Deck 7: The Nature of Teams

Question 1

The formal structures and their embedded social relationships that are active in an organization are identified by social network analysis.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

A potential advantage of virtual teams is that computer mediation focuses interaction and decision making on facts and objective information rather than on emotional considerations.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Temporary work groups often appear on organizational charts as departments, divisions, and teams.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The functional silos problem occurs when members of functional units focus on external issues and do not focus to a sufficient degree on their own areas of responsibility.

Question 5

A quality circle is a small team of persons who meet periodically to discuss and make proposals for ways to improve quality.

Question 6

Teams run that things typically work with a target completion date and disband once their purpose has been fulfilled.

Question 7

The head of a formal group serves a linchpin role that ties the group horizontally and vertically with the rest of the organization.

Question 8

A potential advantage of virtual teams is that members have very little, if any, direct personal contact.

Question 9

The term employee involvement team applies to a wide variety of teams whose members meet regularly to collectively examine important workplace issues such as ways to enhance quality, better satisfy customers, raise productivity, and improve the quality of work life.

Question 10

Teams that recommend things are functional groups and work units that perform ongoing tasks such as marketing departments.

Question 11

Synergy is a small group of people with complementary skills, who work actively together to achieve a common purpose for which they hold themselves collectively accountable.

Question 12

Teams that run things lead organizations and their component parts.

Question 13

Members of virtual teams work together through computer mediation.

Question 14

Cross-functional teams bring together persons from different organizations and industries to work on a common task.

Question 15

Self-managing teams are also known as self-directed teams.

Question 16

Informal teams have the potential to speed up the workflow by enabling people to assist each other in ways that formal lines of authority fail to provide.

Question 17

Teams that recommend things consist of people with formal responsibility for leading other groups.

Question 18

Self-managing teams are small groups that are empowered to make the decisions needed to manage themselves on a day-to-day basis.

Question 19

Informal teams describe a wide variety of teams whose members meet regularly to collectively examine important workplace issues.

Question 20

It is interesting to note that a heart surgeon has higher death rates for similar procedures when performed in hospitals where they do more operations.

Question 21

The storming stage of team development is a period of high emotionality and tension among the team members.

Question 22

The performance advantages of teams over individuals are most evident in three situations: 1) when there is no clear "expert" for a particular task, 2) when the problems are complex and require a division of labor, and 3) when a riskier decision need be made.

Question 23

Self-managing teams have structural and management implications for organizations because they largely eliminate the first-line supervisors.

Question 24

The member satisfaction criterion of group effectiveness means that members are sufficiently satisfied to continue working well together on an ongoing basis and/or to look forward to working together again in the future.

Question 25

Self-managing teams differ from the more traditional work group in that team members assume duties otherwise performed by a manager or first-line supervisor.

Question 26

Members of a true self-managing work team make decisions on selecting new team members, training them for job skills, and evaluating performance.

Question 27

In the forming stage of team development, members are interested in getting to know each other and discovering what is considered acceptable behavior, in determining the real task of the team, and in defining team rules.

Question 28

Research finds that formal work units, but not temporary task forces or virtual teams, pass through a series of life cycle stages.

Question 29

Social loafing, also known as the "Ringlemann effect," occurs when people work less hard in a group than they would individually.

Question 30

Research shows that teams tend to make less risky decisions than individuals.

Question 31

In the norming stage of team development, the group really begins to come together as a coordinated unit.

Question 32

Multiskilling occurs when team members are trained in performing more than one job on the team.

Question 33

In general, social facilitation theory indicates that working in the presence of others creates an emotional arousal or excitement that stimulates behavior and therefore affects performance.

Question 34

The potential benefits of self-managing teams include productivity and quality improvements, production flexibility, and faster response to technological change, but not reduced absenteeism and turnover or improved work attitudes and quality of work life.

Question 35

An effective group is one that achieves high levels of task performance, member satisfaction, and team viability.

Question 36

Synergy is the creation of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Question 37

During the norming stage of team development, coalitions or cliques may form as individuals compete to impose their preferences on the team and to achieve a desired status position.

