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Q:
The __________ rating method presents raters with pairs of behavioral statements reflecting different levels of performance on the same performance dimension.
A) behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS)
B) computerized adaptive rating scales (CARS)
C) management by objectives (MBO)
D) behavioral observation scales (BOS)
E) performance distribution assessment (PDA)
Q:
Which of the following practices is most likely to enhance occupational intimacy?
A. Lowering emphasis on organizational learning
B. Narrowing the scope of work
C. Setting highly abstract goals
D. Establishing rigid and enduring pay structures
E. Establishing policies that show concern for employees' needs
Q:
An employee does an excellent job at answering customers technical questions related to software. However, they are not effective or efficient when it comes to completing paperwork, or working well with their peers. The manager rates this employee as excellent in all performance categories. This is an example of what performance appraisal error?
A) Halo effect
B) Horns effect
C) Recency
D) Severity
E) Central tendency
Q:
People experience _____ when they love their work, when they and their co-workers care about one another, and when they find their work meaningful.
A. burnout
B. cognitive job satisfaction
C. occupational intimacy
D. diminished personal accomplishment
E. emotional dissonance
Q:
__________ presents the rater with a limited number of categories and requires the rater to place a designated portion of the ratees into each category.
A) Comparisons among anchors
B) Paired comparisons
C) Forced distribution
D) Straight ranking
E) Graphic rating scales
Q:
Organizations can promote job satisfaction by:
A. making jobs more repetitive.
B. setting up subjective performance management systems.
C. setting highly abstract goals.
D. empowering supervisors.
E. making jobs more interesting.
Q:
Ethical behavior is a necessary condition of high performance because:
A. It fosters competitiveness.
B. It empowers first-line managers and supervisors.
C. It helps eliminate organizational anarchy.
D. it contributes to good long-term relationships with employees, customers, and the public.
E. it encourages people to be highly innovative.
Q:
One of the primary reasons that companies have turned to using forced distribution in their performance management systems is to overcome __________.
A) fundamental attribution error
B) representativeness bias
C) availability bias
D) leniency bias
E) anchoring bias
Q:
A learning culture creates the conditions in which managers:
A. encourage flexibility.
B. discourage experimentation.
C. help sustain the status quo.
D. encourage groupthink.
E. demonstrate a high degree of risk aversion.
Q:
Formal performance appraisal should have outcomes that are clearly linked to organizational __________.
A) demands
B) requirements
C) goals
D) policies
E) ethics
Q:
Each of the following is TRUE regarding Comparisons to Anchors (e.g., BARS, MBO, graphic rating scales, and summated rating scales) EXCEPT:
A) Method requires rater to compare the employee's performance with specified anchors or descriptors.
B) Method is very useful for providing feedback to employee.
C) Is easy and inexpensive to construct.
D) For the BARs method, actual behaviors are documented.
E) Generally, graphic rating scales use adjectives or numbers as anchors or descriptors.
Q:
Which of the following occurs when organizations encourage employees to see relationships among ideas and to test assumptions and observe the results of their actions?
A. High employee turnover
B. Critical, systematic thinking
C. Disruptive learning
D. Organizational change
E. Organizational anarchy
Q:
Each of the following is TRUE regarding Comparisons Among Anchors (e.g., forced choice) EXCEPT:
A) The method requires rater to make comparisons among anchors for a job activity.
B) The method is designed to reduce intentional rating bias in which the rater deliberately attempts to rate individuals high (or low) irrespective of their performance.
C) The method is well accepted by raters.
D) Anchor statements are chosen to be equal in desirability to make it more difficult for the rater to pick out the ones that can give the ratee the highest or lowest ratings.
E) Raters are not given the scoring scheme.
Q:
In a learning organization, training is viewed as:
A. a superfluous corporate ritual.
B. an investment in the organization's human resources.
C. the only driver of continued growth and sustainability.
D. the primary means of retaining good employees.
E. a tool to minimize organizational anarchy.
Q:
Each employee's and each group's ongoing efforts to gather information and apply the information to their decisions in a learning organization is referred to as:
A. continuous learning.
B. critical thinking.
C. innovation.
D. cognition.
E. groupthink.
Q:
Company XYZ had a corporate goal to improve the quality of the products they produced. Employees in the company had personal performance objectives that were associated with quality improvements. If the quality improvement objectives were not met because of faulty raw materials purchased from a new vendor, which of the following would be true?
