Exam Questions Ch1 Introducing Organizational Communication

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION

Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. Charles Redding, widely regarded as the founder of the field of organizational communication, proposes four essential features of complex organizations. Which of the following is one of the four functions?
2. autonomy
3. inclusivity
4. authoritative
5. interdependent

Answer Location: Defining Organizational Communication

1. On a recent flight, two men who had obviously overindulged at the airport bar, began acting increasingly loudly and rudely on the airplane. The airline attendant went to them and told them to stay in their seats, be quiet, and informed them that she would not serve them anything alcoholic. Which form of control best describes this situation?
2. direct
3. disciplinary
4. bureaucratic
5. ideological

Answer Location: Direct Control

1. Sue is taking an online class. When it is time for the mid-term exam, she is told that it is open-note and open-book. However, she has a strict time limit of 90 minutes to complete it. As she finishes each answer, she must click “submit” before she can move on to the next question. She moves quickly through the multiple choice questions at the beginning. The essays, however, take her more time to complete. She finishes her second, and final, essay at 91 minutes. She clicks “submit” but the answer is not accepted since it is beyond the time limit, and she automatically loses 20 points from her grade. This situation illustrates which type of control?
2. direct
3. technological
4. ideological
5. disciplinary

Answer Location: Technological Control

1. At many large companies, employees wear security badges and must swipe the badge each time they enter the building or a specific area. This practice is a type of ______ control.
2. direct
3. ideological
4. technological
5. disciplinary

Answer Location: Technological Control

1. In Company X if a project is expected to take longer than three weeks to complete, a project plan detailing the objectives, plan of action, and timeline must be written and approved. This practice represents most closely a form of ______ control.
2. bureaucratic
3. ideological
4. technological
5. disciplinary

Answer Location: Bureaucratic Control

1. The organizational members do not passively accept efforts to control their behavior and often resist. Which best represents one of these forms?
2. negotiating
3. striking
4. compromising
5. balancing

Answer Location: Bureaucratic Control

1. In order for employees to work in the best interest of an organization, they must be acclimated to the system of beliefs and values. This socialization is a form of ______ control.
2. ideological
3. social
4. democratic
5. bureaucratic

Answer Location: Ideological Control

1. The early part of the industrial revolution was characterized by a level of direct control designed to ______.
2. stabilize the workforce
3. compete with overseas markets
4. guide workers
5. strengthen working relationships

Answer Location: Direct Control

1. For 10 years, Leslie Frank worked for Narf Shoes, a family-owned startup company. As a new hire, Leslie thought the corporate values were in line with her personal philosophy of giving back to the community. Narf was bought out by a large shoe retailer, and for years, the organizational mission was in flux. After surviving two rounds of layoffs, Leslie began to reconsider working for the company. She quit her job, became a Lyft driver, listed her home with Airbnb, and volunteered at the local foodbank twice a week. This scenario is characteristic of employees who ______.
2. want instant fame
3. have a desire to be a lifetime employee
4. no longer find work meaningful
5. no longer want to work for a nonprofit organization

Answer Location: Communication, Organization, and Work

1. AJ and JR are two small entrepreneurs who recently partnered to grow their business. In the past, neither owner kept good records, operated under an employee handbook, or enforced many rules. AJ and JR have agreed that this merger would be defined by a solid corporate philosophy that included providing staff with an employee handbook, which clearly defined each job description, the merit-based reward system, employee rights, responsibilities, disciplinary actions, and the company leave policy. AJ and JR are implementing which form of control to ensure a successful merger?
2. bureaucratic control
3. technological control
4. direct control
5. ideological control

Answer Location: Bureaucratic Control

1. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Etsy are attractive because they offer employees ______.
2. work-life balance
3. tax shelters
4. retirement packages
5. job security

Answer Location: Summarizing the Five Forms of Control

1. Competing organizational goals often make success a challenge. Consider that you are the owner of an eco-friendly hybrid automobile battery plant. What is an example of a situation in which the respective goals of the organization present a complex challenge to an interest group?
2. A business competitor moves within a 50-mile radius of your location.
3. You want to increase production of batteries by requiring extended work hours, and employees threaten to strike.
4. Online sales increase during the summer months, and seasonal workers are hired.
5. Local government passes legislation to defer waste and recycling costs for environmentally friendly businesses.

Answer Location: Goal Orientation

1. The transformation of society and the work habits of citizens was deeply rooted in the use of time, which included the concepts of task time and clock time. What was the main difference between the two?
2. Daily routines were regularly connected to an assessment of time.
3. Time was viewed as a form of currency.
4. The use of time was more significant than output.
5. Time was a concept more critical for the self-employed.

Answer Location: Time, Space, and the Emergence of the Modern Organization

1. The job market is no longer designed for lifelong employees. Today’s companies now seek to hire ______.
2. at-will employees
3. contract employees
4. younger employees
5. college-educated employees

Answer Location: Technological Control

1. Treating communication within an organization structure as an information transmission process implies that ______.
2. organizations are fixed structures in which mutual meaning of communication exists
3. communication is an organizational variable thus good communication is easy to accomplish
4. the meaning creation process rest with the dominant individual
5. the accuracy of communication is relational and situational

Answer Location: Communication in Organizations

1. Which one of the following statements best reflects goal orientation in an organizational setting?
2. Goals help to move employees toward a sense of self-mastery, which reduces turn-over and burnout.
3. High performance teams need a set of goals to motivate them, and when those goals are focused on predetermined factors, organizations are more successful.
4. Multiple and competing goals make the concept of a common purpose challenging; however, the ability to create an environment in which people can communicate and are willing to contribute to action make goal achievement possible.
5. Management should be accountable for assessing competing goals and ensuring that employees understand the common purpose, regardless of how complex this task may seem.

