Ch8 – Performance Management | Test Bank – 10e

1.

Visible support of the performance management process by the CEO and senior management ensures that the system is consistently used across the company. 
 
True    False

2.

The initial steps of the performance management cycle involve an employee and a manager identifying what the employee can do to capitalize on performance strengths. 
 
True    False

3.

A performance management system should link employee activities with an organization's goals. 
 
True    False

4.

Validity is the consistency of a performance measure. 
 
True    False

5.

The extent to which a performance measure is deemed to be satisfactory or adequate by those who use it is known as its reliability. 
 
True    False

6.

Acceptability is affected by the extent to which employees believe the performance management system is fair. 
 
True    False

7.

Alternation ranking requires managers to rank employees within their departments from highest performer to poorest performer. 
 
True    False

8.

The comparative approach to performance management increases the problems of leniency, central tendency, and strictness. 
 
True    False

9.

Quality-based performance methods are quite easy to develop and are generalizable across a variety of jobs, strategies, and organizations. 
 
True    False

10.

Attribute-based performance methods are the least popular performance evaluation approaches in organizations. 
 
True    False

11.

A behaviorally anchored rating scale is designed to specifically define performance dimensions by developing behavioral anchors associated with different levels of performance. 
 
True    False

12.

An advantage of behaviorally anchored rating scales is an increased interrater reliability. 
 
True    False

13.

Competencies are sets of skills, knowledge, abilities, and personal characteristics that enable employees to successfully perform their jobs. 
 
True    False

14.

Result-based approaches to performance measurement assume that subjectivity can be eliminated from the measurement process. 
 
True    False

15.

Productivity measurement and evaluation system (ProMES) is designed to specifically define performance dimensions by developing behavioral anchors associated with different levels of performance. 
 
True    False

16.

One of the advantages of the results approach to performance measurement is that it disassociates an individual's results from the organization's strategies and goals. 
 
True    False

17.

The assumption of Pareto analysis is that the majority of problems are the result of a small number of causes. 
 
True    False

18.

The quality approach relies primarily on a combination of the attribute and results approaches to performance measurement. 
 
True    False

19.

Managers are the most frequently used source of performance information. 
 
True    False

20.

The best use of self-ratings is for administrative purposes. 
 
True    False

21.

The major advantage of the 360-degree appraisal technique is that it provides a means for minimizing bias in an otherwise subjective evaluation technique. 
 
True    False

22.

Older employees tend to have more confidence in the fairness of social performance management than younger employees do.  
 
True    False

23.

In appraisal politics, evaluators purposefully distort a rating to achieve personal or company goals. 
 
True    False

24.

Once the expected performance has been defined and employees' performances have been measured, it is necessary to feed that performance information back to the employees so that they can correct any deficiencies. 
 
True    False

25.

Output is a factor to be considered in analyzing poor performance. 
 
True    False

26.

_____ is the means through which managers ensure that employees' activities and outputs are congruent with the organization's goals. 
 

27.

The process through which an organization gets information on how closely an employee's actual performance meets his or her performance plan is known as _____. 
 

28.

The performance effectiveness of employees is provided to them during the _____ process. 
 

29.

The process of performance management begins with 
 

30.

Rick is the vice president of the human resources team. He designs a new performance management process. He completes the first step and moves on to the next step of developing employee goals and actions to achieve the outcomes. Which of the following is he likely to do next to create an effective performance management process? 
 

31.

Which of the following is an example of using performance management to fulfill an administrative purpose? 
 

32.

As the CEO of Blue Corp., Terrell makes it a point to meet new hires at all levels of his organization. He explains the goals of the company and emphasizes the importance of an individual employee's role in the larger picture. This initiative focuses on the _____ of performance management. 
 

33.

_____ is the extent to which the performance management system elicits job performance that is consistent with an organization's strategy, goals, and culture. 
 

34.

Globo Analytics Inc., a data analysis company, has modified its performance management system. Apart from training employees on their specific tasks, the trainers and managers help the employees become more aware of the overall goals of the company and how their individual performances influence the broader goals of the company. As a result of this, employees' performances have become more consistent with the organization's strategies, goals, and culture. This initiative of Globo focuses on the _____ criterion of performance management. 
 

