Q&A Hero

Q: Betweenness gives power because the more of it you have: A. the more it increases your visibility. B. the more you control the distribution of information and other resources to people on either side of you. C. the shorter your paths to many people in the network. D. the fewer demands people make on you. E. the more people are connected to you.

Q: How much you are located between others in a network is called your: A. degree centrality. B. visibility. C. closeness. D. betweenness. E. discretion.

Q: Your centrality in a social network is determined by your: A. betweenness, closeness, and degree centrality. B. betweenness, visibility, and discretion. C. closeness, discretion, and visibility. D. closeness, degree centrality, and visibility. E. visibility, discretion, and degree centrality.

Q: Your importance in a social network is called your: A. visibility. B. absorption. C. centrality. D. discretion. E. persuasion.

Q: Which or the following is true about strong ties? A. Strong ties are the most valuable ties we have. B. May be less valuable then having weak ties with people from diverse networks. C. Tend to yield the most value in job hunting and career development. D. Strong ties represent tend to represent people who are quite dissimilar to us. E. Strong ties take less time and energy to form and maintain.

Q: "Strong ties" are: A. relationships a manager has with upper-level managers. B. relationships a manager has with family and friends. C. easier to form than "weak ties." D. close-knit relationships. E. relationships with acquaintances.

Q: Networking potentially increases a person's power by: A. increasing the person's legitimate power. B. decreasing the person's centrality. C. increasing the person's referent power. D. decreasing the person's reward power. E. increasing the person's coercive power.

Q: Which of the following networking styles increases a person's expert power? A. Gaining valuable information through networking B. Identifying people who are in the same network as you C. Making decisions in favorable to others D. Recognizing talents E. Placing oneself in a strategic position in the network

Q: In terms of managing social networks, organizational leaders should: A. ignore them; they are irrelevant. B. forbid employees from engaging in them, as they damage the formal structure of the organization. C. be aware of them, as they reflect the real distribution of power. D. manage them by appointing specific people to monitor them. E. engage heavily on a personal level with all social networks in the organization.

Q: Which of the following is NOT a source of power in a social network? A. Information B. Visibility C. Referent power D. Isolation E. Expertise

Q: Social networks generate power through: A. political behavior. B. Guanxi. C. social capital. D. network capital. E. Machiavellianism.

Q: Social networks exist everywhere because people: A. have a drive to bond. B. are insecure. C. are all extroverted. D. have a need to defend their territory. E. need to be visible.

Q: The freedom to exercise judgment in an organization is called _______. A. visibility B. absorption C. centrality D. discretion E. persuasion

Q: Genevieve makes sure that she walks by her boss's office several times a day and tries to greet and make eye contact with her. She is trying to increase her: A. visibility. B. absorption. C. centrality. D. discretion. E. persuasion.

Q: Which contingency of power are unions mainly applying by going on strike at a critical time in the company's business cycle? A. Visibility B. Absorption C. Centrality D. Discretion E. Persuasion

Q: Which of these refers to the degree and nature of interdependence between the power holder and others? A. Visibility B. Substitutability C. Centrality D. Discretion E. Expertise

Q: Which of the following refers to availability of alternatives? A. Visibility B. Substitutability C. Centrality D. Discretion E. Referent power

Q: Referent power is typically associated with:A. reward systems.B. power distance.C. uncertainty avoidance.D. peer pressure.E. charisma.

Q: Which of these sources of power originates mainly from the person rather than the position? A. Referent power B. Legitimate power C. Coercive power D. Reward power E. Perceived right

Q: People have ______ power when others identify with them, like them, or otherwise respect them. A. reward B. legitimate C. referent D. expert E. coercive

Q: Which of the following are the three general strategies for coping with uncertainty? A. Visibility, discretion, and prevention B. Visibility, immediacy, and pervasiveness C. Prevention, forecasting, and absorption D. Discretion, immediacy, and prevention E. Immediacy, forecasting, and absorption

Q: The (perceived) ability to manage uncertainties in the business environment is a form of _____ power. A. reward B. legitimate C. referent D. expert E. coercive

Q: Which of the following sources of power originates from the power holder's own characteristics? A. Legitimate power B. Coercive power C. Expert power D. Reward power E. Formal power

Q: Employees have _____, ranging from sarcasm to ostracism, to ensure that coworkers conform to team norms. A. reward power B. legitimate power C. referent power D. expert power E. coercive power

Q: Employees also have _____ power over their bosses through their feedback and ratings in 360-degree feedback systems. A. referent B. reward C. legitimate D. expert E. coercive

Q: Employees are more likely to comply with a supervisor's legitimate power when the: A. employees have high power distance. B. power holder gives orders outside the employees' normal role requirements. C. company encourages people to disobey orders that interfere with their work. D. manager has little charisma. E. manager has a very good reward system in place.

