Q&A Hero

Q: What does Meyer encourage leaders to do to create a seamless, strong culture that blends "home" (corporate) culture with the "host" (international) culture?

Q: What does it mean to say that organizational cultures are "symbolic constructions"?

Q: The text outlines several elements of culture. List and define three of them.

Q: How would one carry out an ethnography?

Q: What are some of the significant changes and social trends in American history that helped usher in the study of organizational culture?

Q: What does the practical view offer to the study of organizational culture? Provide an example that illustrates your point.

Q: What are strong cultures, according to Deal and Kennedy? If strong cultures exist, does that also mean that weak cultures exist? If so, what would they look like?

Q: The concept of feedback is particularly important to systems theory. Explain how feedback operates in a systems approach, paying particular attention to deviation-counteracting versus deviation-amplifying feedback.

Q: The concept of interdependence is a central concept to the systems approach. Explain interdependence by demonstrating how it relates to the other concepts associated with the systems approach. Conclude your essay by offering a very detailed example of how interdependence makes a system work.

Q: Explain Weick's quotation, "How can I know what I think until I see what I say?" Moreover, use his model of retrospective sense making to explain how Weick's approach has shifted to a more relationally based quotation, "How can we know what we think until we see what we say?"

Q: If distributed intelligence is important to an organization, how should managers and employees use this concept?

Q: Illustrate Weick's process of sense making, and explain its importance to organizational communication.

Q: Describe how equifinality operates in organizations. Offer an example of this concept that illustrates your point.

Q: Illustrate how the enacted environment is so important to Weick's theory.

Q: Explain the concept of an open system. Provide an example that illustrates your point.

Q: How is systems theory unique from the other three theoretical approaches to organizational communication?

Q: An underlying assumption of Weick's model is that decision making is largely retrospective sense making. What does this mean?

Q: Describe each part of Weick's model of organizing.

Q: What are the five features of Senge's learning organization?

Q: Draw connections between general systems theory as it applies to biological and physical sciences as well as how it has been adapted to the social sciences.

Q: The typical college or university exemplifies a loosely coupled system, because the actions of one department often have little impact on the actions of another department. A) True B) False

Q: Weick's theory of retrospective sense making does not take into account people who strive to act only in accordance with predetermined plans. A) True B) False

Q: In systems theory, there are two main types of feedback: direct and indirect. A) True B) False

Q: Shared visions are an important part of learning organizations. A) True B) False

Q: Interdependence refers to the relationship between the whole and the individual parts. A) True B) False

Q: According to Karl Weick, loosely coupled systems are not able to withstand jolts from the environment. A) True B) False

Q: Loosely coupled systems are always superior to tightly coupled systems. A) True B) False

Q: Goals can differ across systems levels. A) True B) False

Q: An underlying assumption of Weick's model is that decision making is largely retrospective sense making. A) True B) False

Q: Equifinality refers to the notion that there is "one best way" to organize. A) True B) False

Q: A significant power imbalance can lead to a lack of mutual interdependence. A) True B) False

Q: One emerging area of inquiry that makes important use of systems concepts is the study of policy communication. A) True B) False

Q: Closed systems are more likely to respond quickly to a change in the system. A) True B) False

Q: Coopetition works only for nonprofit organizations. A) True B) False

Q: The concept of distributed intelligence recognizes that all members of a systembe they people or cellsare important. A) True B) False

Q: According to the systems approach, which of the following concepts connects communication and action? A) Dialogue B) Feedback C) Empathic concern D) Interdependence

Q: When organizations need both cooperative and competitive models at work in a single system, which of the following strategic approaches to organizing should they consider? A) Coopetition B) Retrospection C) Open systems D) General systems

Q: Learning organizations that use "double-loop learning" rely on which of the following concepts? A) Socialization B) Feedback C) Sense making D) "Counter-networking"

Q: When one struggles with uncertainty due to multiple interpretations of a single experience, the systems approach would suggest that this person struggles with A) retrospection. B) enactment. C) equivocality. D) equifinality.

Q: Which of the following approaches claims that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? A) Classical management B) Interpretivism C) The human relations approach D) The systems approach

Q: Peter Senge draws a distinction between A) discussion and communication. B) selecting and organizing. C) the goals of individuals and the goals individuals have for their organization. D) discussion and dialogue.

Q: Part of Weick's theory of retrospective sense making suggests that sufficient information and plausibility take precedence over A) socialization. B) retrospection. C) accuracy. D) enactment.

Q: Which of the following concepts is found in both Weick's basic model of organizing and his theory of retrospective sense making? A) Retention B) Continuation C) Enactment D) Socialization

Q: According to Karl Weick, the primary purpose of organizations is to A) provide a space for storytelling and socializing. B) profit. C) perpetuate the system. D) move from closed systems to open systems.