A) The poor materials from the vendor should be considered a situational constraint when appraising the performance of the purchasing manager.
B) Only mangers should have a performance objective that is associated with the corporate goal to increase quality, not individuals responsible for production.
C) Employees should be concerned that the poor quality of the raw materials will cause the managers to be influenced by the central tendency effect.
D) When appraising the performance of an employee on the production line, the poor quality materials should be considered a situational constraint on their ability to meet quality standards.
E) Employees being rated will have a tendency to overestimate the effects of the poor quality materials on their ability to perform as compared to their managers, who will underestimate the effect.
Q:
A learning organization:
A. actively resists organizational change.
B. considers organizational learning a barrier to the dissemination of corporate culture.
C. supports lifelong learning by enabling all employees to continually acquire and share knowledge.
D. places a relatively low importance on innovation.
E. considers training a superfluous corporate ritual.
Q:
Each of the following is legally desirable regarding performance appraisal procedures EXCEPT:
A) Providing a formal appeal process.
B) Outlining specific, objective performance standards.
C) Providing written instructions for raters to follow.
D) Training raters on rating errors and EEO laws.
E) Adapting procedures to meet unique requirements of employees of different races.
Q:
Which of the following is a way in which a work team can be empowered?
A. By minimizing the team's interaction with other department or teams
B. By keeping roles independent and separate from one another
C. By charging the team with making decisions traditionally made by managers
D. By narrowing the scope of work done by the team and its members
E. By assigning management of work schedules to the manager
Q:
Which of the following statements about MBO is FALSE?
A) It compares quantifiable target goals with actual results achieved by an employee.
B) It has been shown to be useful for defining individual or unit performance related to strategic plans.
C) It is recommended as a method for comparing people or units.
D) It is a popular method of managerial appraisal.
E) It may be effective approach to motivating and improving employee performance.
Q:
One of the most popular ways to empower employees is to:
A. narrow the scope of jobs.
B. design work so that it is performed by teams.
C. adopt a centralized decision making approach.
D. pay bonuses to all employees regardless of contribution.
E. provide them with simple, repetitive jobs.
Q:
All of the following are attempts to control intentional rating errors EXCEPT:
A) using forced distribution or other forms of ratee comparison systems
B) using multirater systems.
C) requiring cross-checks or reviews of ratings by other people
D) training raters how to provide negative evaluation.
E) providing frame-of-reference training.
Q:
Which of the following is a condition that contributes to high performance?
A. Employees' rewards and compensation relate to the company's financial performance.
B. Work design allows employees to use a single skill.
C. Employee participation is planning changes pertaining to work method is limited.
D. Employees do not receive formal performance feedback.
E. Training is discouraged because of high costs.
Q:
Joy and her manager agreed in January that in order to be ready to take on a new group project in June, Joy should complete a class that would certify her in project planning. Both Joy and her manager agreed that 6 months was a reasonable time frame for completing this course, and earning the certification. How Joy is rated at the end of the review period, if she is not able to attend the training by June will depend on if her manager believes that there ______ that did not allow Joy to complete the objective.
A) was a lack of utility
B) should have been BOS
C) were situational constraints
D) was a central tendency effect
E) were anchoring effects
Q:
In a high-performance work system, organizational structure:
A. promotes high employee turnover.
B. promotes cooperation and learning.
C. discourages competition.
D. helps the organization select the right people with the required qualifications.
E. encourages people to strive for objectives that support the organizations overall goals.
Q:
Performance refers to:
A) Brief descriptions of the traits, personal characteristics, or competencies of the performer.
B) A process that requires raters to rank ratees on the basis of quantifiable goals.
C) Efforts to control rating bias by requiring raters to indicate how frequently the ratee has performed listed behaviors.
D) Comparison between specific, quantifiable target goals and the actual results achieved by an employee.
E) Record of outcomes produced on a specified job function or activity during a specified period of time.
Q:
Which of the following is an outcome of a high-performance work system?
A. Simple, repetitive jobs
B. High employee turnover
C. High production costs
D. High product quality
E. Centralized decision making
Q:
Management by Objectives (MBO):
A) Provides brief descriptions of levels of performance.
