Q&A Hero

Q: (p. 394) Cohesiveness tends to promote higher levels of team performance.

Q: After the manager of a store explains the work schedule to a new employee, he is met with a blank stare. This is an example of a feedback barrier.

Q: (p. 394) According to researchers, a cohesive team is always a good team.

Q: A student who is talking to a friend during a lecture and then asks the professor a question that was just answered is the victim of an encoding barrier.

Q: (p. 393) In a network structure, where more communication flows through fewer members, the degree of centralization is higher.

Q: Kelly has thought a lot about how to explain why she is quitting her job. Now that she has her thoughts in order, she is writing them down in a formal letter of resignation. Kelly is engaged in the decoding part of the communication process.

Q: An employee who has an idea about how to increase sales, but is afraid to voice it because he fears criticism is a victim of the decoding barrier.

Q: The location of where you grew up can influence how information is processed and interpreted.

Q: (p. 392) Noise increases the effort that the communicators need to exert to make the communication process work.

Q: Communication will fail if any step in the communication process is disrupted or blocked.

Q: (p. 390) According to research, task conflict results in increased team effectiveness irrespective of the trust on the team and the manner in which the conflict is managed.

Q: Feedback occurs when the sender gets a reaction from the receiver.

Q: (p. 390) Conflict management is an action process.

Q: Illegible handwriting is an example of "noise" in the communication process.

Q: (p. 389) Action processes become important before the team actually begins to conduct the core aspects of its work.

Q: Encoding occurs when the receiver receives a message.

Q: (p. 389) Transition processes are relevant before the team actually begins to conduct the core aspects of its work; they have no role between periods of work activity.

Q: Telephones are an efficient medium for the transfer of nonverbal information.

Q: (p. 389) Teamwork activities that focus on preparation for future work are termed as transition processes.

Q: The conduit model assumes communication transfers intended meanings from person to person.

Q: (p. 388) Interpersonal activities that facilitate the accomplishment of the team's work but do not directly involve task accomplishment itself are termed as creative processes.

Q: The conduit model of communication takes into account the fact that miscommunication sometimes occurs during the transfer of information.

Q: (p. 388) Leaders do a better job considering recommendations and making final decisions when they do it together with the team members.

Q: The conduit model of communication depicts communication as a pipeline in which information and meaning are transferred from person to person.

Q: (p. 386) By making people write down ideas on their own, the nominal group technique increases social loafing and production blocking.

Q: (p. 386) The nominal group technique involves utilizing a combination of individual and team settings to generate ideas and solutions and arrive at the winning idea.

Q: The contact hypothesis states that the more the members of different groups interact, the more intergroup conflict they will experience.

Q: Members of in-groups see themselves and members of other groups positively.

Q: Tran needs to increase his team's creativity. He calls them in to a meeting and tells them they are to shout out as many ideas as they can think of for a new project. No one is to analyze or criticize any ideas while this exercise is going on. Tran is using the brainstorming technique.

Q: High levels of in-group cohesiveness usually turn a group into a smooth-running team.

Q: (p. 386) Organizations no longer use brainstorming because of the problems associated with it.

Q: A day of contemplation is a part of the organization's formal disciplinary process and is a traditional suspension without pay.

Q: (p. 384) When teams engage in decision making, their activities are focused on generating novel and useful ideas and solutions.

Q: Workplace incivility can lead to personality conflict.

Q: (p. 367) High-performing employees often feel the low-performing employees are rewarded more than they deserve in teams with high outcome interdependence. What could be a possible solution for designing a reward system which will keep all employees happy?

Q: Personality conflict occurs when the values held by an individual and those held by the organization are in disagreement.

Q: (p. 363) Differentiate between surface-level diversity and deep-level diversity.

Q: (p. 362) Write a short note on value in diversity problem-solving approach.

Q: An agreement that leaves one party feeling exploited or defeated tends to breed resentment.

Q: (p. 358) Identify and briefly describe the five aspects of team composition.

