Anne, Ernie, and Ken have been asked by their manager to work together to develop a commercial advertising their company's new product.  The deadline for completion of this work is 90 days away.  At that time, the group will cease to exist.  The group that these three people are a part of could be characterized as______

A command group

an interest group

a task force

a cross-functional team

The tendency to attribute the behavior of others to internal causes and to attribute one's own behavior to external causes.

Causes: when we behave, we tend to focus not on our behavior but rather on the situation we are in (we are totally aware of the external, situational pressures that we face, we see them as key); because we are less aware of external pressures or factors that another person is dealing with, we are likely to see his or her behavior as internally driven.

Coordination - employees can easily communicate and share information.   People who approach problems from the same perspective often make decisions more quickly and effectively.

Motivational - improves an organization's ability to motivate employees.  Supervisors can monitor individual performance, reward high performance, and discourage social loafing. Leads to development of norms, values, and group cohesiveness. Creates a career ladder.

Alderfer's ERG Theory

(existence-relatedness-growth)

Builds on Maslow's thinking but reduces the number of universal needs from five to three and is more flexible in terms of movement between levels.

Proposes that needs can be arranged in a hierarchy.

A higher level need can be a motivator even if a lower-level need is not fully satisfied; and needs at more than one level can be motivators at any time.

When an individual is motivated to satisfy a higher-level need but has difficulty doing so, the person's motivation to satisfy lower-level needs will increase.

Lowest to highest level needs:

Existence needs:  Basic needs for human survival such as for food, water, clothing, shelter, and a secure and safe environment.

Relatedness needs:  Needs to have good interpersonal relations, to share thoughts and feelings, and to have open two-way communication.

Growth needs: Needs for self-development and creative and productive work.

A group of theories that describes how people explain the causes of behavior.

Concerned with why people behave the way they do and what can be done to change their behavior.

Autonomy

(Job Characteristics Model)

The degree to which a job allows an employee the freedom and independence to schedule work and decide how to carry it out.

High:  Zappos employees (can completely handle a customer's complaint)

Low:  IRS employee who opens tax returns and sorts them.

A systematic tendancy to use or interpret information in a way that results in inaccurate perceptions.

The perceiver's perceptions of others influence the perceiver's perception of target.

Ex:  A manager's perception of an average subordinate is likely to be lower if that subordinate is in a group with very high performers rather than in a group with very low performers.

Deviation from a norm.  Occurs when a member of the group violates a norm.

Groups respond to deviance in one of three ways:

• Might try to get the deviant to change (explaining why the norm is so important).
• Might reject or try to expel the deviant.
• Might actually change the norm in question to be more in line with the deviant's behavior.

1. When the range of products or services that a company produces increases, its various functions can begin to experience difficulties (ex: same sales force selling cars, computers, and clothing)
2. Coordination problems may arise.  (ex: needs of individual customers vs needs of corporate customers different)
3. As companies grow, they often expand their operations nationally.  Servicing the needs of different regional customers with a single set of manufacturing, sales, or purchasing functions becomes very difficult.

Which of the following is NOT one of the socialization tactics used by the military?

formal

collective

sequential

disjunctive

__________ is concerned with how employees make choices among alternative behaviors and levels of effort.

• Need theory
• ERG theory
• Expectency theory
• Equity theory

ERG theory asserts that an individual who is frustrated in satisfying a higher-level need will __________.

• stay at the current need level
• increase the level of persistence until he or she satisfies the need
• experience increased motivation to satisfy lower-level needs
• skip to the next high level of need

Assigns the cause of behavior to outside forces.

Task Difficulty

Luck

Behavior performed to acquire material or socal rewards or to avoid punishment.

Behavior is performed not for its own sake but rather for its consequences.

Feedback

(Job Characteristics Model)

The extent to which performing a job provides an employee with clear information about his or her effectiveness.

Receiving has a positive impact on intrinsic motivation

Informal work groups include:

task groups and friendship groups

friendship groups and interest groups

interest groups and command groups

command groups and friendship groups

An organizational structure that groups together people who hold similar positions, perform a similar set of tasks, or use the same kinds of skills.

