Q&A Hero

Q: Selection is important in the success of a team.

Q: The behaviors required for successful team performance cannot be gained through training.

Q: Human resource metrics are used to assess a firm's HR performance and to compare one firm's HR performance with another firm's.

Q: High-performance companies are less likely than low-performance companies to invest in costly employee training programs.

Q: There is no way to reduce social loafing within a team.

Q: Companies with empowered, highly trained, flexible workforces have a competitive advantage.

Q: Effective teams should avoid conflict at all costs.

Q: Human resource practices, such as hiring based on selection tests, pay raises based on work performance, and training provided to new and experienced employees, contribute to a company's ability to achieve high-performance levels.

Q: An effective team must have a whole and identifiable task.

Q: According to the U.S. Department of Labor, high-performance work organizations include multi-skilled work teams, empowered front-line workers, and extensive training.

Q: The "two pizza" rule states that the best teams should be small enough so that they can be satisfied with no more than two pizzas.

Q: HR scorecards present managers with desktop graphs and charts of how a firm's HR strategies compare to those of other firms in the same industry.

Q: A team's upholder-maintainer would likely submit the team's request for a large increase in resources to top management.

Q: The specific human resource policies and practices used to support a firm's strategic goals are known as human resource strategies.

Q: The team role of linker initiates creative ideas in a team.

Q: Strategic human resource management means formulating and executing HR systems that produce the employee competencies and behaviors a firm needs to achieve its strategic aims.

Q: Disruptive effects of diversity on team performance can decline over time.

Q: A business-level strategy is implemented by Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's and Little Caesar's in their competition with each other for pizza customers.

Q: On successful teams, individuals rarely play more than one role.

Q: McDonald's addressed its lagging profitability by first closing stores operating below its guidelines. McDonald's used a consolidation strategy.

Q: Disagreeable team members rarely decrease team performance.

Q: A vertical integration strategy means that a firm will expand by adding new product lines.

Q: Conscientiousness seems to be a key ingredient in successful teams.

Q: Cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies are types of corporate-level strategies.

Q: An effective team leader is often more of a coach than a manager.

Q: Managers engage in three levels of strategic planning.

Q: Members of a virtual team never actually communicate with one another.

Q: Consolidation keeps the company's strategy up to date by assessing progress toward strategic goals and taking corrective action as needed.

Q: In an electronics company, a cross-functional team is likely to have an engineer, a designer, a software specialist, and a marketing specialist all working on the same project.

Q: Strategy management focuses more on translating a mission into goals than on the functions of organizing, staffing, and controlling.

Q: A problem-solving team is likely not to have a supervising manager to oversee it.

Q: A vision statement is broader and more future-oriented than a mission statement.

Q: A mission statement is a general statement of a company's intended direction that evokes emotional feelings in the organization's members.

Q: A self-managed team is responsible for both completing tasks and managing itself.

Q: Strategy is a course of action.

Q: The problem with many problem-solving teams is that they don't have the authority to act on their decisions.

Q: The basic steps in the management planning process include setting objectives, determining alternative courses of action, and evaluating which options are best.

Q: Accountability for a work team is strictly on an individual basis.

Q: Work teams and groups are the same thing.

Q: Goals are initiated by the bottom level of an organization according to the hierarchy of goals approach to strategic planning.

Q: Approximately 80 percent of all Fortune 500 companies use teams.

Q: Which of the following would most likely NOT occur during the HR critical stage of a merger or acquisition? A) select top management B) pay out incentives C) align organizational cultures D) communicate changes to workers

Q: According to the text, teams of empowered, engaged, and dedicated workers at GE serve as a(n) ________. A) HR metric B) strategic fit C) functional strategy D) competitive advantage

Q: One way to emphasize team cohesion is for employers to distribute rewards based on a team's productivity to ________. A) selected team members B) all teams C) the entire team D) the team leader

Q: An organization that is composed predominantly of teams should reward employees primarily for ________. A) individual efforts B) competitive efforts C) being team leaders D) cooperative efforts

Q: Palo Alto software would most likely be used by a manager to ________. A) write a business plan B) analyze job positions C) track sources of new hires D) identify recruiting weaknesses

Q: Like the scientific method, evidence-based HR management should have all of the following characteristics EXCEPT ________. A) quantification B) replication C) subjectivity D) prediction

Q: Team skills ________. A) are all inborn B) can be learned C) can never be learned D) cannot be picked up through training

Q: When assembling a team, managers should look for individuals who ________. A) can avoid conflict and have team skills B) have the required job skills C) are team players D) have both team and job skills

Q: An HR manager conducting an HR audit on compensation would most likely search for ________. A) current job descriptions B) workforce health and safety training C) completed benefit enrollment forms D) compliance with state and federal laws

Q: Specific goals are a ________ factor that contributes to overall team effectiveness. A) context B) work design C) process D) composition

Q: Which of the following questions would LEAST likely be answered by the use of workforce analytics software? A) Which departments need improvement? B) What hiring policies are standard in the industry? C) How many workers will the firm need in five years? D) Why do employees choose to leave the organization?