Q: Which of the following concepts from the systems approach shows us that average employees could be strong leaders in their community outside of work? A) Distributed intelligence B) Partial inclusion C) Boundary spanners D) Socialization

Q: The idea that we all display some, but not all, of our behaviors at work is called A) enactment. B) extracted cues. C) partial inclusion. D) selective construction.

Q: Karl Weick said, "How can I know what I think until I see what I say?" This statement best represents which of the following concepts? A) Retrospective sense making B) Selection C) Equifinality D) Partial inclusion

Q: Which of the following is NOT one of the properties of sense making as identified by Karl Weick? A) Enactment B) Socialization C) Selection D) Extracted cues

Q: As part of his early theorizing on sense making, Karl Weick referred to the process of making sense of uncertainty through interaction as A) enactment. B) equivocality reduction. C) retention. D) partial inclusion.

Q: According to Peter Senge, which of the following concepts requires us to shift our way of thinking about organizations to a more participative and holistic approach? A) Open systems B) Closed systems C) Interdependent systems D) Learning organizations

Q: According to the text, which of the following is the main reason that researchers are not doing a better job of studying organizational communication from a systems approach? A) Insufficient statistics training B) The changing nature of systems C) The concept of equifinality D) Insufficient research support

Q: "There is no best way to organize" and "all ways of organizing are not equally effective" are two tenets of A) Giddens's theory of structuration. B) contingency theory. C) von Bertalanffy's general systems theory. D) Einstein's theory of relativity.

Q: Steve Corman's concept of "counter-networking" has been particularly useful in learning about which of the following groups? A) Government agencies B) Emergency services C) Protest organizations D) Terrorist networks

Q: When individuals use common resources to benefit personal needs rather than the needs of the whole, this process is called A) closed systems. B) counterdependence. C) "the tragedy of the commons." D) "counter-networking."

Q: An employee who regularly interacts with others outside of the organization is referred to as a(n) A) systems manager. B) environmental scanner. C) external facilitator. D) boundary spanner.

Q: Policies are important texts that give individuals the means to understand their relationship to the organization. According to the text, this policy knowledge includes all of the following EXCEPT A) health insurance. B) vacation time. C) workload. D) political and religious affiliation.

Q: Which of the following theories changed the way that we look at the universe, thereby giving rise to the systems approach? A) Giddens's theory of structuration B) Weick's sense-making model C) von Bertalanffy's general systems theory D) Einstein's theory of relativity

Q: Which of the following is the key factor that turns a group into a system? A) Relationships B) Organization C) Nature D) None of the options are correct.

Q: Systems theory encourages us to explore how organizational effectiveness depends on the coordination of A) the production cycle. B) the areas of the organization that create the most revenue. C) the total enterprise. D) technology and machines.

Q: Which of the following is not a concept in systems theory? A) Feedback B) Top-down management C) Interdependence D) Goals

Q: Theory X and Theory Y management have provided some useful descriptions of different management styles in modern organizations. Explain the differences between these two approaches, and construct an example of a Theory X manager and a Theory Y manager.

Q: The emergence of the classical approach to management gave rise to the need to organize and manage labor. How has the history of managing labor (i.e., people performing work) also been a history of resistance and domination?

Q: The three approaches to management outlined in Chapter 3 all characterize the relationships between superiors (i.e., managers) and subordinates (i.e., employees). Trace out how this relationship is constructed according to each of these three approaches. Provide an example of this relationship for each approach.

Q: Identify the four types, or "systems," that come out of Likert's principle of supportive relationships.

Q: Describe some of the limitations of the human relations approach.

Q: How did Mary Parker Follett's arguments about organizations influence the development of the human relations approach?

Q: How does Maslow's hierarchy of needs apply to organizational communication?

Q: How have certain historical events provided a context and a need for specific management styles?

Q: Identify the principles of bureaucracy, and explain its relevance to organizational communication.

Q: Describe the Hawthorne effect. Construct an example, different from those in the textbook, that illustrates this phenomenon.

Q: Differentiate between the human relations and the human resources approaches. Use examples to illustrate the differences.

Q: Explain the foundations of classical management. What are the benefits and drawbacks of this approach?

Q: Define what the text means by "theory." Give an example of a personal theory that you have developed to guide your actions.

Q: The human resources approach values employee participation and dialogue. A) True B) False

Q: The Industrial Revolution set the stage for the classical approach to management, while World War II set the stage for the human relations approach. A) True B) False

Q: Bureaucracy is a key component of the human resources approach. A) True B) False

Q: Bureaucracy argues for a rigid separation of personal life from work life. A) True B) False

Q: Classical approaches to management suggest that decision making should be centralized. In other words, a few key people who are central to all organizational processes should be responsible for making the majority of decisions. A) True B) False

Q: Henry Fayol's approach to management argues that a single employee should be accountable to multiple bosses and multiple plans of action. A) True B) False

Q: Theories have less to do with thinking and more to do with doing. A) True B) False