Organizational Behavior

Question 1

Motivation theory attempts to explain and predict how the ________ of individuals is aroused, started, sustained, and stopped.

Answer 1

behavior

Question 2

_____________ are entities that enable society to pursue accomplishments that cannot be achieved by individuals acting alone.

Answer 2

Organizations

Question 3

Work behaviors of individuals occur within organizations. In order to better understand these behaviors, organizations ought to be formally ________ as well as people, processes, and structure.

Answer 3

Studied

Question 4

Organizational Behavior is the study of individuals and groups within organizational ________.

Answer 4

settings

Question 5

The formal study of organizational behavior began to develop around 1948 to 1952. This field attempts to help managers understand people better so that productivity ______________ can be made through better management practices.

Answer 5

improvements

Question 6

The effectiveness of any organization is influenced greatly by _____ behavior.

Answer 6

human

Question 7

People are a resource common to all organizations. The pizza parlor, the manufacturing plant, and the produce stand employ and interact with people. To be effective, managers of organizations must view each employee or member as a _______ embodiment.

Answer 7

unique

Question 8

Organizations are___ systems.

Answer 8

social

Question 9

The ______________ among individuals and groups in organizations create expectations for the behavior of individuals. These expectations result in certain roles that must be performed. Some people must perform leadership roles, while others must play the roles of the followers. Middle managers, because they have both superiors and subordinates, must perform both roles.

Answer 9

relationship

Question 10

The basic idea of the contingency approach is that there is no one ____ way to manage.

Answer 10

best

Question 11

A method that is very effective in one situation may not work at all in others. The contingency approach has grown in ___________ because research has shown that given certain characteristics of a job and certain characteristics of the people doing the job, some management practices work better than others.

Answer 11

popularity

Question 12

An organizations _________ is the formal pattern of how its people and jobs are grouped.

Answer 12

structure

Question 13

Structure often is illustrated by an organization ____

Answer 13

chart

Question 14

Processes are __________ that give life to the organization chart.

Answer 14

activities

Question 15

Communication, decision-making, and organization development are examples of processes in organizations. Sometimes, understanding process problems such as breakdowns in communication and decision-making will result in a more accurate _______________ of organizational behavior.

Answer 15

understanding

Question 16

The pattern of basic assumptions used by individuals and groups to deal with the organization and its environment is called its _______.

Answer 16

culture

Question 17

The organizations culture is the personality, the ___________, or the feel of the enterprise. A firms culture results in shared thoughts, feelings, and talk about the organization. Cultures of organizations can be positive or negative.

Answer 17

atmosphere

Question 18

Motivation theory attempts to explain and predict how the ________ of individuals is aroused, started, sustained, and stopped.

Answer 18

behavior

Question 19

Not all managers and behavioral scientists agree on what is the best theory of motivation. Although the complexity of motivation may make an all-encompassing theory of how it occurs impossible, managers must still try to understand it. They must be concerned with motivation because they must be concerned with _____________.

Answer 19

performance

Question 20

One of the biggest results from the Hawthorne studies was unexpected–it was determined that simply by paying _________ to the efforts of employees, their performance could be improved.

Answer 20

attention

Question 21

The Hawthorne studies resulted in the term “__________ Effect,” which is the idea that employees work performance is improved if employees know they are being studied or watched.

Answer 21

Hawthorne

Question 22

One of the most powerful influences on individual performance is an organizations ______ system.

Answer 22

reward

Question 23

Management can use rewards or punishment to increase performance by present employees. It can also use a rewards system to attract skilled employees to the organization. Performance appraisals, paychecks, raises, and bonuses are important aspects of the reward system, but they arent the _____ aspects.

Answer 23

only

Question 24

_______is an important result of the interaction between the job and the individual.

Answer 24

Stress

Question 25

As a state of imbalance within an individual, stress often manifests itself in such _________ as insomnia, excessive perspiration, nervousness, and irritability. Whether stress is positive or negative depends on the individuals tolerance level. People react differently to situations that outwardly seem to induce the same physical and psychological demands.

Answer 25

symptoms

Question 26

Group behavior and interpersonal influences are also powerful forces affecting organizational performance. ______ can form as a result of managerial action and because of individual efforts.

Answer 26

groups

Question 27

Managers create work groups to carry out assigned jobs and tasks. Groups that are formed by managerial decisions are called _______ groups. On the other hand, groups can also form as a consequence of individual efforts. These groups are referred to as informal groups, which develop around common interests and friendships.

Answer 27

formal

Question 28

The Hawthorne Effect was the term coined for the effect where studying the performance of workers actually______ performance.

Answer 28

improved

Question 29

The Hawthorne Effect was defined during the Hawthorne Studies, when worker performance improved no matter what factors the researchers_____ in the experiment, simply because the workers knew they were being studied.

Question 30

As groups ________ and interact with other groups, each develops a unique set of characteristics, including structure, cohesiveness, roles, norms, and processes.

Question 31

The group in essence creates its own ________. As a result, groups may cooperate or compete with other groups, and intergroup competition can lead to conflict. While conflict among groups can have beneficial results for an organization, too much of the wrong kinds of intergroup conflict can have very negative results.

