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Organizational Theory Exam Help Answers

online quiz helpQ1. Which statement best characterizes an organization?

  • It is a goal-directed entity that has members who set goals and achieve them through strategic planning.
  • It is an entity with identifiable permanent boundaries.
  • It is goal-directed social entity that has a deliberately structured activity system and a permeable boundary
  • It is a business that performs work activities and contributes to its society by employing people.

Q2. According to the textbook, why do organizations exist?

  • to bring in a profit
  • to develop advanced manufacturing and information technologies
  • to challenge diversity, ethics, and the motivation and coordination of employees
  • to facilitate innovation

Q3. What does the term technical core refer to?

  • computer hardware that runs information processing in the organization
  • people who do the basic work of the organization, producing product and service outputs
  • administrators who run the organization
  • top management who have been promoted from within and thereby know the inner core of organizational processes

Q4. Which of the following is a contextual, rather than a structural, dimension of an organization?

  • labour force
  • culture
  • professionalism
  • centralization

Q5. Which statement best characterizes scientific management?

  • It used scientifically tested methods of motivation to improve organizational performance.
  • It is an outgrowth of the Hawthorne studies, which found that people performed best in an environment of clearly specified, narrow job task.
  • It focuses on effectiveness rather than efficiency.
  • It is successful at increasing output, in part through the use of incentive systems.

Q6. At what level is the primary level of analysis in organizational theory done?

  • environmental
  • organizational
  • departmental
  • individual

Q7. What do the choices top managers make about goals, strategies, and organizational design have a tremendous impact on?

  • organizational profitability
  • organizational efficiency
  • organizational effectiveness
  • organizational market share

Q8. Mini-Markets wants to capture 25% of the convenience market business in PEI. What type of goal is illustrated by this example?

  • official
  • operative
  • generic
  • legitimacy

Q9. Which statement best describes the focus strategy?

  • It is known for its creative flair.
  • It utilizes strong central authority.
  • It involves detailed control reports for targeting areas of emphasis.
  • It concentrates on a specific regional market or buyer group.

Q10. Which of the following is a contingency approach to the measurement of organizational effectiveness?

  • whether the organization’s internal activities and processes are efficient
  • the system resource approach, which examines product and service outputs
  • stakeholders’ views on effectiveness
  • which competing values are applicable

Q11. The Stevens Corporation has goals that reflect deeply rooted values of growth and resource acquisition. In the competing-values approach to effectiveness evaluation, primarily which quadrant would the company be considered to be in?

  • rational-goal emphasis
  • internal-process emphasis
  • open-systems emphasis
  • human relations emphasis

Q12. Which of the following best describes the big questions that strategy researchers are looking at today?

  • Which organizational types are best suited for different organizational strategies?
  • What are the effects of different organizational strategies on sociopolitical institutions?
  • How do organizations change and function in our society and around the world?
  • Why do particular industries follow particular strategies?

Q13. Which of the following is being used when problems and decisions are funneled to top levels of the hierarchy for resolution?

  • centralized decision making
  • functional structure
  • horizontal linkage
  • full-time integration

Q14. What horizontal linkage mechanism includes a liaison person who communicates and coordinates activities between other departments?

  • direct contact
  • task forces
  • information systems
  • teams

Q15. Which of the following is a characteristic of an organization with a functional structure?

  • It reacts quickly to environmental changes.
  • It diminishes economies of scale compared to the divisional structure.
  • It often results in hierarchy overload.
  • It cannot work in small organizations.

Q16. What is one of the benefits of a product or divisional structure?

  • It is best suited to fast change in an unstable environment.
  • It centralizes decision making.
  • It facilitates integration and standardization across product lines.
  • It allows units to adapt to differences in products, regions, and clients.

Q17. The matrix structure is the correct structure when three conditions are met. Which of the following is one of these three conditions?

  • Pressure exists to share scarce resources across product lines.
  • Technical quality is not very important.
  • The environmental domain of the organization is simple.
  • The environmental domain of the organization is certain and stable.

Q18. What two things does each of the two types of hybrid structures that are common today combine?

  • product and matrix structures; product and horizontal structures
  • functional and divisional structures; functional and horizontal structures
  • marketing and sales; marketing and logistics
  • horizontal and teams; vertical and authority

Q19. What is the task environment?

  • all elements that exist outside the organizational boundary
  • sectors with which the organization interacts directly
  • the domain
  • all jobs and positions inherent within the organizational activity

Q20. Which of the following includes those sectors that might not have a direct impact on the daily operations of a firm but will indirectly influence it?