For example:

CEO of Dell and all the various department under the CEO (i.e., manufacturing, sales, customer service, product development, materials management)

The tendency to overattribute behavior to internal rather than external causes.

Occurs because when we observe a person behaving, we focus on the person, and the situation is simply the backgfround for the behavior.  We tend to think something about the person prompted the behavior.  Also, we are often simply unaware of all the situational factors that may be responsible for the behavior we observe.

The shared belief group members have about the ability of the group to achieve its goals and objectives.

Takes into consideration the groups composition (including ability, knowledge, and skills of its members), members' willingness to work together and share information, the resources the group has to work with, and the extent to which the group is able to develop effective strategies to achieve its goals.

Shared belief that emerges over time.

A goal that all or most members of a group can agree on as a common goal.

Informal rules of conduct for behaviors considered important by most group members.  Often not put in writing.

Key to controlling the group

Some members of beta Corporations product development team think customers want more innovative products.  Other members believe customers want reliability.  All members have the goal of meeting customer needs.  This BEST illustrates that_____

• group goal setting requires a strong leader.
• groups may have identical goals but they do not have to have common goals.
• group goal setting does not work because of the diversity of opinions.
• groups may have one or more common goals, but they do not have to have identical goals.

In ERT theory, ________ involve self-development and meaningful, productive work.

• physiological needs
• existence needs
• growth needs
• relatedness

The perceiver's general impression of a target influences his or her perception of the target on specific dimensions.

Ex: A subordinate who has made a good overall impression on a supervisor is rated high , but work is full of mistakes and late.

Some perceivers tend to be overly harsh in their perceptions, some overly lenient.  Others view most gtargets as about average.

Workers who repeatedly try to successfully perform a chosen behavior, despite roadblocks and obstacles, are BEST described as displaying:

• high levels of positive affectivity
• low leverls of openness to experience
• maximum levels of resistance
• high levels of persistence

Hofstede's Model of National Culture

(short answer)

• Argues that differences in the values and norms of different countries are captured by five dimensions of culture.

1. Individualism versus Collectivism:  Focuses on the values that govern the relationship between individuals and groups.  Individualism fouses on values of individual achievement, freedom, and competition are stressed (U.S.)  Collectivist cultures - group is more important than individual and group members follow norms that stress group rather than personal interests (Japan). 
2. Power Distance:  Refers to the degree to which a country accepts the fact that differences in its citizens' physical and intellectual capabilities give rise to inequalities in their well-being.  Also measures the degree to which countries accept economic and social differences in wealth, status, and well-being as natural.  Countries that allow inequalities to persist or increase are said to have high power distance.  Countries that dislike the developmnt of large inequality gaps between their citizens are said to have low power distance.  (Western countries like the U.S. are low on power distance and high on individualism)
3. Achievement versus Nurturing Orientation:  Countries that are achievement oriented value assertiveness, performance, success, and competition and are results oriented (Japen and U.S.).  Countries that are nurturing oriented value the quality of life, warm personal relationships, and service and care for the weak (Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark).
4. Uncertainty Avoidance:  Countries low on uncertainty avoidance (U.S. and Hong Kong) are easygoing, value diversity, and are tolerant of differences in what people believe and do.  Countries high on uncertainty avoidance (Japan and France) tend to be rigid and intolerant.
5. Long-term versus Short-Term Orientation: A long-term orientation is likely to be the result of values that include thrift and persistence (Japan and Hong Kong .  A short-term orientation is likely to be the result of values that express a concern for maintaining personal stability or happiness and for living in the present (U.S. and France).  

Impression Management

(short answer)

An attempt to control the perceptions or impressions of others.

• Just as a perceiver actively constructs reality through his or her perceptions, a target of perception can also play an active role in managing the perceptions that other have of him or her.
• Tactics that people use to affect how others perceive them.  These tactics are used especially when interacting with perceivers who have power over them and on whom they are dependent for evaluations, raises, and promotions.
• Subordinates use impression-management tactics on their supervisors.
• It's a two-way street engaged in by people at all organizational levels as they interact with supervisors, peers, and subordinates, as well as suppliers, customers, and other people outside the org.
• Outright deceit can be used but not common.
• Difficult for those operating internationally to conform to norms -- different cultures.  "OK" symbol is fine in U.S. but is a insulting gesture in other countries.