Answer Location: Goal Orientation

1. Cameron’s research focuses on how organizations achieve coordinated, goal-oriented behavior. Cameron is most likely studying which defining feature of organizations?
2. goal orientation
3. task and function
4. interdependence
5. control processes

Answer Location: Control Processes

1. Max Weber described pre-capitalist society as one in which people worked to meet basic needs. Identify one belief about work in the 21^st century.
   1. Today’s jobs are similar to the pre-capitalist era.
   2. Today’s jobs are more fluid and secure than in past decades.
   3. Today’s jobs are interconnected in beliefs and psychological motivation.
   4. Today’s jobs lead to independent wealth.

Answer Location: Communication, Organization, and Work

1. As one form of organizational control proved to be inadequate in terms of combatting the demand for employee autonomy in the workplace, other forms of control were created. The form that is most holistic in that it considers the life of the employee is ______.
2. technological control
3. biocratic control
4. bureaucratic control
5. ideological control

Answer Location: Control Processes

1. John’s grandfather worked for Railway Industries for 30 years and retired with decent pension. John graduated from college two years ago but has not had a fulltime job with benefits during this period. John, like many of today’s employees, will have ______.
2. a freelance career
3. more meaningful work experiences
4. will be able to retired early
5. traditional beliefs about the workforce

Answer Location: Communication, Organization, and Work

True/False

1. Tensions between the goals, beliefs, and desires of individual organization members and those of the larger organization are usually resolved by subordinating the goals and beliefs of individuals to those of the organization.

Answer Location: Introduction

1. Control is a linear, cause, and effect phenomenon (like one billiard ball hitting another).

Answer Location: Organizations as Communicative Structures of Control

1. Goal orientation, as an essential feature of an organization, is complex because organizations often have multiple and competing goals.

Answer Location: Goal Orientation

1. The development of less explicit and coercive forms of control means that control is no longer an important issue in daily organizational life.

Answer Location: Summarizing the Five Forms of Control

1. The gig economy is best characterized by working individuals who view themselves as lifetime employees.

Answer Location: Communication, Organization, and Work

1. Technological control was preceded by direct control methods during the early industrial revolution.

Answer Location: Technological Control

1. Humans create the complex system of meaning called organizations.

Answer Location: Organizations as Communication

1. In an organizational setting, the desire for autonomy and the need to coordinate the behaviors of organizational members serve as complimentary functions in the modern workplace.

Answer Location: Organizations as Communicative Structures of Power

1. Direct control is the least coercive while biocratic control exerts the most control.

Answer Location: Summarizing the Five Forms of Control

1. Because the placement of armrests discourages napping, seats in many airports function as a form of technological control.

Answer Location: Technological Control

Fill in the Blank

1. The concept of ______ was counter to what many 19^th-century workers believed was foundational to the freedom and independence associated with the United States.

Answer Location: Time, Space, and the Emergence of the Modern Organization

1. The slightest change in ______ in an organization can impact the web of interconnected communication activities and change the entire system.

Answer Location: Interdependence

1. While the concept of ______ control can be beneficial in terms of connecting with employees through a system of values and beliefs, this form of control can also alienate individuals who do not readily identify with those prescribed of values and beliefs.

Answer Location: Ideological Control

1. In some instances where employees choose not to accept the organizational culture or values that are articulated by management, resist through the creation of ______ may exist.

Answer Location: Organizations as Communicative Structures of Power

1. The ‘self,’ diversity, and mobility in the job market have caused employers to place emphasis on creating a work environment that considers the whole employee and focuses less on limiting autonomy. This ______ control also encompasses all aspects of life and often connects our work identities and social identities.

Answer Location: Biocratic Control

1. ______ is the dynamic communication process through which organizational stakeholders struggle to maximize their stake in an organization.

Answer Location: Introduction

1. We can define ______ as the dynamic, ongoing process of creating and negotiating meanings through interactional symbolic practices, including conversation, metaphors, rituals, stories, dress, and space.

Answer Location: Organizational Communication

1. ______ is the process of creating and negotiating collective, coordinated systems of meaning through symbolic practices oriented toward the achievement of organizational goals.

Answer Location: Organizational Communication

1. Stability, marked by the act of sending information from one individual to another within the organization, is descriptive of the ______ in organization’s model.

Answer Location: Communication in Organizations

1. Joe and Liz work in separate departments at IBX. Joe works at the headquarters in Michigan, and Liz works at the data hub in Wyoming. The two employees must communicate daily in order to ensure that Joe’s unit is able to fulfill and track orders each day. Liz cannot function without affecting Joe and vice versa. This is an example of the ______ that organizational members exhibit.

Answer Location: Interdependence