Question 32

_____ is the ability to get someone to do something you want done or to make things happen in the way you want them to happen.

Question 33

Many people in our society are very uncomfortable with the concept of power. Some are even offended by it. This is because the essence of power is ________ over others. Managers derive power from both organizational and individual sources. Some managers may have power because of the job title, but they can also have power because employees admire the abilities and qualities that he or she may have.

Question 34

_______, which may be found in formal and informal groups, exist in all organizations.

Question 35

Leaders may be managers or nonmanagers. The ___________ of effective leadership for obtaining individual, group, and organizational performance is so critical that it has stimulated a great deal of effort to determine the causes of such leadership. Some people believe that effective leadership depends on traits and certain behaviors; other people believe that that one leadership style is effective in all situations; still others believe that each situation requires a specific leadership style.

Question 36

Certain behavioral processes give life to an organizational structure. When these processes do not function well, unfortunate problems can arise. The communication process _____ the organization to its environment as well as to its parts.

Question 37

Organizational survival is related to the ability of management to receive, transmit, and act on _____________. Information flows to and from the organization and within the organization. Information integrates the activities within the organization.

Answer 37

Information

Question 38

The quality of decision-making within an organization depends on selecting proper goals and ___________ means for achieving them.

Question 39

With good integration of behavioral and structural factors, management can increase the probability that high-quality decisions are made. Organizations rely on individual decisions as well as ______ decisions, and effective management requires knowledge about both types of decisions.

Question 40

Socialization refers to the process by which members learn the cultural values, norms, beliefs, and required behavior that permit them to be effective ____________ to the organization.

Question 41

Socialization may be formal, as when orientation programs are established for new employees, or _________, as when the manager or co-workers tell the new employee relevant details about the organizations expectations.

Question 42

All managers will, to some degree, receive and collect ___________ from organizations and institutions outside their own.

Question 43

Typically this is done through reading magazines and talking with others to learn of changes in the publics tastes, what competitors may be planning, and the like. This is called the monitor role. Managers also act as a conduit to _________ information to organizational members.

Answer 43

transmit

Question 44

One way of considering what managers do is to look at the skills or competencies they need to successfully achieve their goals. Robert ____ has identified three essential management skills. Technical skills encompass the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.

Question 45

When you think of the skills held by professionals such as engineers or surgeons, you typically focus on their technical skills. Through extensive formal education, they have learned the special knowledge and practices of their field. All jobs require some _____________ expertise and many people develop technical skills on the job.

Answer 45

specialized

Question 46

The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other ______, both individually and in groups, describes human skills.

Question 47

Many people are technically proficient but _________________ incompetent. They might, for example, be poor listeners, unable to understand the needs of others, or have difficulty managing conflicts. Since managers get things done through other people, they must have good human skills to communicate, motivate, and delegate.

Question 48

Managers must have the ______ ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations. These are conceptual skills.

Question 49

_________ making, for instance, requires managers to spot problems, identify alternatives that can correct them, evaluate these alternatives, and select the best one. Managers can be technically and interpersonally competent, yet still fail because of an inability to rationally process and interpret information.

Question 50

A systematic study is looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based on __________ evidence.

Question 51

Behavior is generally _____________, and the systematic study of behavior is a means to making reasonably accurate predictions.

Question 52

_____________ Management (TQM) is a philosophy of management that is driven by the constant attainment of customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all organizational processes.

Question 53

TQM maintains an intense focus on the _________, a concern for continual improvement, accurate performance measurements, and the empowerment of employees.

Answer 53

customer

Question 54

Work force _________ is the increasing heterogeneity of organizations with the inclusion of different groups.

Question 55

Work force diversity means that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity. The term includes anyone who _______ from the so-called norm. In addition to the more obvious groups such as women, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, the term also includes the physically disabled, gays and lesbians, and the elderly.

Question 56

Management is no longer constrained by national borders. This _____________ affects a managers people skills in at least two ways.

Question 57

First, some managers may find themselves in a ________ assignment and have to manage a work force that is likely to be very different in needs, aspirations, and attitudes from the ones typically found in the U.S. Second, even in their own country, managers will find themselves working with bosses, peers, and subordinates who were born and raised in different cultures.

Question 58

Managers have always been concerned with change. Todays managers must learn to ____ with temporariness.

Question 59

They have to learn to live with flexibility, spontaneity, and __________________. The study of organizational behavior can provide important insights into helping managers better understand a work world of continual change, how to overcome resistance to change, and how best to create an organizational culture that thrives on change.

Question 60

Members of organizations are increasingly finding themselves facing _______ dilemnas, situations where they are required to define right and wrong conduct.

Question 61

For example, should they blow the whistle if they uncover illegal activities taking place within their company? Should a person follow orders they dont personally agree with? What constitutes good ethical behavior has never been ________ defined and in recent years, the line differentiating right from wrong has become even more blurred.

Answer 61

clearly

Question 62

A _____ is an abstraction of reality; a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon.

Question 63

There are three basic levels of analysis in ________________ behavior (OB). The three basic levels are analogous to building blocks with each level being constructed based on the previous level. A basic OB model consists of individual, group, and organizational system levels.

Question 64

A _________ variable is a response that is affected by an independent variable.