Five common tactics:

Behavioral Matching: The target matches his/her behavior to that of the perceiver.

Self-Promotion: Target tries to present herself in as positive a light as possible.

Conforming to Situational Norms: Target follows agreed-upon rules for behavior in the org.

Appreciating or Flattering Others: Target compliments the perceiver

Being Consistent: Target's beliefs and behaviors are consistent

Bridgette notices that she and Daryll work the same amount with the same effort, but she gets paid less.  Trish believes she is working less than Carol but getting paid more.  All of this is creating tension in the workplace.  The manager of this organization can BEST alleviate this tension by:

• lowering real animosity
• raising perceptions of valence
• improving perceptions of equity
• heightening ethical awareness

Individual Power

(short answer)

Power: The ability of one person or group to cause another person or group to do something they otherwise might not have done.

Many people in an organization have some ability to control the behavior of other people and groups but some have more power than others.

Formal Power:  Power that originates from a person's position in an organization.  

Sources of Formal Individual Power

Legitimate power: The power to control and use organizational resources to accomplish organizational goals.

Reward power: The power to give pay raises, promotion, praise, interesting projects, and other rewards to subordinates.

Coercive power: The power to give or withhold punishment.

Information power: The power that stems from access to and control over information.

Informal Individual Power:  Power that stems from personal characteristics such as personality, skills, and capabilities.

Sources of Informal Individual Power:

Expert Power: Informal power that stems from superior ability or expertise.

Referent Power:  Informal power that stems from being liked, admired, and respected.

Charismatic Power:  An intense form of referent power that stems from an individual's personality or physical or other abilities, which induce other to believe in and follow that person (inspire admiration and loyalty in their followers)

A role orientation in which newcomers are taught that it is acceptable and desirable to be creative and to experiment with changing how the group does things.

Group members still need to learn and follow existing roles, rules, and norms, they realize that these ways of controlling behavior are not cast in stone and that the group will consider changing them if a more effective way of behaving is identified.

Members tend to engage more in role making rather than in role taking.

Lack of fairness.

Exists when outcome/input ratios are not proportionally equal.

Creates tension and unpleasant feelings for an employee and motivates the individual to try to restore _____, by bringing the two ratios back into balance.

There are two types -- overpayment and underpayment

The question, "Has your supervisor been candid in his/her communications with you"? MOST relates to _____________ justice

• interpersonal
• distributive
• information
• procedural

A role orientation in which newcomers are taught to respond to situation in the same way that existing group members respond to similar situations.

Encourages obedience and conformity to existing roles, rules, and norms.

Newcomers are more likely to engage in role taking rather than in role making because this orientation emphasizes the importance of following existing ways of doing things.

________ is a worker's perception of the extent to which performing certain behaviors or performing at a certain level will lead to the attainment of a particular outcome.

Valence

Expectancy

Instrumentality

Ratiocination

Assigns the cause of behavior to some characteristic of the target and assigns credit or blema to the individual actor.

Ability

Personality

Motivation

Behavior performed for its own sake.  The source of motivation actually comes from performing the behavior itself.

Work gives individual a sense of accomplishment and achievement.

A wealthy heiress decides to take a job as a social worker.  She is receiving a lot of new coverage because of her decision, and while she doesn't like the media attention, she is happy that the news reporters are seeing her as the selfless person she want to be.  Her work behavior is BEST described as:

• Intrinsically Motivated
• Functional
• Extrinsically Motivated
• Dysfunctional

An approach to job design that aims to identify characteristics that make jobs intrinsically motivating and the consequences of those characteristics.

One of the most popular approaches to job design.

Good performance is self-reinforcing.

When managers consider the five core dimensions of a job, it is important for them to realize that employees' perceptions of the core dimensions (not the actual reality or a manager's perceptions) are the key determinants of intrinsic motivation.