  • the general environment
  • the international context
  • the task environment
  • the buffering roles

Q21. What is the function of boundary-spanning roles?

  • They primarily link data to information.
  • They buffer the manufacturing department from outside intrusion that would interfere with efficiency.
  • They bring information about environmental changes into the organization.
  • They move the firm to internationalism.

Q22. Which of the following types of management processes do organizations in rapidly changing environments tend to have?

  • differentiated
  • mechanistic
  • organic
  • dependent

Q23. How can an organization change its domain most directly?

  • by hiring a new CEO
  • by changing the nature of the labour–management agreements
  • by divesting a division of the organization
  • by moving to a more favourable structure

Q24. Which of the following is likely in organizations characterized by very simple and stable environments?

  • almost no managers are assigned to integration roles
  • many departments are added
  • there is formal, centralized authority
  • there is extensive planning, forecasting and high-speed responses

Q25. As new organizational forms continue to emerge some fail and some last. Which of the following is the best label for this process?

  • retention
  • variation
  • legitimacy
  • selection

Q26. Which term is defined as the general perspective that an organization’s actions are desirable, proper, and appropriate within the environment’s system of norms, values, and beliefs?

  • generalist strategy
  • legitimacy
  • niche
  • collaborative network

Q27. What is an organization engaging in if it joins a trade association because it is having difficulty securing the main raw material for its production process?

  • interlocking directorships
  • a power strategy
  • a resource strategy
  • collaborative networks

Q28. Which theory argues that organizations try to minimize their reliance on other organizations for the supply of important materials and try to influence the environment to make sure the materials they need are available?

  • interorganizational theory
  • environmental resource theory
  • resource-dependence theory
  • economic-supply theory

Q29. Which of the following is a basic assumption of the population ecology model?

  • Management competence is the biggest factor in the survival of organizations.
  • The environment determines which organizations survive or fail.
  • Principles of evolution are not applicable to organizations because the fittest don’t survive.
  • A community of organizations is a closed system.

Q30. Which of the following is composed of norms and values from stakeholders?

  • the institutional environment
  • population ecology theory
  • the organizational ecosystem
  • institutional isomorphism

Q31. What does building a global presence enable an organization’s operations to achieve?

  • economies of scale
  • economies of scope
  • factors of production
  • its international development stage

Q32. Which of the following is the term for groups of independent companies that come together to share skills, resources, costs, and access to one another’s markets?

  • joint ventures
  • cartels
  • alliances
  • consortia

Q33. What kind of major challenge do managers face as organizations become more differentiated, with multiple products, divisions, departments, and positions scattered across numerous countries?

  • knowledge transfer
  • differentiation
  • integration
  • development

Q34. Which of the following characteristics distinguishes the transnational organization from other forms of global organizations?

  • Assets and resources are dispersed worldwide into highly specialized operations that are linked through interdependent relationships.
  • Structures are stable.
  • Subsidiary managers initiate strategy and innovations that become strategy for the corporation as a whole.
  • Unification and coordination are achieved primarily through corporate culture, shared vision and values, and management style rather than through formal structures and systems.

Q35. Which type of strategy would encourage production design, assembly, and marketing tailored to the needs of each country?

  • focused
  • multidomestic
  • globalization
  • joint venture

Q36. What type of strategy is being followed when a company such as Coca-Cola decides to use the same product design and advertising strategy throughout the world?

  • multidomestic
  • consortia
  • focused
  • globalization

Q37. Woodward’s classification of technology (into three clusters of organizational technologies) was based on a scale. What did that scale measure?

  • the number of employees in the span of control
  • the interdependence of tasks
  • the technological complexity of the organization’s technical core
  • the variety and analyzability of tasks within each department

Q38. Using Perrow’s framework, in which category would you most likely find the public relations department—i.e., the outreach arm for all media and community relations?

  • craft
  • nonroutine
  • engineering
  • routine

Q39. Judy has 300 employees reporting to her, whereas 25 employees report to Fred. Which of the following statements provides the best comparison of the two?

  • Judy has a more narrow span of control than Fred.
  • Judy’s organization has less formalization than Fred’s.
  • Judy’s employees are less skilled than Fred’s.
  • Judy has a wider span of control than Fred.

Q40. A building contractor is constructing 35 “tract homes” on small, adjoining parcels. The crew knows that the many subcontractors must complete their work in a proper order. What is your recommendation regarding the level of coordination required?

