Hofstede's research indicates that national cultures exist. Do you believe that in a heterogeneous nation, such as the United States, a national culture that is shared by society does exist?
> Is there a possibility that in the near future organizations will have at their disposal tests that can, with precision, identify job candidates with a high propensity to misbehave? Explain.
> How would you describe the conflict between Michael Eisner and the Weinstein brothers, the two board members (Disney and Gold), and Steve jobs? Was it functional or dysfunctional? Think back to the stages of conflict described in this chapter. Which stag
> A scholar commented, “Workplace aggression is wasteful in terms of human and financial resources.” What is meant by this statement?
> This chapter discusses a number of innovative reward systems. Can you suggest other innovative approaches organizations might use? Identify potential problems with the approaches you suggest and try to find ways of overcoming them.
> Why are team-based reward systems becoming more widely used?
> The basic purpose of an evaluation is to provide information about work performance, but the information can also be used for other purposes. Name five other uses for an employee evaluation.
> The degree of employee satisfaction with the organization's reward system will significantly affect how successful the system is in influencing performance. Based on the research literature, what do we know about what influences whether individuals will
> From a managerial perspective, why is it impractical to provide continuous reinforcement in work environments? If it were practical, would it be a good idea? Explain.
> The gap between women’s and men’s pay is still considerable. What steps should employers and managers take in order to close this gap in a fair and consistent manner?
> Evaluations can be either judgmental or developmental in nature. Give examples of when one a manager should use each type.
> As you understand the idea and practice of total quality management, do you believe that it’s the wave of the future in U.S. organizations? Explain.
> Job enrichment is realized through changes to job depth. What changes can managers make to existing jobs that will provide employees with greater opportunities to exercise discretion?
> To what degree do you believe the behaviors of the featured CEOs constituted “misbehavior” and that the reactions of the boards were correct? If you were on a board of directors, what factors would you consider in the selection of a CEO to limit the pote
> Assume that you are a restaurant supervisor in charge of 10 servers. You notice that they appear bored with their jobs and that customer service is starting to decline. How can you redesign their jobs to make their work more interesting and more meaningf
> There is a distinct move away from a ‘job’ emphasis in some industries. Why is this occurring?
> What is the significance of the idea of quality of life work (QWL)? In particular, what would seem to be the trade-offs between meaningful jobs and productive jobs during periods of declining economic activity and unemployment?
> Why do you think Six Sigma helps many organizations improve quality, customer satisfaction, and efficiency? Explain.
> Explain the differences between job enlargement and job enrichment and analyze the relative advantages of these two approaches in organizations you have worked for.
> Goal-setting can be a difficult system to implement effectively. What kinds of problems might be encountered in an effort to implement a goal-setting program in an organization? As a manager, what would you do to minimize the likelihood you would encount
> How important a role does perception play in determining whether an employee is receiving equitable treatment? What kinds of things might a manager do to influence those perceptions?
> As a manager, would you rather the people for whom you are responsible be extrinsically or intrinsically motivated? Explain.
> What implications does Herzberg's two-factor theory have for the design of organizational reward systems? How can the theory be used to explain differences in the three components of motivation?
> Motivation is just of one several factors that influence productivity. What other factors were discussed in the chapter? What is the relationship between these factors and motivation?
> Based on your view of the objectives of performance evaluation, evaluate the perspectives about performance appraisal presented by the managers. In your opinion, at what point does "fine-tuning" evaluations become unacceptable distortion? Assume you are
> Is there a psychological contract between the students enrolled in this course and the instructor? What are some of the specifics of this contract? How was the contract determined?
> Give an example of a time when someone used a stereotype to describe you or something you did. Was the stereotype accurate? If not, explain why it wasn’t accurate.
> What types of schemas do managers use to make better sense of information at work?
> Why are the perceptions of your skills and abilities typically different from the perceptions that other have of your skills and abilities?
> Assume you have a team leader who always expects the worst from team members. To what degree can this Golem effect negatively impact team performance?
> As an interviewer, what steps can you take to decrease the influence of impression management tactics that are commonly used by interviewees?
> What is the difference between organizational structure and design?
> It has been suggested that good leadership is knowing when to take charge and when to delegate. How consistent is this with various situational approaches discussed in this chapter?
> Why would communication skills be considered to be important in every explanation of leadership covered in this chapter?
> What role does personality play in decision making? Can you think of an example from your experience where the personality of a decision maker clearly influenced his or her decision?
> What’s your opinion regarding forced ranking performance appraisals? Do they motivate employees? Explain How would equity theory explain some employees’ negative reactions to forced rankings? Based on Chapter 5, if you decided not to use forced rankings
> Why is it important to establish priorities among different problems? Under what conditions might it be necessary to re-evaluate priorities?