[image]

Measures the five core characteristics.

Skill variety

Task Identity

Task Significance

Autonomy

Feedback

Increasing an employee's responsibility and control over his or her work (vertical job loading)

Provides opportunity for employee growth by giving employees more responsibility and control over their work.

Usually given work that use to belong to their supervisors.

Aimed at increasing intrinsic motivation so that employees enjoy their job more.  Can also lead to efficiency gains.

Managers can enrich jobs by:

• Allow employees to plan their own work schedules
• Allow employees to decide how the work should be performed
• Allow employees to check their own work.
• Allow employees to learn new skills. 

The assignment of employees to perform small, simple tasks and focus exclusively on them.

Subway

1.  Product

2.  Market

3.  Geographic

Knowing how a target stands on a predictor of performance influences perceptions of the target.

Ex:  Professor perceives a student more positively than she deserves because the professor knows the student had a high score on the SAT.

Which element of work motivation answers the question "how hard does a person work to perform a chosen behavior"?

• openness
• level of effort
• level of persistence
• direction of behavior

Maslow's Hierarchy

(short answer)

Proposed that human beings have five universal needs they seek to satisfy:

Lowest level needs (most basic) to the highest level needs:

• Physiological needs: food, water, and shelter needs that must be met for survival.
• Safety needs: security, stability, and a safe environment.
• Belongingness needs: social interaction, friendship, affection, and love.
• Esteem needs: to feel good about oneself and one's capabilities, to be respected by others, and to receive recognition and appreciation.
• Self-actualization needs:  to realize one's full potential as a human being.

These needs can be arranged in a hierarchy of importance, with the most basic or compelling needs (physiological and safety) at the base.  These basic needs must be satisified before an individual seeks to satisfy needs higher up in the hierarchy.  Maslow argued that once a need is satisfied, it is no longer a source of motivation.

According to Maslow, unsatisfied needs are the prime motivators of behavior, and needs at the lowest levels of the hierarchy take precedence over needs at higher levels.  Any any particular time, however, only one set of needs motivates behavior, and it is not possible to skip levels.

Matrix Structure

(short answer)

An organizational structure that simultaneously groups people by function and by product team.

• Information Technology and the needs of customers are evolving rapidly.
• Most flexible kind of structure available.
• Employees grouped by function to allow them to learn from one another and become more skilled and productive.  
• Employees are grouped by product teams in which members of different functions  work together to develop a specific product.
• Result is a complex network of reporting relationships among product teams and functions that makes the structure very flexible.
• Each person on a product team reports to two bosses (their functional boss and their product team boss).
• The functional boss assigns employees to the team and evaluates their performance from a functional perspective.
• The product team boss evaluates the employees' performance on the team.
• Team members known as two-boss employees.

(Note to Linda:  i.e., LSP)

Gerald Simmons, a manager for Computers-R-Us, has been studying the equity theory of motivation.  In an effort to be equitable, he plans to gve the same percentage pay raise to each of his employees who work 40 hours a week.  His plan_______

• may be a problem for those who feel underpaid
• demonstrates an understanding of the unique inputs of each employee
• will eliminate previous inequities at the store.
• considers that effort and behavior are likely to vary across workers.

An organizational structure designed to induce employees to behave in predictable, accountable ways.

Decision making authority is retained at the top of the organization; Each employee performs a clearly defined task; Each knows exactly what his or her area of responsibility is.

Extensive system of rules and regulations that link employee activities and make the ordered and predictable.

A measure of the overall potential of a job to foster intrinsic motivation.

Job diagnostic survey

Equal to the average of the first three core characteristics (skill variety, task identity, and task significance) multiplied by autonomy and feedback.

Can be used to identify the core dimensions most in meed of redesign in order to increase a job's motivating potential score and, thus, and employee's intrinsic motivation.

Inputs -->  Performance -->  Outcomes

Inputs: Effort, time, education, experience, skills, knowledge, job behaviors

Performance:  Quantity of work, quality of work, level of customer service

Outcomes:  Pay, job security, benefits, vacation, job satisfaction, feeling of accomplishments, pleasure of doing interesting work.