  • Because this is pooled interdependence, rules from the construction industry should suffice, since everyone on the job can learn the rules for the proper ordering of subcontractors.
  • Because this is reciprocal interdependence, cross-functional teams among all the subcontractors will be essential.
  • Because this is sequential interdependence, regularly scheduled meetings and planning will be needed to coordinate the ordering of the work.
  • Because this is a sociotechnical system, it is most important to design the coordination to improve efficiency, ignoring human needs.

Q41. What is the purpose of the sociotechnical systems approach?

  • to apply the theory of job enlargement
  • to provide qualified management to an organization in a turbulent environment
  • to offer the most advanced information technology possible to maximize organizational competitiveness
  • to combine human needs with technical efficiency in job design

Q42. Which of the following has resulted from the impact of technology on job design?

  • job simplification
  • greater division of labour
  • jobs requiring higher-level skills
  • lower compensation because of the financial emphasis on equipment

Q43. Who is typically concerned with well-defined problems about operational issues and past events?

  • top management
  • first-line management
  • employees
  • middle management

Q44. Which of the following is a highly ambitious quality standard that specifies a goal of no more than 3.4 defects per million parts?

  • benchmarking
  • the balanced scorecard
  • knowledge management
  • Six Sigma

Q45. Which of the following is a key performance indicator of a balanced scorecard?

  • benchmarking
  • business process indicators
  • corporate social responsibility measures
  • the organization’s capacity for learning and growth

Q46. What term is used for the form of corporate networking that is a private internal network using the infrastructure of the World Wide Web but cordoned off from the public?

  • webnet
  • intranet
  • interweb
  • CorpNet

Q47. Which of the following is an interactive information system designed to help managers at all levels make decisions through integrated databases in which a series of what-if questions can be posed?

  • decision support systems
  • transaction processing systems
  • management information systems
  • information linkages

Q48. How is access to management information systems and executive information systems typically controlled?

  • by placing them on the Internet
  • by placing them on individual PCs of authorized managers
  • by placing them on an intranet
  • by placing them on an extranet

Q49. What is the major goal of an organization during the entrepreneurial stage of the life cycle?

  • growth
  • goal-setting
  • survival
  • complete organizational structure

Q50. Why did Max Weber develop the concept of a bureaucracy?

  • to make organizations more rational and efficient
  • to make organizations more empathetic
  • to make organizations less formal
  • to make organizations quicker to respond to stakeholders

Q51. Which of the following is the primary reason the CEO of a large company such as Tim Hortons would push decisions as far down the hierarchy as he or she can?

  • to develop managers
  • to make decisions more quickly
  • to appear more Canadian and thereby increase sales
  • to save himself or herself the trouble of making these decisions

Q52. Larry is a great leader who has run his organization for many years, and has the kind of personality that everyone wants to be around. What type of authority does Larry have?

  • rational-legal
  • traditional
  • charismatic
  • informal

Q53. In what kind of organizations is clan control most often used?

  • small, informal organizations or ones with a strong culture
  • small, formal organizations or ones with a weak culture
  • large, informal organizations or ones with a weak culture
  • large, formal organizations or ones with a strong culture

Q54. In what stage does the organization face serious problems, and indicators of poor performance can no longer be ignored?

  • the faulty action stage
  • the dissolution stage
  • the blinded stage
  • the crisis stage

Q55. Which term means that members develop a collective identity and know how to work together effectively?

  • external adaptation
  • socialization
  • internal integration
  • cultural identity

Q56. Why are most organizations trying to move away from bureaucratic cultures?

  • the need for greater flexibility
  • the need for better decision-making techniques
  • the need for easier communication channels
  • the need for reducing employee participation

Q57. What are stories that are used to perpetuate culture in organizations based on?

  • anything that reeks of symbolism
  • nothing in fact, but on the ideals of the organization
  • true events
  • unsubstantiated rumours

Q58. Which term refers to a situation in which the relationship between a manager and followers is based on shared, strongly internalized beliefs that are advocated and acted upon by the manager?

  • mission culture
  • values-based leadership
  • clan culture
  • servant leadership

Q59. Various representatives of which of the following influence managerial ethics and social responsibility?

  • external stakeholders
  • employees
  • competitors
  • whistle-blowers

Q60. Which of the following is an example of formal structure and formal systems that can be used to shape ethical values?