> Why should managers not even attempt to counsel or provide advice to any employee suspected of being depressed?
> Some claim that white-collar crime is not as bad or harmful as non-managerial theft or sabotage of property. Do you agree? Why or why not?
> As a manager, what type of quality improvement results should you strive for to achieve success over both the short and long run?
> Employees are increasingly interested in jobs with flexible work schedules. What factors are driving this interest?
> Do you believe diversity plays a significant role in an organization's culture? Why or why not?
> In today’s fast-paced, global, and technological environment, it is important for an organization of any size to be adaptive. How do firms like Facebook, Google, and Apple adapt?
> How can a leader or founder help create a strong culture in an organization? Can a leader eliminate culture? Explain.
> Why does the field of organizational behavior draw on so many different disciplines?
> What knowledge about human behavior in the workplace was discovered during the Hawthorne studies?
> Is Mark making a good decision to drop the use of personality testing? Why? The better quality personality tests are difficult to fake. Other than attempting to land the job, why would a job candidate fake a personality test? Could personality testing be
> Who should be included in a person’s 360-degree feedback when evaluating his/her performance?
> The psychological contract between workers and employers specifies what each expects to give and receive from the other. What can you offer an employer, and what do you expect in return?
> What abilities will managers need in order to be successful in the 21st century? Which of these abilities do you have now? How do you plan to acquire the others?
> How would you determine whether a large public hospital in your city (community or region) is effective?
> Organizational culture is a difficult concept to grasp. How would you describe the culture of an office or a manufacturing plant?
> Identify the three socialization stages. Which of these stages is most important for developing high-performing employees? Explain.
> How do employees resist change and what can managers to overcome resistance?
> How would you go about designing a training program that would cause managers in a small firm to recognize the need to change the way they manage if their industry has been more competitive in recent years?
> Describe the relationship among the steps of the general change model depicted in this chapter and the process of unfreezing—movement—refreezing.
> What are the key principles of scientific management?
> As a manager, what ethical dilemmas might you face when instructed to downsize your department by one-third in order to increase the organization’s long-run change of survival?
> Explain why programs to bring about significant change often must use more than one form of intervention.
> Why do some managers sometimes misdiagnose a problem or situation?
> Newly formed organizational units, project teams, or task forces often have problems or characteristics that must be overcome if the groups are to perform effectively. What are they?
> Explain why organizational and individual change programs should be evaluated and why such an evaluation is so difficult to do.
> Discuss the 4-D framework used in conducting appreciative inquiry. How is it different from a traditional diagnosis approach used in organizational change?
> Changes in organizational size affect structure. In what ways might growth (increasing size) affect an organization's structure? In what ways might consolidation (decreasing size) affect structure?
> What cues might a manager have that suggest there is a problem with the design of an organization? Is changing an existing organization a different from designing a brand new structure? Explain.
> Can you think of a particular company or type of industry that tends toward a mechanistic design? What advantages and disadvantages could you see if that organization or industry were to adopt a more organic design form?
> What are some of the factors that may have important implications for structure and design decisions in multinational corporations?
> Describe some of the innovative management practices that managers like Tony Hsieh.
> What barriers are reduced or eliminated by adopting a boundary less organization?
> What are some of the potential advantages of a matrix design?
> Why would a virtual organizational design be popular in the movie industry?
> Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between leader behavior and follower performance? What is the nature or direction of the relationship? How strong is the relationship?
> Is leadership more important in a large unit or a small unit? Explain.
> Realistically how much control does a leader have over situational favorableness? How might a leader go about trying to improve favorableness? Does it really make sense for a leader to try to decrease favorableness?
> Organizations annually spend a great deal of money on leadership training. Is this a wise investment? Are there other, less costly ways of improving leadership effectiveness?
> Over time, the many different approaches used to explain leadership have become increasingly involved and complex. Why do you think this has happened?
> What are five things that you, as a manager, can do to lead the way to higher levels of effectiveness?