Q: The best way to eliminate social loafing is to make sure that team members are ________ for the team's goals. A) individually accountable B) jointly accountable C) both individually and jointly accountable D) not accountable

Q: Executives at Hartford Clothing, a retail department store chain, want to find out what products their customers buy, when they purchase products, and what days of the week are most popular for shopping. Executives want to discover customer patterns and make predictions about their customers' buying habits. What would be the most effective tool for Hartford? A) data mining system B) talent value model C) financial audit D) strategy map

Q: Which term refers to software applications used to analyze and draw conclusions from HR data? A) data mines B) talent analytics C) HR scorecards D) digital dashboards

Q: Which of the following should a team try to completely eliminate, if possible? A) conflict B) disagreement C) social loafing D) individual accountability

Q: All of the following are commonly addressed in an HR audit EXCEPT ________. A) exempt workers B) job descriptions C) accounting expenses D) workers' compensation benefits

Q: A certain amount of this is usually required for effective teams. A) conflict B) dysfunction C) social loafing D) distrust

Q: Which of the following refers to an analysis by which an organization measures where it currently stands and determines what it has to accomplish to improve its HR functions? A) HR methodology B) HR benchmark C) HR checklist D) HR audit

Q: Team efficacy is a measure of how ________ a team is. A) efficient B) cooperative C) confident D) skilled

Q: Which of the following terms refers to the process of comparing and analyzing the practices of one firm with those of a high-performing company? A) benchmarking B) diversifying C) strategizing D) outsourcing

Q: Autonomy is a ________ factor that contributes to team effectiveness. A) work design B) context C) process D) composition

Q: A team that is suffering attacks by managers from another division needs someone to fulfill this team role. A) reporter-adviser B) controller-inspector C) thruster-organizer D) upholder-maintainer

Q: The primary purpose of implementing high-performance practices such as recruiting, screening, and training is to ________. A) foster a strong organizational culture B) create management opportunities for new hires C) develop a trained, flexible, and self-motivated workforce D) utilize benchmarks to compare personnel AACSBs within an industry

Q: Work teams that perform at a high level typically fill ________ different team roles. A) six B) eight C) nine D) ten

Q: The use of human resource metrics is essential for ________. A) management by objectives B) emergent employee behaviors C) corporate-level strategies D) evidence-based management

Q: A team that lacks discipline needs someone to fulfill this team role. A) controller-inspector B) linker C) explorer-promoter D) upholder-maintainer

Q: Which of the following terms refers to the quantitative measure of a human resource management yardstick such as employee turnover or qualified applicants per position? A) human resource audits B) human resource metrics C) management by objectives D) human resource scorecards

Q: The "two-pizza" rule holds that work teams should ________. A) include a homogeneous group of people who all like just one or two kinds of pizza B) be small enough to be fed by two pizzas C) have 16 people or 2 eight-slice pizzas D) always have two alternatives when they make a decision

Q: Which of the following is most likely a true statement about high-performance companies? A) Most employees receive regular performance appraisals. B) Employee turnover is extremely high. C) Only executives are eligible for incentive pay. D) The majority of jobs are filled externally.

Q: A team that lacks new, interesting, exciting ideas needs someone to fulfill this team role. A) linker B) creator-innovator C) thruster-organizer D) upholder-maintainer

Q: MAX Computers manufactures affordable laptops and desktops at its factory in Arizona. MAX has experienced a moderate amount of financial success, but upper management wants the firm to grow at a faster rate and become a bigger player in the highly competitive computer market. The firm's greatest problems relate to its employees. Employee turnover is highmost employees at MAX leave within two years or less of being hired. In addition, the rate of productivity among employees is not as high as executives would like. The vice president of human resources is considering moving MAX towards a high-performance work system. Which of the following questions is most relevant to MAX's decision to move toward a high-performance work system? A) How would the implementation of self-managing work teams affect employee morale and work standards at MAX? B) How will qualitative performance measures address the needs of MAX employees in regards to the firm's benefits plan? C) What roles should line managers, staff managers, and HR managers at MAX play in performance appraisals? D) What economic and demographic trends in the U.S. are related to the employee turnover rate at MAX?

Q: With respect to skills, most teams need this most. A) members who excel at one particular skill B) members who have only general skills C) members who excel at different skills D) members who have interpersonal skills

Q: MAX Computers manufactures affordable laptops and desktops at its factory in Arizona. MAX has experienced a moderate amount of financial success, but upper management wants the firm to grow at a faster rate and become a bigger player in the highly competitive computer market. The firm's greatest problems relate to its employees. Employee turnover is highmost employees at MAX leave within two years or less of being hired. In addition, the rate of productivity among employees is not as high as executives would like. The vice president of human resources is considering moving MAX towards a high-performance work system. Which of the following best supports the argument that MAX should move towards a high-performance work system? A) MAX competitors regularly use benchmarking to compare their employees to those in other firms. B) MAX customers purchase new computers every two years according to online customer surveys. C) Outsourcing clerical tasks would enable MAX to raise employee salaries and increase productivity. D) Using advanced recruitment and hiring practices will allow MAX to improve employee productivity.

Q: Reese Enterprises seeks to fill upper-level positions internally whenever possible and uses validated selection tests when considering external hires. This most likely suggests the company is developing a ________. A) high-performance work system B) scorecard management system C) benchmark and metric analysis D) management by objectives strategy

Q: How agreeable or disagreeable team members are affects team performance, especially when ________. A) the team is diverse B) the team is large C) the team has only one disagreeable member D) the team has more than one disagreeable member

Q: These are the Big Five personality traits that seem to have the greatest influence on team performance. A) conscientiousness and openness to experience B) agreeableness and emotional stability C) emotional stability and extraversion D) extraversion and conscientiousness

Q: All of the following practices are most likely implemented by companies with high-performance work systems EXCEPT ________. A) hiring employees based on validated selection tests B) providing pay increases based on service years C) filling positions with internal candidates D) utilizing self-managing work teams

Q: Team diversity generally leads to ________ in overall team performance. A) an immediate increase B) an eventual increase C) a dramatic decrease D) an eventual decrease

Q: High-performance work organizations are most likely characterized by all of the following EXCEPT ________. A) multi-skilled work teams B) empowered front-line workers C) extensive training D) commitment to high production rates