Deck 8: Team Dynamics

Question 1

Social loafing is most common in teams that are very small.

Answer 1

False
Explanation: Social loafing tends to be more serious when the individual's performance is less likely to be noticed, such as when people work together in large teams.

Question 2

An organizational team is highly interdependent,but the members have different goals.Here,the organization should try to reduce the level of interdependence.

Answer 2

True
Explanation: When team members have different goals (such as serving different clients) but must depend on other team members to achieve those unique goals, teamwork might create excessive conflict. Under these circumstances, the company should try to reduce the level of interdependence or rely on supervision as a buffer or mediator among employees.

Question 3

Teams are well suited when complex work can be divided into more specialized roles.

Answer 3

True
Explanation: Teams are particularly well suited when the complex work can be divided into more specialized roles and the people in the specialized roles require frequent coordination with each other.

Question 4

Teams are better suited to simple work such as routine processing jobs than complex jobs.

Question 5

Informal groups exist primarily to complete tasks for the organization that management doesn't know about.

Question 6

Under stressful or dangerous conditions,people are more likely to stay together than disperse,even when the other people are strangers.

Question 7

Employees in a department are considered a team only when they directly interact and coordinate work activities with each other.

Question 8

Teams typically provide poorer customer service due to interpersonal conflicts amongst the members.

Question 9

Team members are held together by their interdependence and need for collaboration to achieve common goals.

Question 10

Our desire for informal groups is mostly influenced by our drive to defend.

Question 11

Employees are more motivated in teams because they are accountable to fellow team members who also monitor their performance.

Question 12

Task forces are temporary groups that typically investigate a particular problem and disband when the decision is made.

Question 13

Reciprocal interdependence is the highest level of task interdependence in organizations.

Question 14

Social loafing is more prevalent when the task is interesting.

Question 15

Process losses are the resources expended to develop and maintain an effective team.

Question 16

Brooks's law says that adding more people to a late software project only makes it later.

Question 17

Teams are groups of two or more people who have equal influence over each other regarding the team's goals and means of achieving those goals.

Question 18

Social identity theory provides one of the reasons why people join informal groups.

Question 19

Smaller teams have more process loss than the larger teams.

Question 20

Students experience sequential interdependence when they are lined up at the laser printers trying to get their assignments done just before a class deadline.

Question 21

Cooperating,coordinating,and communicating are task related characteristics of effective team members.

Question 22

Trust refers to positive expectations one person has toward another person in low-risk situations.

Question 23

Homogeneous teams tend to have "fault lines" that may split the team along gender,professional,or other dimensions.

Question 24

When highly cohesive teams have norms that conflict with organizational goals,team performance is reduced.

Question 25

Comforting and conflict resolution mainly assist team maintenance.

Question 26

The norming stage of team development is marked by interpersonal conflict as team members compete for leadership and other positions on the team.

Question 27

To maximize cohesiveness,the team should be as small as possible without jeopardizing its ability to accomplish the task.

Question 28

Some team-building interventions clarify the team's performance goals and increase the team's motivation to accomplish these goals.

Question 29

Team cohesiveness decreases with increased interaction because there are more chances for conflicts to emerge.

Question 30

A role is a set of behaviors that people are expected to perform because they hold certain positions in a team and organization.

Question 31

Norms are the informal rules and shared expectations that groups establish to regulate the behavior of their members.

Question 32

During the adjourning stage of team development,team members shift their attention away from relationships and instead focus mainly on completing the task.

Question 33

The members of a diverse team take longer to become a high-performing team.

Question 34

Team members do not conform to team norms unless other team members apply reinforcement or punishment.

Question 35

Team members typically hold one or more formal roles in the team as well as roles that they informally fulfill at various times.

Question 36

Teams develop their first real sense of cohesion during the norming stage of team development.

Question 37

Teams tend to have more cohesion when entry to the team is restricted.

Question 38

A low level of trust results when others affect you in situations where you are at risk but you believe they will not harm you.

Question 39

Team processes in the team effectiveness model include team development,norms,cohesion,and trust.

Question 40

Diversity among team members tends to undermine cohesion.

Question 41

The nominal group technique is not applied in real-world settings.

Question 42

Calculus-based trust is based on the belief that the other party will deliver its promises because punishments would be applied if they fail to deliver those promises.

Question 43

Evaluation apprehension is most common in meetings attended by people with different levels of status or expertise.

Question 44

Knowledge-based trust is confidence in one's own ability or knowledge.

Question 45

Knowledge-based trust offers a low level of potential and is more unstable because it is exploratory in its nature.

Question 46

The nominal group technique tends to produce more and better ideas than do traditional interacting groups.

Question 47

The nominal group technique is a variation of brainstorming.

Question 48

Electronic brainstorming significantly reduces the problem of production blocking.

Question 49

The trust that new team members feel toward their teammates is fragile and easily weakened.

Question 50

Self-directed work teams plan,organize,and control activities with little or no direct involvement of supervisors.

Question 51

The nominal group technique removes the problems of evaluation apprehension and production blocking.

Question 52

Groupthink concept includes the dysfunctional effects of conformity on team decision making.

Question 53

Production blocking refers to a constraint in team decision making that discourages employees from mentioning their ideas in front of coworkers.

Question 54

When people join teams,they typically have a very low level of trust in the other team members.

Question 55

Identification-based trust alone cannot sustain a team's relationship,because it relies on deterrence.

Question 56

An important rule of brainstorming is that all the participants should evaluate and criticize the other team members' ideas.