> How does REI leverage its social and environmental stewardship to attract and retain top employees? Explain how REI uses social media to communicate its organizational culture to employees, co-op members, and potential new hires. Why does giving “Yay Day
> Calculate the mass in grams of hydrogen present in 2.500 g of each of the following compounds. a. benzene, C6H6 b. calcium hydride, CaH2 c. ethyl alcohol, C2H5OH d. serine, C3H7O3N
> Calculate the mass in grams of each of the following samples. a. 10,000,000,000 nitrogen molecules b. 2.49 * 1020 carbon dioxide molecules c. 7.0983 moles of sodium chloride d. 9.012 * 10-6 moles of 1,2-dichloroethane, C2H4Cl2
> Calculate the number of atoms of each element present in each of the following samples. a. 4.21 g of water b. 6.81 g of carbon dioxide c. 0.000221 g of benzene, C6H6 d. 2.26 moles of C12H22O11
> A binary compound of magnesium and nitrogen is analyzed, and 1.2791 g of the compound is found to contain 0.9240 g of magnesium. When a second sample of this compound is treated with water and heated, the nitrogen is driven off as ammonia, leaving a comp
> Give a balanced molecular chemical equation to illustrate each of the following types of reactions. a. a synthesis (combination) reaction b. a precipitation reaction c. a double-displacement reaction d. an acid–base reaction e. an oxidation–reductio
> Consider a hypothetical compound composed of elements X, Y, and Z with the empirical formula X2YZ3. Given that the atomic masses of X, Y, and Z are 41.2, 57.7, and 63.9, respectively, calculate the percentage composition by mass of the compound. If the m
> Complete the following table. Mass of Moles of Molecules Atoms in Sample Sample in Sample Sample 4.24 g C,H6 0.224 mol H;O 2.71 x 102 molecules CO, 1.26 mol HCI 4.21 × 104 molecules H,0 0.297 g CH;OH || ||
> Calculate the mass of carbon in grams, the percent carbon by mass, and the number of individual carbon atoms present in each of the following samples. a. 7.819 g of carbon suboxide, C3O2 b. 1.53 * 1021 molecules of carbon monoxide c. 0.200 mole of phe
> Classify the reactions represented by the following unbalanced equations by as many methods as possible. Balance the equations. a. I4O9(s) I2O6(s) + I2(s) + O2(g) b. Mg(s) + AgNO3(aq) Mg(NO3)2(aq) + Ag
> True or false? When solutions of barium hydroxide and sulfuric acid are mixed, the net ionic equation is: Ba2+(aq) + SO42-(aq) BaSO4(s) because only the species involved in making the precipitate are included. Whether true or false, in
> Consider the balanced chemical equation 4Al(s) + 3O2(g) 2Al2O3(s). What mole ratio would you use to calculate how many moles of oxygen gas would be needed to react completely with a given number of moles of aluminum metal?
> A compound having an approximate molar mass of 165–170 g has the following percentage composition by mass: carbon, 42.87%; hydrogen, 3.598%; oxygen, 28.55%; nitrogen, 25.00%. Determine the empirical and molecular formulas of the compound.
> When a 2.118-g sample of copper is heated in an atmosphere in which the amount of oxygen present is restricted, the sample gains 0.2666 g of oxygen in forming a reddish-brown oxide. However, when 2.118 g of copper is heated in a stream of pure oxygen, th
> Although the metals of Group 2 of the periodic table are not nearly as reactive as those of Group 1, many of the Group 2 metals will combine with common nonmetals, especially at elevated temperatures. Write balanced chemical equations for the reactions o
> Fill in the following table as if it is a well plate and you are mixing two aqueous compounds at a time to see if a precipitate forms. If a precipitate is expected to form, indicate that by writing the correct formula for the precipitate in the correspon
> Write a balanced oxidation–reduction equation for the reaction of each of the metals in the left-hand column with each of the nonmetals in the right-hand column. Ba……………O2 K………………S Mg…………..Cl2 Rb……….....N2 Ca…………..Br2
> Complete the following table. Mass of Moles of Sample Sample Atoms in Sample 5.00 g Al 0.00250 mol Fe 2.6 x 104 atoms Cu 0.00250 g Mg 2.7 × 10-3 mol Na 1.00 X 10* atoms U
> Use the periodic table shown in Fig. 4.9 to determine the atomic mass (per mole) or molar mass of each of the substances in column 1, and find that mass in column 2. Column 1………â€&b
> A compound containing only sulfur and nitrogen is 69.6% S by mass. The molar mass is 184 g/mol. What is the correct name for this compound?
> Identify each of the following unbalanced reaction equations as belonging to one or more of the following categories: precipitation, acid–base, or oxidation–reduction. a. Fe(s) + H2SO4(aq) Fe3(SO4)2(aq) + H2(g) b. HClO4(aq) + RbOH(
> Balance the equation for each of the following oxidation– reduction chemical reactions. a. Na(s) + O2(g) Na2O2(s) b. Fe(s) + H2SO4(aq) FeSO4(aq) + H2(g) c. Al2O3(s) Al(s) + O2(g) d. Fe(s) + Br2(l
> If you spilled a cup of freshly brewed hot tea on yourself, you would be burned. If you spilled the same quantity of iced tea on yourself, you would not be burned. Explain.
> Using the average atomic masses given inside the front cover of the text, calculate how many moles of each substance the following masses represent. a. 4.21 g of copper(II) sulfate b. 7.94 g of barium nitrate c. 1.24 mg of water d. 9.79 g of tungsten