According to Tuckman's five-stage model, in the ______ members really start to feel like they belong to the group.

Storming Stage

Norming Stage

Forming Stage

Adjourning Stage

An organizational structure designed to promote flexibility so that employees can initiate change and adapt quickly to changing conditions.

Employees work in empowered teams and assume the responsibility to make decisions as organizational needs dictate. Employees are also expected to continually develop skills in new kinds of tasks and to work together to find the best ways to perform a task.  Shared work norms and values become the main means through which employees coordinate their activities to achieve organizational goals.

The set of shared values, beliefs, and norms that influences the way employees think, feel, and behave toward each other and toward people outside the organization.

Consists of an end states that the org seeks to achieve (its terminal values) and the modes of behavior the org encourages (its instrumental values)

The process by which managers select and manage various dimensions and components of organizational structure and culture so that an organization can achieve its goals.

The best design is one that fits the organizations specific situation.

Standards or styles of behavior considered acceptable or typcial for a group of people who perform a certain task or job.

Informal rules of conduct that emerge over time to encourage employees to cultivate the work attitudes and behaviors important to an organization.

Exists when a person perceives that his or her outcome/input ratio is greater than the ratio of a referent.

Ex:  A financial analyst contributes the same level of inputs to her job as her referent but receives more outcomes than the referent receives.

The process by which individuals select, organize, and interpret the input from their senses to give meaning and order to the world around them.

Which two analytical tools, when understood properly, can help managers to interact with others and be more effective at their jobs?

• targeting and persuasion
• attribution and impersonation
• analysis and judgment
• perception and attribution

The initial piece of information a perceiver has about a target have an inordinately large effect on the perceiver's perception and evaluation of the target.

Ex: Interviewers decide in the first few minutes of an interview whether or not a job candidate is a good prospect.

Employees at an insurance company were complaining about the form used for evaluating employee effectiveness.  Their complains were related to _______ justice

• distributive
• interpersonal
• procedural
• informational

A set of behaviors or tasks a person is expected to perform by virture of holding a position in a group or organization.

Facilitate the control of group members' behaviors for several reasons.  First, roles tell members what they should be doing.  Second, roles not only enable a group to hold its members accountable for their behavior but also provide the group with a standard by which to evaluate the behavior.  Finally, roles help managers determine how to reward members who perform the behaviors that make up their various roles.

The characteristic way in which members of a group respond to various situations.

Ex: do members react passively and obediently to commands and orders?  Are they creative and innovative when it comes to finding solutions to problems?

The ways in which group and organizational members interact with one another to perform their specific roles.

May be formal (written) or informal

What diversity training tactic has particpants act out appropriate and inappropriate ways to deal with diverse employees?

• Awareness activities
• self-awareness activities
• the michael scott game
• role-playing

The union movement in the coal mines of the eastern U.S. grew partially out of workers' concerns over the dangers of working in the mines and the high number of accidents that occurred.  Maslow would have characterized the workers who formed the unions based on these concerns as being motivated by __________

• self-actualization
• esteem needs
• belonging needs
• safety needs

The extent to which a target of perception stands out in a group of eople or things.

A salient individual is very conspicuous and often feels self-conscious.  He believes everyone is watching his every move.

In and of itself, should not affect how a target is perceived; however, perception is subjective process, and because of that subjectivity, salience does affect how a target is perceived.

An abstract knowledge structure stored in memory that makes possible the organization and interpretation of information about a target of perception.

Our past experiences are organized in this way.

They determine the way a target is perceived.

They invludence the sensory input we pay attention to and the input we ignore.  Once a _____ is activated, we tend to notice information consistent with the schema and ignore or discount inconsistent information.

They are reinforced and strengthened and are slow to change.

They help make sense of the confusing array of sensory input, help us choose what information to pay attention to and what to ignore, and guide our perception of often ambiguous information.

Ex: past history with bossy military person - means all military people are bossy

Scientific Management

(short answer)

A set of principles and practices designed to increase the performance of individual employees by stressing job simplification and specialization.  Frederick W. Taylor

There is one best way to perform any job, and management's responsibility is to determine what that way is.  

