California State University, Northridge

MGT 360

Organizational Behavior, Version 1.1

Bauer & Erdogan

TRUE/FALSE

FWK Test Item File

Chapter 6

1)The Nucor Steel Company’s incentive system penalizes low performers, but sets no upper limit on the amount high performers can earn annually.

2. Evidence of the success of Nucor Steel is the low turnover rate and nonunion status of the firm.

3. Nucor Steel’s formula for success is to centralize decision making and rigidly define employee and manager job duties.

4. Leaving employees free to choose job performance methods is an important element of scientific management techniques.

5. Job specialization entails breaking down jobs into their simplest components.

6. Job enlargement involves moving employees from job to job at different intervals.

7. You are a Walt Disney Company management trainee. The first three months of your job you will be working in the restaurant and hospitality area. The next three months you will be in the merchandising area, followed by three months in lodging and finally, three months in park operations. The Walt Disney management trainee program is designed using the job rotation philosophy.

8. In a supermarket study, cashiers rotated through different departments have lower stress levels and less pain in necks and shoulders.

9. Research shows that the psychological state of meaningfulness is the most important such state for employee attitudes and behaviors.

10. The job characteristics model is an attempt to design jobs for increased motivational potential.

11. Skill variety and task significance are the most important elements in deciding motivational potential.

12. Access to information is a key factor in empowering employees.

13. Goal commitment is higher when employees have trust-based relationships with managers.

14. Goal setting is one of the most influential and practical theories of motivation.

15. The most effective goals are easy ones.

16. The performance appraisal meeting is the most important component of a performance appraisal.

17. In the most effective performance appraisal meetings, criticism of the individual personality traits is very important.

18. Quality expert Edward Deming advocates abolishing performance appraisals in the workplace.

19. Adequate notice ensures that there is two-way communication during the performance appraisal process.

20. Relative ranking appraisals may help an organization become more

performance-oriented if they are used for a few years because they tend to weed out employees with persistent performance problems.

21. To increase the effectiveness of performance meetings, increase employee participation.

22. Attractive women are rated lower if they are employed in nonmanagement jobs and higher if they are in management jobs.

23. Leniency bias makes it harder for employees to change their behaviors.

24. Merit pay is a permanent pay raise based on past performance.

25. In a pay system based upon commission, rewarding only sales volume can lead salesmen to heavily discount merchandise.

26. The notion of using incentives to increase performance is a very old idea, actually going back to the time of Napoleon.

27. Gift cards as awards to employees are not appreciated because they are often purchased for stores and restaurants that employees do not frequent.

28. The use of stock options remains a popular incentive technique in start-up organizations.

29. Even though goal setting is a good motivational tool, there is strong evidence that goal setting can also lead to unethical behavior.

30. One technique to reduce the likelihood of unethical behavior resulting from goal setting is to create multiple levels of goals and distribute rewards according to the goals achieved rather than rewarding only those who reach the highest goal and not giving anything to anyone else, including those who were very close to that high goal.

31. Indian employees are more satisfied when they are empowered in the workplace than their counterparts in the United States or Poland.

32. Chinese employees are more motivated than American employees when the goals set for them are very difficult.

33. Countries high in power distance respond positively to appraisal systems where lower level employees give feedback to their managers.

34. Research in Western countries suggests that empowerment is an effective tool to motivate employees.

35. In China, goals high in specificity are more motivational in contrast to the low specificity goals preferred by employees in Western cultures, including the United States.

FILL IN THE BLANK

36. The philosophy of                                                                            focuses on the most efficient method to perform a job.

37.                                                       breaks down jobs into their simplest components and assigns them to employees so that they can perform tasks in a repetitive manner.

38. An auto assembly worker who works on the left rear wheel bolts on Monday, the right front headlight screws on Tuesday, the front grille connectors on Wednesday, the right rear wheel bolts on Thursday and the left front screws on Friday is working under a               system.

39. The job characteristics model features the psychological states of

                                   ,                                          , and                                                           .

40. An organizational behavior instructor who develops a unique teamwork project for use in her classroom will have high                                                                           with the project.

41.                                                                                   describes the degree to which a person has higher-order needs such as esteem and self-actualization.