Question 38

Ringlemann identified two reasons why people may not work as hard in groups as they would individually:
a) their individual contributions are less noticeable in the context of a group; and
b) group goals are often less well defined than individual goals.

Question 39

The five stages of team development are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

Question 40

The team viability criterion of group effectiveness refers to groups with members who believe that their participation and experiences are positive and meet important personal needs.

Question 41

The willingness of a team to disband when the job is done and to work well together in future responsibilities is an important long-run test of team success.

Question 42

Members of which type of teams must have good working relationships with one another, solid operating systems, and the external support needed to achieve performance effectiveness over a sustained period of time?

A) Teams that plan things
B) Teams that reengineer things
C) Teams that recommend things
D) Teams that make or do things
E) Teams that review things

Question 43

The forming stage of the team development process is sometimes called "initial integration."

Question 44

The optimal size for teams is between ten and fifteen members.

Question 45

A study reported by Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe found that 86 percent of MBA students reported cheating by plagiarizing, downloading essays from the Web, and more.

Question 46

In the norming stage of team development, holding the team together may become more important to some members than working on the team's tasks.

Question 47

Tasks that are complex in social demands require unique solutions and more information processing, whereas task that are complex in technical demands involve difficulties in reaching agreement on goals or methods for accomplishing them.

Question 48

The status congruence dilemma is the tendency for diversity in groups to make working together more difficult, even though diversity itself expands the skills and perspectives available for problem solving.

Question 49

CEO and founder of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos' simple rule when it comes to the size of a product development team is "No team should be larger than two pizzas can feed."

Question 50

Even though homogeneous teams may struggle in the short run to resolve issues, they are also likely to develop enhanced performance potential once things are worked out.

Question 51

Which of these teams lead organizations and their component parts?

A) Teams that review things
B) Teams that recommend things
C) Teams that run things
D) Teams that evaluate things
E) Teams that make or do things

Question 52

Members of a homogenous group vary with respect to age, gender, race, ethnicity, experience, culture, and similar characteristics.

Question 53

Researchers have found that females score higher than males on social sensitivity.

Question 54

Social loafing occurs when a person's position within the group is equivalent in status to positions held outside of the group.

Question 55

Jason, Maria, and Susan are members of a team that typically works with a target completion date and disband once their purpose has been fulfilled. This is an example of which of these?

A) Teams that recommend things
B) Teams that run things
C) Teams that study things
D) Teams that make or do things
E) Teams that review things

Question 56

Homogeneous teams have members who are diverse in demography, experiences, life styles, and cultures, among other variables.

Question 57

___________ groups are groups that form spontaneously through personal relationships or special interests, and not by any specific organizational endorsement.

A) Informal
B) Virtual
C) Temporary
D) Interim
E) Ad hoc

Question 58

The social demands of a task include relationships, ego involvement, controversies over ends and means, and the like.

Question 59

FIRO-B theory suggests that groups whose members have compatible needs are likely to be more effective than groups whose members have incompatible needs.

Question 60

Which of the following is not a way team members and leaders help their teams achieve high performance?

A) Putting personal talents to work
B) Building disagreement so that the team gets multiple opinions
C) Persuading others to cooperate
D) Accepting suggestions
E) Communicating ideas

Question 61

Self-managed teams largely eliminate __________.

A) a firm's staff functions
B) the line employees
C) the top management team
D) the CEO
E) the first-line supervisors

Question 62

__________ can solve problems with a positive combination of functional expertise and integrative or total systems thinking.

A) Cross-functional teams
B) Self-directed teams
C) Cross-departmental teams
D) Virtual teams
E) Statutory teams

Question 63

Jack, Raj, Brenda, and Jamira have natural affinities for one another. They tend to work together, sit together, take breaks together, and even do things together outside of the workplace. This is an example of which is these groups?

A) Interest groups
B) Affiliation groups
C) Friendship groups
D) Connection groups
D) Formal groups

Question 64

Which of these teams bring together people from different functional departments or work units to work on a common task?

A) Cross-functional teams
B) Self-directed teams
C) Virtual teams
D) Self-managed teams
E) Employee involvement teams

Question 65

When a team achieves its performance goals regarding quantity, quality, and timeliness of work results, what characteristic of team effectiveness is being demonstrated?