35.

Prometheus Corp. is a large-scale manufacturer of consumer electronic gadgets. As part of its performance management system, Prometheus measures the amount each employee contributes to the profits of the company, and the employees are either held accountable or rewarded based on their contributions. With regard to performance measurement, under which of the following would contribution to profits be categorized? 
 

36.

Which performance management evaluation criterion reflects the extent to which a performance measure assesses all the relevant—and only the relevant—aspects of performance? 
 

37.

Whittaker Publishing Corp. is a publishing company that wants to hire more technical experts to handle the software requirements in the publishing process. However, the test given to the programmers assesses not only their technical knowledge but also their communication skills, language abilities, and understanding of client services. The test conducted by Whittaker Publishing Corp. is _____. 
 

38.

A performance measure is said to be contaminated when 
 

39.

A software company assesses its developers more on their client support skills than their development skills. Which of the following would best describe the software company's performance management process? 
 

40.

Elle Inc. is a firm that holds frequent reviews and feedback sessions for its employees. It demands that the same person review the employees of a team to ensure that the performance evaluation is consistent; tests-retests are conducted periodically to make sure the evaluation is consistent. These two steps taken by Elle Inc. focus on the _____ of performance management. 
 

41.

Consistency in ratings given by two individuals who evaluate an employee's performance is known as _____ reliability. 
 

42.

A measure that results in drastically different ratings over time lacks _____ reliability. 
 

43.

Which of the following statements best defines the acceptability of a performance measure? 
 

44.

The extent to which a performance measure gives guidance to employees about what is expected of them is called _____. 
 

45.

Which of the following approaches to measuring performance uses some overall assessment of an individual's performance or worth and seeks to develop a ranking of the individuals within a work group? 
 

46.

Which of the following is a comparative approach to ranking that consists of a manager looking at a list of employees, deciding who the best employee is, and crossing that person's name off the list? 
 

47.

The ranking technique that requires certain percentages of employees to be categorized into predetermined categories or groups based on their performance is known as _____. 
 

48.

The _____ method requires managers to compare every employee with every other employee in a work group, giving an employee a score of 1 every time he or she is considered the higher performer. 
 

49.

Jian is a manager at Zobos Corp. He needs to perform an evaluation of his subordinates. He does this by pairing each of his subordinates with every other subordinate in the same group, then selects the higher performer between the two. At the end of the process, he calculates the number of times a subordinate has been the higher performer in a match-up. Which type of performance management system does Jian employ to perform the evaluation? 
 

50.

Roundel Inc. is a company that sells automobile tires. The company is projecting an increase in sales in the next 12 months and is looking to fill the senior positions through internal recruiting to meet this demand. The company is evaluating the individual performances and seeking to develop some ranking of the individuals within a work group to identify the best performer. Which of the following approaches is the company using? 
 

51.

The _____ approach to performance management focuses on the extent to which individuals have certain characteristics or traits believed desirable for the company's success. 
 

52.

Which of the following attribute approaches to performance management is most commonly used? 
 

53.

Teknikal Inc. decides to implement a new performance management system. It consists of a list of five traits used to evaluate all the employees. The manager considers one employee at a time and, on a continuum with different points, circles the number that signifies how much of a particular trait the individual has. Which type of performance management system is Teknikal Inc. using? 
 

54.

In the graphic rating scale, the rater 
 

55.

In which performance technique are managers given three statements of performance per dimension and asked to indicate whether an employee's performance is above (+), at (0), or below (-) the statements? 
 

56.

Which of the following is true regarding the attribute approach to performance management? 
 

57.

Which of the following approaches would be worst suited to providing managers with the specific guidance required to correct an employee's performance deficiencies? 
 

58.

Which performance management technique initially involves the identification of a large number of critical incidents, followed by the classification of these incidents into performance dimensions and finally ranking these incidents into levels of performance? 
 

59.

The performance management method that requires managers to rate the frequency with which an employee has exhibited a behavior during a rating period is the _____. 
 

60.

Which of the following is true regarding behavioral approaches to performance measurement? 
 