  • patterning from senior management
  • repetition of words such as those ending Wal-Mart’s cheer: “Who’s No. 1? The Customer!”
  • a whistle-blowing disclosure mechanism
  • values-based leadership

Q61. Which of the following is one of the four strategic types of change highlighted in your text?

  • incremental
  • products and services
  • radical
  • life cycle maturation

Q62. Which type of change is strategic?

  • changing domain
  • installation of teams
  • culture
  • development of interorganizational relationships

Q63. Which of the following organizational type is flexible because of the freedom given to people to create and introduce new products?

  • mechanistic
  • bureaucratic
  • organic
  • resource

Q64. What are the key components of organizational design that contribute to successful new product innovation?

  • specialization, boundary spanning, and horizontal coordination
  • formalization, hierarchy, and organic structure
  • specialization, formalization, and standardization
  • dual-core processes, top management support, and incremental change

Q65. Which term refers to the intervention technique used when an organizational development consultant brings together a group to discuss and solve problems involving conflicts, goals, decision making, or communication?

  • survey feedback
  • team building
  • culture management
  • technical training

Q66. As a change agent, Tommy has ensured that there has been constant communication with his employees to make sure they know what is going on and understand how it affects their jobs. Which organizational barrier to change is he trying to remove?

  • uncertainty avoidance
  • fear of loss
  • risk that is too low
  • excessive focus on costs

Q67. Which of the following are “wicked problems” associated with?

  • conflicts over objectives and alternatives
  • the garbage can model
  • intuitive decision making
  • problem consensus

Q68. Which of the following is the best description of bounded rationality?

  • It is a rational decision-making framework for managers.
  • It is an eight-step decision-making process, including both problem identification and problem solution.
  • It is a way to quantify data enabling decision-makers to gain the time to weigh all alternatives correctly.
  • It is how decisions have to be made under severe time and resource constraints.

Q69. When is it best to use the management science model for decision making?

  • when problems are unanalyzable, and problem consensus is high
  • when problems are analyzable and measurable
  • when solution knowledge is low, and problem consensus is low
  • when solution knowledge is low, and problems can’t be structured logically

Q70. What does the garbage can model show?

  • how poor inputs into decision making result in poor decisions
  • how decisions can be made in mechanistic organizations
  • four streams of events that influence decision making
  • decision making in a stable environment

Q71. According to the contingency framework for decision models, when should the Carnegie Model for organizational decision making be used?

  • when there is high uncertainty in both problems and solutions
  • when managers agree on goals and look for optimal solutions
  • when decisions are nonprogrammable and can be made by an individual
  • in every cell of the framework

Q72. Which of the following illustrates the phenomenon of “escalating commitment”?

  • an increase in the commitment to a decision only when it begins to prove itself as correct or profitable
  • continuing to invest time and money in a solution despite evidence of failure
  • the need for top management to accept decisions made by lower levels and commit to their implementation
  • incremental decision-making

Q73. Which of the following is probably the greatest cause of intergroup conflict in organizations?

  • goal incompatibility
  • differentiation
  • task interdependence
  • limited resources

Q74. What is dependency power derived from?

  • being dependent on others for something
  • having something someone else wants
  • becoming paternalistic in your management style
  • immature subordinates

Q75. Which of the following is a tactic to increase power?

  • reducing dependencies
  • satisfying strategic contingencies
  • creating integrating devices
  • increasing department size

Q76. When is confrontation as a method of reducing conflict likely to be more effective?

  • when all other forms of collaboration have failed
  • when no mutually acceptable outcomes can be envisioned
  • when the conflict is viewed as a win-win situation and the groups avoid threats
  • after a process of negotiation

Q77. Which of the following is a mechanism for arriving at consensus when uncertainty is high and there is disagreement over goals or problem priorities?

  • power
  • authority
  • politics
  • decision premise

Q78. Which statement best distinguishes power from authority?

  • Power is vested in people.
  • Power can be exercised upward, downward, and horizontally.
  • Power flows down the vertical hierarchy.
  • Power is more narrow in scope than authority.

Q79. Which statement best describes an open system?

  • Outputs are continuously reused in a sustainable cycle of production and consumption.
  • Inputs are received from the environment, transformed and then returned to the environment.
  • All the energy it needs is contained within itself.
  • Products and services are used to make inputs.

Q80. Which strategy type from Miles and Snow’s typology best matches with a strong capability in research, a decentralized structure, and an emphasis on flexibility?

  • reactor
  • low-cost leadership
  • prospector
  • analyzer