Q: Legitimate power occurs when: A. the manager can remove negative sanctions. B. the manager is able to reward or punish the employees. C. the manager has the capacity to influence others on the basis of identification with and respect for the power-holder. D. employees are blinded by the manager's charisma. E. it is agreed that people in certain roles can request certain behaviors of others.

Q: In order to maintain the exchange relationship, the dependent party must have _____ over the dominant party. A. countervailing power B. substitutability C. reverse dependence D. visibility E. legitimate power

Q: Which of the following statements about countervailing power in organizational relationships is true? A. Countervailing power prevents anyone else from having any power over you. B. Countervailing power is used by the stronger party to prevent the weaker party from leaving the relationship. C. Countervailing power is the weaker party's power to maintain the stronger party's continued participation in the relationship. D. Countervailing power is one of the ways that people gain power by coping with uncertainty. E. Countervailing power is a personality characteristic of people who crave power.

Q: Which of the following statements about power is true? A. Power exists only when the power holder is able to change someone's behavior. B. Power requires asymmetric dependence in a relationship. C. Power is the actual practice of influencing others. D. Power exists only when one person has something of value for a second person, but the second person has nothing of value for the first person. E. People cannot have power over others by controlling a desired job assignment, useful information, important resources, or even the privilege of being associated with someone.

Q: Power is the _____ to change someone's behavior. A. need B. act C. potential D. duty E. hidden agenda

Q: Should companies try to eliminate grapevine communication?Explain your answer.

Q: What are the common gender differences observed in communication?

Q: Briefly explain the problem of information overload.

Q: Explain the concept of media richness. What are the two conditions required for a communication channel to be considered high in media richness?

Q: What is social acceptance? What are the social acceptance factors?

Q: Emotional contagion receives relatively little attention in organizational behavior literature (as it is mostly studied by psychologists), yet it is an important part of social interaction in the workplace. Define emotional contagion and identify two benefits of this phenomenon.

Q: A few organizations have recently tried to minimize employee use of email when communicating with colleagues. Discuss two reasons why companies might want to minimize the use of email.

Q: What are the four major factors that influence the effectiveness of the encoding-decoding process in communication?

Q: Briefly explain the communication process model and its components.

Q: Shanti's Workshop Shanti recently went to a communication workshop to help improve her workplace performance. She learned that in effective communication, she should resist forming an opinion until the speaker has finished, then attempt to empathize with the listener, and finally effectively respond to the speaker. She learned techniques regarding maintain eye contact and sending back channel signals to show interest. The techniques she learned with regards to showing interest will help her improve in the _______________ of listening. A. sensing B. evaluating C. understanding D. responding E. identification

Q: American-Japanese Partnership You have completed an important presentation to several Japanese executives regarding a proposed partnership between your American company and their Japanese firm. The Japanese executives were very silent during the presentation. With regard to cross-cultural communication, this silence most likely means that the Japanese executives: A. didn't understand what you were saying. B. disagree with your proposal and can't think of a polite way of telling you about their rejection. C. weren't listening to your presentation. D. have agreed to the proposal made by you. E. are showing respect for your presentation.

Q: Sunshine Toys At Sunshine Toys, several employees must work together to develop a new product. No one in this group has worked with any of the others before, and the development of this product has not been attempted previously. According to the media richness model, which of the following communication channels is most appropriate in this situation? A. Written documents B. Email C. Face-to-face meetings D. Bulletin boards E. Weblogs

Q: Which of the following should corporate leaders do with the organizational grapevine? A. Try to use the grapevine as a channel of communication from executives to employees as much as possible because of its high speed and low cost B. Use the grapevine as a signal of employee anxiety and view it as a valid competitor to the company's formal communication system C. Use the grapevine when the communication requires high media richness, but otherwise use meetings when communicating with employees D. Make every effort to destroy the grapevine, including firing employees who actively support it E. Ignore grapevines as providing more attention to it would increase the speed of grapevine communication

Q: The organizational grapevine is useful because it: A. is an effective way for management to inform employees about future organizational changes. B. provides detailed information that more formal communication channels tend to ignore. C. reduces information overload. D. bonds employees together and fulfills their need for interaction. E. allows organizations to hide important information from employees.