Q: Decision making by consensus can help managers avoid conflict.

Q: (p. 355-356) Differentiate between goal interdependence and outcome interdependence. Provide an example of each.

Q: Conflict tends to decrease as the number of hierarchical layers and specialized tasks increase.

Q: (p. 352-355) Define task interdependence. Briefly describe the four primary types of task interdependence.

Q: Competition for limited resources reduces organizational conflict.

Q: (p. 351-352) Most teams go through five different stages of development. But how fast a team moves through each stage will depend on the team members, their skills, the work they are expected to do, and the type of leadership available to the team. Write a summary of the five-stage progression model.

Q: Functional conflict serves the interests of the organization.

Q: (p. 350-351) Explain the significance of virtual teams.

Q: Organizations can suffer from too little conflict.

Q: (p. 348-349) An organization cannot function with only the management or just the production team. Briefly describe the types of teams using the criteria of purpose and activity, life span, and member involvement.

Q: Conflict is a process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party.

Q: (p. 346) Teams definitely are forms of work groups, but not all work groups are teams. Analyze the above statement and give the differences between teams and groups.

Q: Conflict is an aspect of organizational life that can be avoided.

Q: (p. 367) Which of the following is true with regard to outcome interdependence? A. In an organization with compensation that has high outcome interdependence, a higher percentage of an employee's pay will depend on how well his team does. B. In an organization with compensation that has low outcome interdependence, members receive rewards that are dependent on their team's performance. C. Team reward structures with hybrid outcome interdependence reward members based solely on their own performance, irrespective of team performance. D. In an organization with compensation that has low outcome interdependence, a higher percentage of an employee's pay will depend on how well his team does. E. Team reward structures with high outcome interdependence reward members based solely on their own performance, irrespective of team performance.

Q: What are the core emotional elements of negotiation that need to be addressed in the process of conflict management?

Q: (p. 367) _____ means that members receive rewards that are dependent on both their team's performance and how well they perform as individuals. A. Task interdependence B. Hybrid outcome interdependence C. Goal interdependence D. Member ability E. Member personality

Q: Describe four alternative dispute resolution techniques.

Q: All of the following are metrics for measuring team performance except _____. A. team viability B. quantity of goods or services produced C. quality of goods or services produced D. customer satisfaction E. effectiveness and accuracy of decisions

Q: Describe the devil's advocacy technique and the dialectic method of stimulating conflict.

Q: (p. 365) The likelihood that the team can work together effectively into the future is called: A. team viability. B. surface-level diversity. C. team development. D. deep-level diversity. E. team integration.

Q: How can managers reduce intergroup conflict?

Q: Deep-level diversity has positive effects on team creativity when ______. A. team members are instructed to take the perspective of their teammates B. team members are all highly conscientious C. When there are no team members exhibiting individualistic roles D. when team size is over 15 E. when there are less than three fault lines in the team

Q: (p. 363) _____ diversity refers to diversity with respect to attributes that are less easy to observe initially but that can be inferred after more direct experience. A. Disjunctive B. Similarity-attraction C. Surface-level D. Conjunctive E. Deep-level

Q: Mention the changes associated with increased group cohesiveness.

Q: (p. 363) _____ diversity refers to diversity regarding observable attributes such as race, ethnicity, sex, and age. A. Disjunctive B. Additive C. Surface-level D. Conjunctive E. Deep-level

Q: Mention five antecedents of conflict. What are the desired outcomes of conflict?

Q: (p. 363) Diversity on attributes such as cultural background, race, and attitudes are associated with communication problems and ultimately poor team effectiveness. If true, this statement validates the theory of the _____ approach to diversity in teams. A. cooperative diversity B. similarity-attraction C. surface-level D. diversity combining E. value in diversity problem-solving

Q: What are the major trends that conspire to make organizational conflict inevitable?