Question 57

Identification-based trust is potentially the strongest and most robust form of trust in work relationships.

Question 58

Having plenty of structure is a success factor for virtual teams.

Question 59

In most self-directed work teams,the supervisor assigns tasks that individual team members perform.

Question 60

Groups are considered teams only when:

A) they operate without any supervisor.
B) everyone in the department has the same set of skills.
C) employees directly interact with each other and coordinate work activities.
D) all employees are located in the same physical area.
E) most of the employees have the same level of motivation to accomplish goals.

Question 61

In team dynamics,process losses are best described as:

A) productivity losses that occur when individual members need to learn a new task.
B) information lost due to imperfect communication among team members.
C) resources expended toward team development and maintenance.
D) knowledge lost when a team member leaves the organization.
E) knowledge lost when tacit knowledge is converted to structural knowledge.

Question 62

Brooks's Law says that adding more people to a late software project only makes it later.This law is mainly referring to:

A) lack of team cohesiveness.
B) existence of process losses.
C) excessive team norms.
D) unfriendly team environment.
E) formation of informal teams.

Question 63

Informal groups:

A) are initiated by the organization for special purposes.
B) exist primarily for the benefit of their members.
C) perform routine organizational goals.
D) always have a high level of interdependence.
E) perform uncommon tasks of the organization.

Question 64

Keeping the team size sufficiently small and designing tasks such that each team member's performance is measurable are two ways to:

A) minimize team cohesiveness.
B) add more roles to the team.
C) increase the risk of forming dysfunctional norms.
D) minimize social loafing.
E) minimize the process losses.

Question 65

According to social identity theory:

A) teams are never as productive as individuals working alone.
B) the most effective teams have a large number of members.
C) the team development process occurs more rapidly for heterogeneous teams than for homogeneous teams.
D) people define themselves by their group affiliations.
E) teams are less productive in performing complex tasks.

Question 66

Fellow team members often monitor performance more closely than a traditional supervisor.This is particularly true where the team's performance depends on:

A) technological factors.
B) special efforts of members.
C) certain skills of members.
D) aptitudes of members.
E) worst performer in the group.

Question 67

Which of the following competencies would primarily assist team maintenance?

A) Cooperating
B) Coordinating
C) Communicating
D) Comforting
E) Collaborating

Question 68

_____ provides an explanation of why people belong to informal groups.

A) Need to defend
B) Social identity theory
C) Confirmation bias
D) Social loafing
E) Cognitive dissonance

Question 69

Synergie Inc.formed a team to improve revenues for its service stations along major highways in Malaysia.This team,which included a service station dealer,a union truck driver and four or five marketing executives,disbanded after it had reviewed the Malaysian service stations and submitted a business plan.This team is called a(n):

A) skunkwork.
B) bootleg group.
C) informal group.
D) community of practice.
E) task force.

Question 70

The drive to bond and the dynamics of social identity theory both explain why people:

A) join informal groups.
B) tend to ignore team norms whenever possible.
C) have difficulty feeling cohesive in teams.
D) engage in social loafing.
E) work better alone than in teams.

Question 71

Identify the task-related characteristics in the 'five C's' of effective member behaviors.

A) Comforting and communicating
B) Cooperating and conflict resolving
C) Coordinating and communicating
D) Conflict resolving and coordinating
E) Comforting and cooperating

Question 72

High-performance teams depend on organizational leaders who provide support and strategic direction while team members focus on:

A) determining the performance goals.
B) operational efficiency and flexibility.
C) organizational decision making.
D) evaluating the team's objectives.
E) forming the norms of the team.

Question 73

Which of the following types of task interdependence is seen among production employees working on assembly lines?

A) Sequential interdependence
B) Total independence
C) Reciprocal interdependence
D) Pooled interdependence
E) Alternate interdependence

Question 74

Pooled interdependence is:

A) essential for team effectiveness.
B) the same as reciprocal interdependence.
C) the weakest form of interdependence other than complete independence.
D) the best way to avoid social loafing.
E) is the lowest level of interdependence.

Question 75

Two company divisions produce completely different products but must seek funding from head office for a capital expansion project.The relationship between these two divisions would be best described as:

A) total interdependence.
B) sequential interdependence.
C) reciprocal interdependence.
D) anticipatory interdependence.
E) pooled interdependence.

Question 76

Employees with _____,in which work output is exchanged back and forth among individuals,should be organized into teams to facilitate coordination in their interwoven relationship.

A) pooled interdependence
B) reciprocal interdependence
C) counterproductive norms
D) high levels of social loafing
E) a very high level of heterogeneity

Question 77

Which of the following types of teams are best known for bootlegging to develop new products,services,or procedures?

A) Skunkworks
B) Communities of practice
C) Task forces
D) Informal groups
E) Production teams

Question 78

A task force refers to any:

A) informal group that has the same members as the permanent task-oriented group.
B) formal group whose members work permanently and most of their time in that team.
C) formal group whose members must be able to perform all tasks of the team.
D) temporary team that investigates a particular problem and typically disbands when the decision is made.
E) temporary team which has experts in an area to provide advice to organizations in making special decisions from time to time.

Question 79

The phenomenon where people exert less effort when working in groups than when working alone is referred to as _____.

A) team cohesiveness
B) social identity
C) pooled interdependence
D) team conformity
E) social loafing

Question 80

Social loafing occurs:

A) in smaller rather than larger teams.
B) when the task is boring.
C) in tasks with high interdependence.
D) when employees believe the team's objective is important.
E) among employees with collectivist rather than individualistic values.