A) Task performance
B) Member satisfaction
C) Team viability
D) Team changeability
E) Team excellence

Question 66

Members of a true self-managing work team make decisions on all of the following EXCEPT:

A) establishing strategy and providing resources to achieve it.
B) scheduling work and allocating tasks.
C) training for job skills and evaluating performance.
D) selecting new team members.
E) controlling the quality of work.

Question 67

Which one of the following characteristics truly differentiates self-managing teams from the more traditional work group?

A) Team members typically work in isolation from the rest of the company.
B) Team members are typically asked to work on more challenging tasks than traditional work groups.
C) Team members assume duties otherwise performed by a manager or first-line supervisor.
D) Team members are typically paid more than the team members of traditional work teams.
E) Team members are typically more experienced than the team members of traditional work teams.

Question 68

The potential benefits of self-managing teams include all of the following EXCEPT:

A) productivity and quality improvements.
B) production flexibility and faster response to technological change.
C) reduced absenteeism and turnover.
D) difficulty for some members to adjust to self-managing responsibilities.
E) improved work attitudes and quality of work life.

Question 69

Which of these occurs when members of functional units stay focused on matters internal to the function and minimize their interactions with members of other functions?

A) Limited perspective problem
B) Restriction of perspective problem
C) Functional niche problem
D) Functional silos problem
E) Limited vision problem

Question 70

What characteristic of team effectiveness is being demonstrated when the members of a team are sufficiently satisfied to continue working well together on an ongoing basis and/or look forward to working together again at some future point in time?

A) Member satisfaction
B) Team endurance
C) Team excellence
D) Team viability
E) Team changeability

Question 71

What should managers do to create a successful virtual team?

A) Select team members high in initiative
B) Begin with social messaging
C) Assign clear goals and roles
D) Gather regular feedback from members
E) Managers should do all of the above

Question 72

Which of these teams achieve high levels of task performance, member satisfaction, and team viability?

A) Functional teams
B) Serviceable teams
C) Operative teams
D) Effective teams
E) Practical teams

Question 73

__________ are also called self-managing teams.

A) Virtual teams
B) Self-directed work teams
C) Task teams
D) Silo teams
E) Employee teams

Question 74

When a team's members believe that their participation and experiences are positive and meet important personal needs, the __________ characteristic of team effectiveness is being demonstrated.

A) task performance
B) member commitment
C) member satisfaction
D) team viability
E) team changeability

Question 75

Most self-managing teams include how many members?

A) Between 1 and 4
B) Between 5 and 15
C) Between 20 and 35
D) Between 50 and 65
E) Between 80 and 100

Question 76

Members of which of these work together through computer mediation?

A) Project team
B) Functional team
C) Virtual team
D) Internal team
E) Self-directed team

Question 77

The potential advantages of virtual teams include all of the following EXCEPT:

A) virtual teams bring cost effectiveness to teamwork where members are unable to meet easily face-to-face.
B) virtual teams can bring speed to teamwork where members are unable to meet easily face-to-face.
C) virtual teams bring the power of the computer to bear on typical team needs for information processing and decision making.
D) virtual team members may have very little, if any, direct personal contact.
E) computer mediation focuses interaction and decision making on facts and objective information rather than on emotional considerations.

Question 78

Which of these applies to a wide variety of teams whose members meet regularly to collectively examine important workplace issues?

A) Employee functional team
B) Cross-border team
C) Informal team
D) Employee circle team
E) Employee involvement team

Question 79

The __________ is another name for the functional silos problem.

A) individual unit problem.
B) serviceable group problem
C) functional chimney problem
D) hyper-focused team problem
E) exclusive over-assemblage problem

Question 80

The potential benefits of informal groups include all of the following EXCEPT:

A) informal groups have the potential to speed up the workflow.
B) informal groups enable people to assist each other in ways that formal lines of authority fail to provide.
C) informal groups enable members to establish important goals for the formal work unit.
D) informal groups help individuals satisfy needs that are unmet in a formal group.
E) informal groups can provide their members with social satisfaction, security, and a sense of belonging.