Q: (p. 362) According to the value in diversity problem-solving approach: A. diversity in teams is beneficial because it provides for a larger pool of knowledge from which a team can draw as it carries out its work. B. diversity in teams is not beneficial if the problems to be solved are unfamiliar to the team members. C. surface-level diversity is less likely to lead to team cohesion than deep-level density is. D. deep-level diversity in teams is less likely to lead to productive outcomes than surface-level diversity is. E. diversity in teams is beneficial because it allows the individual team members to accept differences between people and work together.

Q: Which of the following statements about negotiation is true?A. Negotiators with fixed pie expectations produce the best negotiation outcomes.B. Men and women display the same degree of cooperation or competition in negotiating situations.C. Personality characteristics can affect negotiating success.D. Mood has no effect on the negotiation outcome.E. Negotiations produce more productive joint outcomes across cultures than within cultures.

Q: (p. 361) Which of the following observations about member conscientiousness is true? A. A team member with low conscientiousness tends to be dependable and works hard to achieve team goals. B. Correcting a team member who has high conscientiousness will result in interpersonal conflicts. C. A team member with low conscientiousness will have a positive effect on other team members. D. A team member who has low conscientiousness helps other team members to accomplish work responsibilities. E. A team with high conscientiousness will be more productive than a team with members with low conscientiousness.

Q: Mark, the business head of a firm, wanted to give New Year's gifts to his employees. He discussed with his colleagues and decided to gift office leather bags. Mark stated that he did not want to give cheap bags, while a few employees said that they did not want exorbitantly priced designer name bags. Identify the step of added-value negotiation used in this situation. A. Clarify interests B. Identify options C. Design alternative deal packages D. Select a deal E. Perfect the deal

Q: Jax loves working on the new product team! Everyone is so friendly, there is never any bitterness or conflict. Jax is sure they will come up with the most creative new product ever! Is Jax right? Why or why not? A. Not necessarily. The team members may be so focused on creating harmony, they may endanger task accomplishment. B. No. Absolutely not. Teams must have dissenters, questioners, and confrontational individuals in order to succeed. C. Yes, of course! The absolute best makeup for a team is to have all members demonstrate high levels of agreeableness. D. Maybe. As long as there are a majority of narcissists on the team. E. Yes, but only if all the team members also demonstrate high levels of neuroticism.

Q: Larry and Roger wanted to buy office furniture for the new venue of their advertising firm. Both of them discussed their needs. Larry said that he needed plastic furniture and Roger stated that he needed wooden shelves. They also discussed how many chairs, tables, shelves, and other kinds of furniture would be required. Which of the following steps of added-value negotiation is described in this situation? A. Clarify interests B. Identify options C. Design alternative deal packages D. Select a deal E. Perfect the deal

Q: (p. 361) Tasks for which the contributions resulting from the abilities of every member are considered in total to determine team performance are called _____. A. additive tasks B. conjunctive tasks C. subjunctive tasks D. disjunctive tasks E. indicative tasks

Q: _____ usually involves a single issue in which one person gains at the expense of the other. A. The integrative approach B. Distributive negotiation C. Problem solving D. The dialectic method E. Facilitation

Q: (p. 361) Tasks for which the team's performance depends on the abilities of the "weakest link" are called _____. A. additive tasks B. conjunctive tasks C. subjunctive tasks D. disjunctive tasks E. indicative tasks

Q: The two basic types of negotiation are: A. integrating and avoiding. B. dominating and obliging. C. distributive and integrative. D. devil's advocacy and dialectic method. E. intrapersonal and interpersonal.

Q: (p. 361) James participated in a problem-solving quiz competition with his friends. As Mark was the most familiar with the types of problems on the quiz, the team's performance depended entirely on Mark's performance. This type of task is called a(n): A. disjunctive task. B. multiplicative task. C. surface-level task. D. conjunctive task. E. additive task.

Q: _____ is a give-and-take decision-making process involving interdependent parties with different preferences. A. Arbitration B. Devil's advocacy C. Mediation D. Dialectic method E. Negotiation