B) Selects the anchor which is most descriptive of the person being appraised.
C) Requires the rater to indicate how frequently the ratee has performed each of the listed behaviors.
D) Calls for comparison between specific, quantifiable target goals and the actual results achieved by an employee.
E) Makes comparisons among ratees according to some measure of effectiveness or simply overall effectiveness.
Q:
In a high-performance work system, task design makes jobs:
A. narrow in scope.
B. high in task significance but low in autonomy.
C. highly specialized.
D. efficient while encouraging high quality.
E. simple and more repetitive.
Q:
Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) refer to:
A) Graphic rating scales with specific behavioral descriptions defining various points along the scale for each performance dimension.
B) Comparisons among ratee's performance.
C) A record of outcomes produced on a specified job function during a specified time period.
D) Comparisons between specific, quantifiable target goals and the actual results achieved by an employee.
E) Ratings made in the context of opportunities to perform at a certain level.
Q:
Which of the following elements in a high-performance work system contribute(s) to high performance by encouraging people to strive for objectives that support the organization's overall goals and includes the performance measures by which employees are judged?
A. Organizational goals
B. Task design
C. Reward systems
D. Information systems
E. Training and development
Q:
Which of the following categories of performance outcomes have been identified as being generally applicable to all jobs?
A) quality, quantity, timeliness, cost-effectiveness, dependability
B) quality, timeliness, cost-effectiveness, need for supervision, integrity
C) timeliness, cost-effectiveness, need for supervision, interpersonal impact, loyalty
D) quality, quantity, timeliness, cost-effectiveness, need for supervision, interpersonal impact
E) quantity, timeliness, cost-effectiveness, motivation, interpersonal impact
Q:
Leniency refers to:
A) The tendency to rate employees towards the center of the scale regardless of actual performance.
B) The extent to which raters agree on an evaluation.
C) The degree to which the performance of ratees can be differentiated on each performance dimension.
D) The tendency to rate employees at the high end of the scale regardless of actual performance.
E) The tendency to allow a rating on one dimension to influence ratings of other dimensions for an employee.
Q:
As an element of a high-performance work system, _____ determine(s) how the details of the organization's necessary activities will be grouped, whether into jobs or team responsibilities.
A. information systems
B. reward systems
C. performance
D. organizational structure
E. task design
Q:
In a department where there are clearly defined and measurable performance standards, the performance appraisal method that would work well for a manager who is independently reviewing a department of 15 people to identify who will and will not be eligible for a bonus would be:
A) Paired comparisons
B) Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS)
C) Management by objectives (MBO)
D) Forced choice
E) Behavioral Observation Scales
Q:
An organization's _____ usually makes most of the decisions about organizational structure.
A. top management
B. HR department
C. supervisors
D. middle-level managers
E. technical analysts
Q:
_____ is the way the organization groups its people into useful divisions, departments, and reporting relationships.
A. Job structure
B. Organizational structure
C. Value chain
D. Corporate design
E. Relationship management
Q:
The rating method for _____ is to have the rater record specific observations of the ratees performance and then compare those observations to anchors on the rating scale to determine the most valid rating.
A) Straight ranking
B) BARS
C) paired comparison
D) forced distribution
E) MBO
Q:
Which of the following is true of high-performance work systems?
A. Creating a high-performance work system is akin to traditional management practices.
B. To function as a high-performance work system, people, technology, and organizational structure must be completely independent of one another.
C. To develop a a high-performance work system, organizations need to determine what kinds of people fit their needs, and then locate, train, and motivate those special people.
D. A high-performance work system rarely includes reward systems.
E. Integrated high-performance work practices usually have little impact on productivity and long-term financial performance.
Q:
To ensure a legally defensible performance appraisal system, all of the following procedures are recommended EXCEPT:
A) Setting specific performance standards for employees.
B) Having a performance review process for each employee.
C) Making the performance appraisal process different for all employees within a job family.
D) Including a formal appeal process.
E) Using more than one independent evaluator of performance.
Q:
A high-performance work system refers to:
A. an arrangement of machinery and equipment that streamlines the workflow and results in maximum efficiency and cost savings.
B. the right combination of people, technology, and organizational structure that makes full use of the organization's resources and opportunities in achieving its goals.