Q: Which of the following is true about the organizational grapevine? A. The grapevine presents a true picture of reality by providing fine details to substantiate the content. B. The grapevine typically works by sending information downward rather than upward through the organizational hierarchy. C. The grapevine is usually founded on organizational charts or job descriptions rather than social relationships. D. The grapevine is a structured and formal network for transmitting organizational information. E. The typical pattern of a grapevine is a cluster chain, whereby a few people actively transmit rumors to many others.

Q: The unstructured and informal organizational network that is founded in social relationships rather than organization charts or job descriptions is called: A. The codebook B. The jargon C. The grapevine D. The rumor mill E. The jungle

Q: Done correctly, MBWA most likely occurs on a _____ basis. A. annual B. semi-annual C. quarterly D. monthly E. daily or weekly

Q: Management by walking around refers to: A. the process used by new executives to get familiar with their new office design and layout. B. a communication process that should be used only when executives need to explain corporate decisions to the lower-level employees. C. a practice in which executives get out of their offices and learn from others in the organization through face-to-face dialogue. D. an old strategy that results in ineffective upward communication. E. the label used to describe new executives who experiment in management.

Q: _____ are collaborative Web spaces in which anyone in a group can write, edit, or remove material from the Web site. A. Blogs B. Podcasts C. Wikis D. Intranets E. Local area networks

Q: Research suggests that effective workspace design mainly balances the trade-off between: A. social interaction and emotional contagion. B. verbal and nonverbal communication. C. employee privacy and social interaction. D. information overload and information underload. E. buffering and information overload.

Q: Which of the following is a strategy specifically identified to improve face-to-face communication among employees? A. Filtering B. Buffering C. Encouraging an active grapevine D. Open workspace arrangements E. Use of jargon

Q: Which of the following active listening processes includes showing interest and clarifying the message of the speaker? A. Evaluating B. Responding C. Persuading D. Recording E. Sensing

Q: Active listeners can improve their responding by: A. Keeping their feedback to themselves B. Not making eye contact C. Keeping silent D. Rephrasing speaker's ideas at appropriate breaks E. Asking irrelevant questions

Q: Active listeners improve their evaluating activities by: A. organizing the information provided in the speech. B. forming an opinion before presentation. C. clarifying the message. D. interrupting when they disagree with the speaker. E. constructively criticizing of all the ideas presented.

Q: Active listeners improve their sensing activities by: A. forming an opinion early in the process. B. postponing evaluation of the message. C. clarifying the message during presentation. D. estimating the learning often. E. maintaining a casual posture when listening.

Q: The three main components of active listening, in order, are:A. sensing, evaluating, and responding.B. encoding, decoding, and transmitting.C. inferring, deferring, and referring.D. summarizing, encoding, and responding.E. buffering, summarizing, and omitting.

Q: "Report talk" is characterized by:A. Giving advice indirectlyB. Apologizing less frequentlyC. Flexible conversation styleD. Sensitivity to nonverbal cuesE. Relationship building

Q: How do men and women generally differ in their communication styles in organizational settings? A. Men are more likely than women to communicate to strengthen relationships. B. Women have a more dominant conversation style. C. Women are usually more sensitive than men to the listener's nonverbal cues. D. Men tend to engage less in report talk than women. E. Men apologize more often in their conversations and interactions than women.

Q: Which of the following has the same meaning around the world? A. Silence B. Shaking one's head C. Smiling D. Raising one's eyebrows E. Eye contact

Q: You have made an important presentation to several Japanese executives regarding a proposed partnership between your American company and their Japanese firm. The Japanese executives were very silent during the presentation. Most people in the United States would view this silence as: A. a symbol of interpersonal harmony. B. an indication that the Japanese are thoughtfully contemplating what you have just said in your presentation. C. an agreement to the proposal made by you. D. a respect for your presentation. E. a lack of communication.

Q: In Alphatech Systems, email software screens incoming messages by organizing them into mailboxes and identifying junk mail. As a result, employees in this company can quickly identify the most important email messages, and overlook the junk mail. This email feature improves communication by: A. increasing media richness. B. reducing information load. C. minimizing emotional contagion. D. reducing the use of jargon. E. increasing social acceptance of mails.

Q: Buffering, summarizing, and omitting are ways to: A. reduce information overload. B. avoid organizational risk. C. avoid the risk of flaming. D. improve communication between men and women. E. increase media richness.

