Module 11 Flashcards
Firms can create a competitive advantage when human resources are
rare
How can firms create a competitive advantage?
when they possess or develop resources that are valuable, rare, inimitable, and organized.
Mary Ann hired Ali, who belongs to an underrepresented group, to work in the accounting department because he was highly skillful. However, the other workers resented Ali’s presence and excluded him from the work group. Ali had difficulty performing, since he was not given the needed information to work expediently. This is an example of ________, one of the challenges of a diversified workforce.
lower cohesiveness
Cohesiveness
refers to how tightly knit the group is and the degree to which group members perceive things and behave in similar or mutually agreed-upon ways
The Procter & Gamble diversity mission statement “Everyone valued, everyone included, everyone performing at their peak” expresses the fact that diversity
can, if managed well, give an organization a competitive advantage.
One of the challenges of having a diverse workforce is the human tendency to let our interests, values, and culture act as filters that distort, block, and select what we see and hear, a behavior known as
stereotyping
What challenges does an effective manager of a diverse organization have to overcome?
-unexamined assumptions,
-lower cohesiveness,
-communication problems,
-mistrust and tension
-stereotyping.
Pat is the third-generation president of Lincoln Interstate Trucking. In his grandfather’s day, the company had a monolithic framework, with white males in key positions and other underrepresented workers relegated to menial work. His father made the transition to a pluralistic organization, but now Pat wants to take the company into the twenty-first century by creating a multicultural environment. Which of the following actions would best help Pat accomplish this?
He should hire women and minorities for positions throughout the company hierarchy.
Which organization has more diverse employees?
pluralistic organizations have more diverse employees compared to monolithic organizations
Which of the following is included in a job analysis?
a job description and a job specification
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935
-established five unfair employer labor practices
-also called the Wagner Act
- declaring labor organizations legal
-creating the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
Lane is a manager working with a diverse team. The fact that there are many differences, including race, culture, and gender, between the different members of the team has long been a topic Lane has tried to avoid, but one day one of her subordinates says that because Lane is a white woman, she almost certainly has prejudices against him as a person of color. He says it under the guise of humor, but the moment is still a tense one, especially because she sees that several other subordinates are listening in. The best approach for Lane is to
admit that she probably has biases she does not even know about and invite the team to discuss what those biases might be and what biases each of them might have as well.
Which of the following is one of the basic functions of a performance appraisal?
providing managers with information to make administrative decisions
Performance appraisal
has two basic purposes: administrative, as it provides managers with the information they need to make salary, promotion, and dismissal decisions; and developmental, as the information gathered can be used to identify and plan the additional training, experience, or other improvement that employees require.
Happy Home Consultants is a growing company that helps city homeowners tackle a variety of home improvements. It plans to expand its business to work with homeowners in several nearby suburbs and to add personnel to help negotiate favorable pricing with local hardware stores for equipment and building supplies. The human resources (HR) department compared the company’s current staffing with the number and type of employees the company would need to carry out its business plans. The department also looked into how to obtain new employees. It concluded that the company would need to hire eight new handypersons and a contractor while retaining all its current employees. The department gained approval to begin recruiting workers and to revise the pay system. Now the HR department is beginning a formal process to evaluate how well its plans for recruitment and staff retention are going.
Which of the following stages is exemplified when the HR department evaluated the amount and type of employees that should be hired?
planning
