Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 1-Organizations and Organizational Theory
Chapter 1-Organizations and Organizational Theory
MULTIPLE CHOICE
It is a goal-directed entity that has members who set goals and achieve them through strategic
a.
planning.
b. It is an entity with identifiable permanent boundaries.
It is goal-directed social entity that has a deliberately structured activity system and a permeable
c.
boundary
d. It is a business that performs work activities and contributes to its society by employing people
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 11 BLM: Evaluate
2. What is the key element that makes an organization an organization and not just a group of
individuals?
3. Managers of nonprofit organizations deal with many diverse stakeholders. Who must they
market their services to in addition to donors and clients?
a. shareholders
b. volunteers
c. charitable organizations
d. employees
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 12 BLM: Understand
4. According to the textbook, why are organizations important to society?
a. to bring in a profit
b. to develop advanced manufacturing and information technologies
c. to challenge diversity, ethics, and the motivation and coordination of employees
d. to facilitate innovation
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 14 BLM: Remember
a. profitability
b. maintaining organizational stability
c. innovation
d. developing change
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 14 BLM: Remember
It acquires inputs from the environment, transforms them, and discharges outputs back to the
a.
environment.
b. It operates its transformation processes independently from its environment.
c. It attempts to shield its transformation processes from the environment.
d. It focuses on the efficiency of its input acquisition and its transformation processes.
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 15 BLM: Evaluate
9. From which of the following sources do nonprofit organizations usually get their resources?
a. government grants
b. selling shares
c. investment income
d. selling goods and services
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 12 BLM: Understand
10. Which of the following is characteristic of an open system and its subsystem?
11. Which subsystem would the surgery department in a hospital belong to?
a. production
b. boundary spanning
c. maintenance
d. management
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 15 BLM: Apply
12. Which of the following is a component of organizational subsystems?
14. Which one of Mintzberg’s basic parts of an organization deals with functions such as human
resources, organizational development, the employee cafeteria, and maintenance staff?
a. technical support
b. human infrastructure
c. administrative support
d. top management
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 18 BLM: Apply
15. Which of the following is one of Mintzberg’s five basic parts of an organization?
a. administrative core
b. computer infrastructure
c. top management support
d. middle management
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 16 BLM: Remember
16. Which of the following is the subsystem responsible for directing and coordinating other parts
of the organization?
a. contextual dimensions
b. contingency analysis
c. organizational dynamics
d. structural dimensions
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 18 BLM: Understand
18. Which of the following structural dimensions is best represented by the 385-page book
McDonald’s uses to describe all rules and procedures in each of its stores?
a. learning theory
b. sequential interdependence
c. formalization
d. specialization
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 19 BLM: Apply
a. culture
b. management
c. structure
d. technology
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 19 BLM: Remember
20. Which term refers to the degree to which organizational tasks are subdivided into separate
jobs?
a. formalization
b. specialization
c. professionalism
d. centralization
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 19 BLM: Remember
21. Which of the following refer(s) to the deployment of people to various functions and
departments?
a. professionalization
b. specialization
c. personnel ratios
d. hierarchy of authority
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 20 BLM: Remember
24. Which of the following is a contextual, rather than a structural, dimension of an organization?
a. labour force
b. culture
c. professionalism
d. centralization
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 21 BLM: Understand
25. What is demonstrated in the comparison of EllisDon and Tim Hortons in the textbook’s “In
Practice” activity?
26. Which of the following describes the degree to which an organization achieves its goals?
a. effectiveness
b. efficiency
c. organizational strategy
d. stakeholder profitability
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 22 BLM: Remember
27. Which of the following integrates diverse organizational activities by looking at various
constituents and what they want from the organization?
a. contextual dimensions
b. organizational culture
c. efficiency
d. stakeholder approach
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 23 BLM: Understand
28. What did scientific management, pioneered by Frederick Taylor, claim decisions about
organizations and job design should be based on?
a. administrative principles
b. scientific management
c. bureaucracy
d. hierarchy
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 26 BLM: Apply
31. Interpretations of which of the following concluded that positive treatment of employees
improved their motivation and productivity?
a. administrative principles
b. stakeholder approaches
c. scientific management
d. the Hawthorne studies
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 26 BLM: Remember
33. According to the textbook, what does the term contingency refer to?
34. John Black, a management consultant, successfully implemented an MBO program on his
first consulting job. He now recommends MBO to all his clients. In so doing, what aspect of
organizational design would the textbook say he is ignoring?
a. empowerment
b. the culture
c. strategy
d. the structure
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 30 BLM: Apply
37. Which statement best describes organizational behaviour?
39. At what level is the primary level of analysis in organizational theory done?
a. environmental
b. organizational
c. departmental
d. individual
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 33 BLM: Apply
TRUE/FALSE
1. A closed system would be autonomous, enclosed, and sealed off from the outside world,
whereas an open system consumes resources and exports resources to the environment.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 15
2. Outputs of an organization include employees, raw materials and other physical resources,
information, and financial resources.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 15
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 15
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 19
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 19-20
6. Common structural variables studied as dimensions of organizations are goals, culture, and
environment.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 19-20
7. The underlying set of key values, beliefs, understandings, and norms shared by employees
is referred to as an organization’s culture.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 21
8. The eleven contextual and structural dimensions are NOT dependent on each other.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 21
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 21
10. Efficiency refers to the amount of resources used to achieve the organization’s goals,
whereas effectiveness refers to the degree to which an organization achieves its goals.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 22
11. The stakeholder approach integrates diverse organizational activities by looking at various
organizational stakeholders and what they want from the organization.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 23
12. Usually, an organization can easily satisfy the demands of all of its stakeholders
simultaneously.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 24
13. Research has shown that the assessment of multiple stakeholder groups is an accurate
reflection of organizational effectiveness, especially with respect to organizational
adaptability.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 24
14. The classical perspective of organizational design sought to make organizations run like
learning organizations in a turbulent environment.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 25
15. Scientific management focused on the total organization and grew from the insights of
practitioners.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 25
16. Scientific management focused on primarily the technical core, whereas administrative
principles focused on the design and functioning of the organization as a whole.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 25
17. A key element of an organization is a building or set of policies and procedures, not the
people and their relationships.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 26
18. Because of the Hawthorne Studies, a revolution in worker treatment took place and laid the
groundwork for subsequent work examining treatment of workers, leadership, motivation,
and human resource management.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 26
19. Contingency means that one thing depends on other things, and for organizations to be
effective, there must be a “goodness of fit” between their structure and the conditions of their
external environment.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 27
20. For much of the 20th century, organizations operated in a world that was relatively stable,
but today the environment can be characterized as turbulent.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 27
21. Organizations today have rigid boundaries separating them from other organizations.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 28
22. In the learning organization, the vertical structure that creates distance between managers at
the top and workers in the technical core is disbanded.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 28-29
23. In the learning organization, everyone knows how the organization works and how
everything fits together.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 29