C. a computer software system designed to help managers solve problems by showing how results vary when the manager alters assumptions or data.
D. a system used to collect, record, store, analyze, and retrieve data concerning an organization's human resources.
E. a performance management system that customer satisfaction.
Q:
When planning a feedback session as part of the performance appraisal process, it is important to allow the ratee to share their thoughts and to address career aspirations.
Q:
A recruiters colleagues are most useful as a source of leads to qualified job candidates than are people the recruiter communicates with only occasionally.
Q:
Employees and managers are concerned with the lack of effectiveness of performance appraisals. There is no time to conduct performance management training for managers, or develop a BARS. One method that could be considered is to include multiple raters to derive the rating of performance.
Q:
When conducting a 360 degree appraisal it is important to exclude feedback received from internal and external customers.
Q:
One way to measure HRM effectiveness is to measure a program's success in terms of whether it achieved its objectives and whether it delivered value in an economic sense.
Q:
The forced choice methodology has effectively reduced intentional bias, and is a method that has broad acceptance from managers/raters.
Q:
The usual way to measure customer satisfaction in the course of an HRM audit is to conduct experiments in controlled environments.
Q:
Performance appraisals should be focused on the past and managers should not waste time in discussion of the employees career aspirations.
Q:
Training dollars per employee is a business indicator of the success of an HR department's training programs.
Q:
Benchmarking is the process of gauging the internal practices and activities within a firm to an external reference or standard.
Q:
An HRM audit is a formal review of the outcomes of HRM functions.
Q:
The use of 360-degree appraisal systems is a high-performance work practice.
Q:
For an organization's human resource division, "customers" are the organization's top management.
Q:
A qualified rater includes an internal or external customer who is the recipient of the performers products or services.
Q:
Most administrative and information-gathering activities in human resource management cannot be a part of e-HRM.
Q:
MBO is most effective when goals are set by the manager at a level that the employees believe is not attainable because that will motivate the employee to work harder.
Q:
A benefit of e-HRM is that employees can help themselves to information they need when they need it, instead of contacting an HR staff person.
Q:
When using the behavioral observation scales (BOS), a manager will consider at what frequency a behavior occurs.
Q:
BARS are graphic scales with specific behavioral descriptions defining various points along the scale for each dimension.
Q:
An expert system can increase efficiency by enabling more highly skilled employees to do work that otherwise would require many less-skilled employees.
Q:
Because of the perception of fairness that results from the use of forced distribution in performance appraisals, this method has been well received not only by employees being rated, but also by managers conducting the appraisal.
Q:
Transaction processing includes the activities required to meet government reporting requirements.
Q:
Paired comparisons, straight ranking, and forced distribution are appraisal systems that require raters to make comparisons among ratees according to some measure of effectiveness or simply overall effectiveness.
Q:
Employee participation in decisions about pay policies has no proven link with job satisfaction.
Q:
Providing training for managers is a means to reduce bias in performance appraisals.
Q:
Measures of employees' performance should take the effects of situational constraints into account.
Q:
Graphic rating scales are the most widely used type of rating format.
Q:
To set up a performance management system that supports the organization's goals, managers need to understand the process of employee performance.
Q:
Appraisal data cannot be used to determine the effectiveness of human resource programs.
Q:
High-performance organizations do not need selection methods that identify more than technical skills.
Q:
The more precise the definition and measurement of performance, the more difficult it becomes for a manager to effectively and fairly appraise performance.
Q:
Research suggests that it is more effective to improve HRM practices as a whole than to focus on one or two isolated practices.
Q:
Ratings of frequency are better than ratings of intensity.
Q:
The bias displayed by managers when conducting performance appraisals is unintentional and cannot be corrected through training.
Q:
People experience occupational intimacy when they love their work, when they and their co-workers care about one another, and when they find their work meaningful.
Q:
Representativeness refers to the tendency to insufficiently alter a judgment away from some starting point when new information is received.
Q:
Research supports the idea that employees job satisfaction and job performance are unrelated.
Q:
Graphic rating scales such as BARS and MBO help identify whether or not the ratees performance matches the anchor.
Q:
To create a learning organization, one challenge is to shift the focus of training away from merely generating and sharing knowledge toward a stronger focus on teaching skills.