C) Represent the three levels of analysis in organisational behaviour
D) Are excluded from the open systems anchor

Question 67

The open systems perspective on organisational behaviour states that:

A) Organisations affect and are affected by their external environments
B) Organisations can operate efficiently by ignoring changes in the external environment
C) People are the only important organisational input
D) Organisations basically have only one working part

Question 68

The triple bottom line philosophy says that:

A) Companies should pay three times more attention to profits than to employee wellbeing
B) The main goal of all companies is to satisfy the needs of three groups-employees,shareholders and suppliers
C) Companies should pay attention to local,national and global customers
D) Companies should try to support the economic,social and environmental spheres of sustainability

Question 69

Which of the following is NOT a conceptual anchor in organisational behaviour?

A) Contingency anchor
B) Systematic research anchor
C) Economic anchor
D) Multidisciplinary anchor

Question 70

The contingency anchor of organisational behaviour states that:

A) We should have a second organisational behaviour theory to explain the situation in case our first choice does not work
B) Organisational behaviour theories must view organisations as systems that need to adapt to their environments
C) There is usually one best way to resolve organisational problems
D) A particular action may have different consequences in different situations

Question 71

Which of the following statements about the field of organisational behaviour is FALSE?

A) OB is the study of what people think,feel and do in and around organisations
B) OB emerged as a distinct field of inquiry in the 1940s
C) OB is a self-contained discipline,independent of other disciplines
D) OB theories are usually tested using the scientific method
E) Many OB theories are contingency-oriented

Question 72

Which discipline has provided organisational behaviour with much of its theoretical foundation for team dynamics,organisational power and organisational socialisation?

A) Sociology
B) Psychology
C) Economics
D) Industrial engineering

Question 73

Organisational behaviour views organisations as:

A) Non-systems
B) A single unitary subsystem
C) Open systems
D) Closed systems

Question 74

Which of the following concepts are closely associated with corporate social responsibility?

A) Knowledge management
B) Triple bottom line
C) Stakeholders
D) Triple bottom line and stakeholders

Question 75

Corporate social responsibility is most closely related to which of the following organisational behaviour trends?

A) Workforce diversity
B) Virtual work
C) Globalisation
D) Workplace values and ethics

Question 76

To collect and analyse information systematically,organisational behaviour researchers rely on:

A) The scientific method
B) Closed systems theory
C) Grounded theory
D) The scientific method and grounded theory.

Question 77

Which of the following is included in the systems model of organisations?

A) Inputs
B) Subsystems
C) Outputs
D) All of the options listed here are correct

Question 78

Which of the following does NOT represent a belief that anchors organisational behaviour?

A) OB should view organisations as closed systems
B) OB should assume that the effectiveness of an action usually depends on the situation
C) OB should draw on knowledge from other disciplines
D) OB should rely on the systematic research methods to generate knowledge

Question 79

Organisational behaviour scholars use which of the following to discover knowledge?

A) They use form research questions
B) They systematically collect data
C) They test hypotheses
D) All of the options listed here are correct

Question 80

Which organisational behaviour anchor discusses development of the field from other areas of human research?

A) Contingency anchor
B) Open systems anchor
C) Multidisciplinary anchor
D) Systematic research anchor