Job simplification:  Breaking up the work that needs to be done into the smallest identifiable tasks.

Job specialization:  when employees are assigned to perform small, simple tasks and focus exclusively on them.

• Fast-food restaurants are good example (i.e., Subway).  Can make a large number of custome sandwiches in a short period of time.

• Advocates of this theory conduct time and motion studies to determine the one best way to perform each narrow task.  T and M studies reveal exactly how long it takes to perform a task and the best way to perform it (i.e., what body movements are most efficient for performing the task)

• Pay is the principal outcome used to motivate employees to contribute their inputs.  Pay is closely linked to performance. 

• Been instrumental in helping organizations improve employee effectiveness and productivity. 

• Early assembly lines. 

• Focuses exclusively on extrinsic motivation and ignore the important role of intrinsic motivation.   

• Employees feel loss of control; tend to feel as if they are part of a machine, no opportunity to develop and acquire new skills.

A formal work group consisting of people who are jointly responsible for ensuring that the team accomplishes its goals and who lead themselves.

Becoming increasingly popular because they have a dramatic impact on organizations and their members.

A team with no manager or team member assigned to lead the team is called a:

Standing Committee

Cross-Functional Team

Informal Work Group

Self-Managed Work Team

The tendency to take credit for successes and avoid blame for failures.

Accepting the credit for success is more common than avoiding blame for failure.

Which impression management tactic involves the target trying to present themselves in the best possible light?

• good behavioral matching
• flattering others
• conforming to situational norms
• self-promotion

People perceive others similar to themselves more positively than they perceive those who are dissimilar.

Ex:  Supervisors rate subordinates similar to them more positively than they deserve.

Skill Variety

(Job Characteristics Model)

The extent to which a job requires an employee to use different skills, abilities, or talents.

High variety:  Zappos (computer skills, mathematics, statistical control, etc.)

Low variety:  Subway (slice rolls, put meat and trimmings on them, etc.)

[image]

Collective:  newcomers go through a common learning experience designed to produce standardized or highly similar responses to different situations.  (ex: sales people get same training)

Individual:  newcomers are taught individually how to behave.  Each newcomers' learning experiences are somewhat different, and newcomers are encouraged to behave differently in the various situations they may encounter on the job.  (ex: sales people for different cosmetic lines.

Formal:  newcomers are segregated from existing group members during the learning process.  For example, new sales associates receive their two-week training in the department store's training room. During this period, they never interact with members of the groups they are to join once their training is complete.

Informal:  newcomers learn on the job.  For example, many restaurants socialize new waiters and waitresses by having them work alongside experienced waiters and waitresses.  

Sequential:  Newcomers are provided with explicit information about the sequence in which they will perform new behaviors.  Example, a new assistant in a veterinarians' office is told that during her first two weeks, she will assist the vets with routine checkups.  After that, she will also weight the animals and administer injections.  After one month on the job, she will also assist the vets in surgery.

Random:  the order in which socialization proceeds is based on the interests and needs of the individual newcomer, and no set sequence is followed.  For example, an apprentice woodworker who has just joined a group of custom furniture makers might be told that the order in which he learns to make the different types of furniture is up to him.

Fixed:  give newcomers precise knowledge about the timetable for completing each stage in the learning process.  The socialization of the assistant at the vet's office relies on fixed tactics.

Variable: provide no information about when newcomers will reach a certain stage in the learning process; the speed of socialization depends on the individual newcomer.  The woodworker was socialized with variable tactics.

Serial: existing group members socialize newcomers (waiters and waitresses).

Disjunctive: newcomers must figure out and develop their own ways of behaving.  They are not told what to do by experienced group members (ex: new professors).

Divestiture: newcomers receive negative interpersonal treatment from other members of the group.  They are ignored or taunted. Existing group members refrain from treating the newcomer kindly and with respect until they learn existing roles, rules, and norms (ex: military boot camp)

Investiture: newcomers immediately receive positive social support from other group members.  Ex: a group of nurses might go out of its way to teach a new member how things are done in the group and make the member feel welcome.