61.

The _____ approach assumes that subjectivity can be eliminated from the measurement process and that outcomes are the closest indicators of one's contribution to organizational effectiveness. 
 

62.

Which of the following is a means of measuring and feeding back productivity information to personnel with the main goal of motivating employees to higher levels of productivity? 
 

63.

Which of the following is the first step in the Productivity Measurement and Evaluation System (ProMES)? 
 

64.

Which of the following is true about the results approach to performance management? 
 

65.

A performance management system designed with a strong quality orientation can be expected to 
 

66.

_____ consists of practices participated in by employees from all levels of the company that focus on continuous improvement of business processes. 
 

67.

Which of the following statistical process quality control techniques help identify the redundancies in procedures that increase manufacturing or service time? 
 

68.

A _____ is a quality control technique that lists the causes of a problem in decreasing order of importance. 
 

69.

Which quality control technique is useful for understanding the amount of variance between an outcome and the expected value or average outcome? 
 

70.

Which of the following observations is true about scattergrams? 
 

71.

Which of the following is true about the quality approach to performance measurement? 
 

72.

Both the comparative and the attribute approaches to performance measurement are _____. 
 

73.

Which of the following approaches to performance measurement minimizes contamination and deficiency? 
 

74.

_____ are the most frequently used source of performance information. 
 

75.

Which of the following is true of peers as the source of performance information? 
 

76.

Appraisals that involve collecting subordinates' evaluations of a manager's behavior or skills are known as _____. 
 

77.

Which of the following is a disadvantage of subordinate evaluations? 
 

78.

The _____ technique consists of having multiple raters above, equal to, and below the manager providing input into a manager's evaluation. 
 

79.

At BayPoint Strategies, employees can work on several projects over the course of a year, reporting to different managers and interacting with a variety of team members. Which of the following approaches would be most effective and efficient in assessing employee performance at this consulting firm? 
 

80.

A competent employee receives lower-than-deserved ratings because of a few outstanding colleagues who set very high performance standards. This is an example of a _____ rater error. 
 

81.

_____ is a rater error in which a rater gives high ratings to all employees regardless of their performance. 
 

82.

A _____ rater error is one in which a rater gives middle or average ratings to all employees despite their performance. 
 

83.

_____ rating error occurs when a rater gives an employee high ratings on all aspects of performance because of the rater’s overall positive impression of the employee. 
 

84.

Benito, a psychology student, has had an overall negative impression of his psychology professor. As a consequence, during the end-of-term appraisal, he rates his professor low on all performance criteria. Which of the following rater errors has Benito committed? 
 

85.

A situation in which evaluators purposefully distort a rating to achieve personal or company goals is referred to as _____. 
 

86.

_____ attempts to emphasize the multidimensional nature of performance and thoroughly familiarize the raters with the actual content of various performance dimensions. 
 

87.

_____, attended by managers, provide a way to help ensure that performance is evaluated consistently across managers and to reduce the influence of rating errors and politics on appraisals. 
 

88.

Which of the following is an example of frame-of-reference training? 
 

89.

CobWeb Inc., a software firm, assesses managers based on how well they understand their subordinates, as well as the factors involved in their poor performance. Which of the following examples is the most appropriate evaluation of the input factors involved in analyzing poor performance? 
 

90.

In what legal suit would the plaintiff allege that the performance measurement system varied according to individuals? 
 

91.

Discuss the strategic purposes of performance management. 
 

92.

What does the comparative approach do in terms of measuring performance? Discuss ranking as a technique that falls under the comparative approach. 
 

93.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using behavioral anchors in the behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS). 
 

94.

What are competencies? Explain a competency model. 
 

95.

What are the expected results of a performance management system designed with a strong quality orientation? 
 

96.

Discuss the differences between the attribute and behavioral approaches to performance measurement related to the criteria of (a) strategic congruence, (b) validity, and (c) reliability. 
 

97.

Managers are the most frequently used source of performance information. Explain this statement. 
 

98.

What is upward feedback? 
 

99.

Discuss the various rater errors in performance management. 
 

100.

Discuss the ways a manager can improve the performance feedback process.