42. Employees who feel motivated and have discretion to make decisions about the content and context of their job are                                                                                               .

43. A Harley-Davidson employee’s authority to stop the assembly line if he sees a blemish on the product has                                                                                         empowerment.

44. The acronym, SMART, stands for                                    ,                                       ,                           , realistic and time-bound when discussing goal setting.

45. The degree to which a person is dedicated to reaching the goal is called                                        

                                                         .

46.                                                             is the process in which a rater or raters evaluate an employee’s performance.
47.         -                                                                    is the process where supervisors, peers, subordinates, and sometimes even customers provide feedback in a confidential manner to later share with the employee for developmental purposes.

48.                                            ensures that there is two-way communication during the appraisal process and the employee’s story is heard.

49. If you answer 90% of the questions right on an exam, you get an A, if you get 80% correct, you get a B, and so on. This approach to grading an exam uses an

                                                      criteria.

50. If a manager does not want to have a confrontation with an employee or wants to avoid hurting that employee’s chances of getting a bonus, he may give the employee a rating higher than warranted. This bias in performance appraisal is called               .

51. Beliefs about different groups that may be generalized to an employee who is being evaluated, even though those beliefs may have little basis in reality, leads to a bias in performance evaluation.

52. History suggests that one of the first incentive plans in place was when Napoleon promised 12,000 francs to anyone who could find a way to preserve food for the army. This is an example of a                .

53. Fruit pickers are paid based on the amount of fruit they pick in a day. This is an example of a                                                                       system.

54. A one-time reward that follows a specific accomplishment is called a                                            .

55. The purpose of                                                       is to align company and employee interests by making employees owners.

56.                                     is a company-wide program where employees are rewarded for performance gains compared to past performance.

57. Chinese employees are much more motivated by                                         goals than their American counterparts.

SHORT ANSWERS

58. Describe some of Frederick Taylor’s observations that led to his development of the scientific management philosophy.

59. How do the job design techniques of job enlargement and job enrichment differ?

60. Describe the process of job rotation as it applies to an employee in your college’s photocopying center.

61. List and define the core job characteristics found in the Hackman and Oldham model.

62. What is the formula to calculate the motivating potential score (MPS) of a job, and what is the purpose of the score?

63. What is the difference between felt empowerment and structural empowerment?

64. What does each of the letters in the acronym, SMART, mean?

65. Write a SMART goal.

66. Why do goals motivate?

67. Explain when goals are more effective.

68. Are there any downsides to goal setting?

69. List the steps of the management by objectives (MBO) approach.

70. How does 360-degree feedback differ from the more traditional form?

71. What are the three characteristics of appraisals that increase the perception that they are fair?

72. Differentiate between absolute and relative ranking.

73. Name three common biases in performance appraisals.

74. Name two types of individual incentives and describe each.

75. Name and describe two group- or team-based incentives.

ESSAY

76. Using the concepts of job design, goal setting and incentive systems, discuss how Nucor Steel Company successfully motivates its employees.

77. Choose a job. Using the Hackman and Oldham job characteristics model, analyze that job for its motivational properties. Comment on ways to enhance the job’s motivational properties and potential.

78. Jerome had been working in an accounting department for nine months and has not received much feedback from his supervisor. What steps could he undertake to increase the feedback he is receiving?

79. Matilda is a new sales manager in a pharmaceutical organization. She decides that she wants to implement an MBO (management by objectives) approach in that department. Describe the steps she will complete to institute such a program.

80. Brett has been a manager of the accounting department for eight months now. He will be holding his first performance appraisal meetings in the next few days. Describe some ways in which he could enhance the effectiveness of those performance appraisal meetings.

81. Harvard uses a forced choice ranking system in evaluating a number of classes in its business curriculum. In this system, for example, 10% of the students might receive As, 20% Bs, 60% Cs and 10% Ds. Discuss the issues surrounding such a grading system.

82. Discuss an incentive system that an inner city school system might use to motivate teachers.

83. Discuss some of the research findings on goal setting and ethical behavior.

84. Discuss some of the research on goal setting and performance appraisal in other cultures.