A formal work group consisting of people who come together to accomplish a specific goal.

Once the goal has been accomplished, it is usually disbanded.

Sometimes never disbanded but membership changes.

Task Identity

(Job Characteristics Model)

The extent to which a job involves performing a whole piece of work from its beginning to its end.

The higher the level, the more intrinsically motivated.

Task Significance

(Job Characteristics Model)

The extent to which a job has an impact on the lives or work of other people in or out of the organization.

Employees are more likely to enjoy performing their jobs when they think their jobs are important in the wider scheme of things.

High significance:  doctors

Low significance:  employee who dries cars

A formal work group consisting of people who work intensely together to achieve a common group goal.

They draw on the abilities and experiences of their members to accomplish things that could not be achieved by individials working separately.

A desired end state or outcome that people seek to achieve.

Quality, responsibility, innovativeness, excellence, economy, morality, and profitability.

A small organization has only five employees.  The employees are very close to one another and the office is like home, very safe and comfortable.  However, it is a struggling business, so the employees are not making enough to get by.  According to Alderfer, which of the following statement is FALSE.

• The employees need to make more money before they are motivated by anything else.
• The employees may put even more effort into their relationships with one another.
• If the boss proposes an exciting project, the workers may be excited to work on it.
• The employees may be interested in improving their own skills.

1. The nature of the organization's environment.
2. Advances in technology (increasingly, information technology).
3. The characteristics of an organization's human resources.

Reveal exactly how long it takes to perform a task and the best way to perform it.

Employees are then instructed in precisely how to perform their tasks.

Tuckman's Model

(short answer)

Five-stage model on group development.

Forming:  Group members try to get to know each other and establish a common understanding.  Once individuals truly feel they are members of the group, the forming stage is complete.

Storming:  Group is in considerable conflict, members resist being controlle by the group, and disagreements arise concerning leadership in the group.  Members usually complete this stage because they see it in their best interests to work together to achieve their goals.

Norming:  Group members develop close ties, feelings of friendship and camaraderie abound, and group members share a common purpose.

Performing:  Group members work toward achieving their goals.  This is where the real work is done, so it shouldn't take long to reach it.  However, sometimes it can take 2 to 3 years

Adjourning:  The group disbands once its goals have been achieved.

Intuitively appealing but research proves that not all groups go through all five stages.  Nor do they go through them one at a time or in the order specified.

Some groups are characterized by considerable levels of conflict throughout their existence, in fact, and always experience elements of the storming stage.

As research into group development continues, it is probably safest to conclude that although all groups change over time, there doesn't seem to be a single set of stages all groups go through in a predetermined sequence.

Exists when a person perceives that his or her outcome/input ratio is less than the ratio of a referent.

Ex:  A financial analyst contributes more inputs to her job than her referent but receives the same outcomes as her referent.

What is an example of salience?

• being a man in a group of 9 men and 1 woman
• wearing an orange suit to a job at a bank
• always being the one to tell stories at a party
• fitting in with the crowd

An individual in an organization is especially likely to use impression-management tactics when dealing with.....

• a co-worker
• the opposite sex
• a customer
• a supervisor

Which socialization activity would be LEAST effective in introducing company employees to the company culture.

• orientation program
• boot-camp
• shadowing experience
• company party

Which bias can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy?

• primacy effect
• halo effect
• similar-to-me effect
• knowledge-of-predictor 

Which two characteristics of the perceiver are most influential depending on the time of perception?

• mood and schemas
• motivational state and mood
• feelings and knowledge
• desires and mood

What causes a person to actively process information and affects their perception?

• attitudes, feelins, and reality
• schemas, feelings, and motivational states
• vision, hearing, and pitch
• interactions, schemas, and desires

The "contrast effect" happens when....

• the perceiver knows how the target performs and this influences the perception of the target
• the perceiver's perception of others influence the perception of the target
• the initial information about a tgarget is weighed more heavily by the perceiver than later information
• the general impression of a target influences the perceiver's perception of the target's specific dimensions