Q: Senior executives at a large tire company learned that a line of tires had a tendency to fall apart in very warm weather. This resulted in several vehicle accidents in the Middle East and South America. However, the executives did not hear about these problems until several weeks after the lower-level managers learned about the same. Although the senior executives encourage staff to openly communicate all information, the lower-level staff held back the information for fear that they might lose their jobs. Which communication concept best describes this communication situation? A. Media richness B. Persuasive communication C. Filtering D. Flaming E. Information overload

Q: In the communication process, filtering occurs when: A. the sender carefully selects words that the receiver is most likely to understand correctly. B. the receiver removes noise from the communication process so that the sender's message is more accurately understood. C. people communicate mainly positive information about themselves by screening out negative information. D. an organization is able to prevent grapevine communication by sending the information more quickly through newsletters and other formal communication channels. E. the receiver avoids receiving messages from a sender, such as by avoiding the person or deliberately not reading email messages.

Q: When a sender and receiver belonging to the same group want to transmit technical information more efficiently, they should use: A. jargon that they both understand. B. information filtering. C. mediators in communication. D. nonverbal communication. E. formal written communication.

Q: Communication noise can exist even when people speak the same language. This occurs because of the: A. skill differences among people. B. lack of necessary aptitudes. C. richness of the communication channel. D. reduced channel bandwidth. E. cultural differences among people.

Q: Which of the following is an advantage associated with using written communication channels in persuading people? A. It can make better use of the social perceptions of individuals. B. It can be used as a medium for richer communication. C. It is better in presenting technical details. D. It can be used to obtain high-quality immediate feedback. E. It sends emotional and logical messages to receivers.

Q: Which of the following communication channels is most effective when the sender wants to persuade the receiver? A. A formal memorandum sent to the receiver B. An informal speech to a large audience C. A personalized letter to the receiver D. A personal face-to-face meeting with the receiver E. An informal memorandum issued to the receiver

Q: Employees can expand the data-carrying capacity of lean media channel if they: A. avoid emotional contagion. B. are highly proficient with that communication channel. C. are unfamiliar with the receiver of the information. D. avoid using jargon and short-hand symbols in the communication. E. are new to using that communication medium.

Q: Safety representatives in each of the six plants of a manufacturing company need to communicate to each other every week the number and type of health and safety incidents in their plant. Each representative has a safety reporting document where he or she notes the type and number of infractions during the previous week. These incidents are well known to other representatives, so there are rarely any surprises. This weekly communication calls for: A. an active corporate grapevine. B. high emotional contagion in communication. C. the use of nonverbal communication. D. increased number of face-to-face meetings. E. lean media.

Q: Which of the following communication channels has the lowest media richness?A. NewsletterB. EmailC. Telephone callD. Video conferenceE. Instant messaging

Q: Which of the following communication channels has the highest media richness?A. NewsletterB. EmailC. Telephone callD. Video conferenceE. Instant messaging

Q: Several employees in a newly formed group must work together to develop a new product. No one in this group has worked with anyone else in this group before and the development of this product has not been attempted previously. According to the media richness model, which of the following communication channels is most appropriate in this situation? A. Written documents B. Email C. Face-to-face meetings D. Bulletin boards E. Financial statements

Q: The capacity of a communication medium to transmit information is referred to as: A. media richness. B. information overload. C. channel frequency. D. channel diversity. E. communication frequency.

Q: Which of the following is a factor in social acceptance? A. The symbolic meaning of the chosen channel B. The media richness of the selected channel C. The bandwidth of the channel D. The diplomatic acceptance of the message E. The content and accuracy of the message

Q: Listeners often engage in an automatic process of "catching" or sharing another person's emotions by mimicking that person's facial expressions and other nonverbal behavior. Which of the following drives causes this effect? A. Drive to defend B. Drive to bond C. Drive to achieve D. Drive to learn E. Drive to protect

Q: What effect does emotional contagion have on the communication process?A. It distorts the communication process and causes dissatisfaction to all the parties involved.B. It provides feedback to the sender that the receiver understands and empathizes with the message.C. It reduces the level of actual communication among colleagues.D. It makes it more difficult for the receiver to receive the emotional meaning of the sender's experience.E. It forms a strong communication barrier between the sender and the receiver.

Q: John slams his finger while closing a cabinet drawer. Mary winces and shakes her hand. This is an example of: A. Passive listening B. Emotional contagion C. Emotional intelligence D. Tacit knowledge E. Flaming

Q: Emotional contagion occurs when: A. we share the emotions of other people. B. we are required to show or hide our emotions, based on rules prescribed by the job. C. two or more people experience different emotions even though they are observing the same object. D. the communication medium has different meaning for the receiver and the sender. E. two or more people experience the same emotions even though they are observing different objects.