Font size
WorksheetsManagement and Business Concepts Multiple Choice Questions
Total questions: 100
Worksheet time: 50mins
Which of the following words is NOT a step in the management process?
Planning
Leading
Producing
Controlling
Organizing
A homebuilder dominates a market by offering attractive options, higher quality, and value-added services. Which of the following competitive strategies has the homebuilder adopted?
Cost leadership
Differentiation
Price leadership
Generic
Design focus
Which of the following is a correct statement about controlling as a management function?
It can be performed independently of planning.
It is performed only by the controller of an organization.
It is more prevalent in business than in government.
It assumes a certain approach to motivating employees.
It must be closely related to planning in order to work efficiently.
Decentralization tends to be encouraged by which of the following business trends?
(B) II only
I. Product diversification
II. Telecommuting
III. Geographical expansion of operations
(A) I only
Which of the following can be best determined by consulting an organization chart?
The size of the company
The distribution of company resources
The nature of work performed
The connections of positions
The quality of management of the firm
The number of subordinates who directly report to a superior refers to the manager’s
span of control
organizational role
organizational structure
chain of command
general staff
Which of the following best illustrates informal organization?
Line authority, such as that of the field marshal and battalion commander in the military
Staff authority, such as that of personnel or cost control in manufacturing
Functional authority, such as corporate supervision of the legal aspect of pension plans in branch plants
Groupings based on position titles
Groupings based on such factors as technical ability, seniority, and personal influence
The choice of organizational structure to be used in a business should be
made by mutual agreement among all the people affected
made by organization specialists rather than managers
subject to definite and fixed rules
based on the objectives of each individual business
based on consideration of the type of organizational structures used by competitors
Which of the following best describes a system that requires subassemblies and components to be manufactured in small lots and delivered as needed to the next stage of production?
Just in time (JIT)
Small batch inventory (SBI)
Inventory readiness (IR)
Inventory preparedness
Integrated preparedness (IP)
Frederick Taylor is considered a pioneer in the school of management referred to as the
management process school
empirical school
scientific management school
behaviorist school
social system school
Preparation of which of the following is the most logical first step in developing an annual operating plan?
A sales forecast by product
A production schedule by product
A flow-of-funds statement by product
A plant and equipment requirement forecast
A pro forma income statement and balance sheet
A large span of control throughout an organization invariably results in
low morale
high morale
an excess workload for each manager
a flat (horizontal) organizational structure
a tall (vertical) organizational structure
Which of the following is a conflict-resolution practice that seeks to satisfy both parties in a conflict?
Avoidance
Stipulation
Competition
Collaboration
Appeal to authority
Which of the following is most commonly used to measure the total productivity of a company?
The ratio between total outputs and total inputs
The ratio between fixed costs and variable costs
The ratio between contribution margin and total revenue
The ratio between the break-even point and total output
The ratio between total inputs and total capital
The practice in large companies of establishing autonomous divisions whose heads are entirely responsible for what happens in the division is referred to as
management by exception
decentralization of authority
delegation of authority
integration
informal organization
Which of the following control techniques is most likely to emphasize the importance of time?
Break-even charts
Physical standards
Quality circles
Variable budgeting
Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
In a labor negotiation, if a third party has the power to determine a solution to a labor dispute between two parties, the negotiation is known as
a grievance
an arbitration
a conciliation
a mediation
a concession
A type of control device for assessing the progress of planned activities and the expenditure of resources allocated to their accomplishments is referred to as
a strategic plan
an organizational chart
a tactical plan
a budget
a proposal
Beatrice is a full-time employee who is permitted to arrange her schedule so that she works only four days a week and does not travel during rush hour. This is an example of Beatrice’s employer
applying the Civil Rights Act, Title VII
scheduling flextime
engaging in sexual discrimination
encouraging low productivity
enhancing compensation
According to Maslow, the need to feel genuinely respected by peers, both in and out of the work environment, is included in which of the following need classifications?
Physiological
Safety
Stability
Esteem
Self-actualization
Which of the following management activities is most typically described as a controlling function?
Goal setting
Purchasing
Budgetary review
Staffing
Recruiting
Which of the following personality traits best describes individuals who can adapt and adjust their behavior to external factors?
Low self-esteem
External locus of control
High self-monitoring
Low authoritarianism
High authoritarianism
A person who believes that the ends justify the means is best described as
self-confident
Machiavellian
authoritarian
having cognitive dissonance
having an internal locus of control
In which of the following situations are groups most effective?
Cohesive groups with groupthink
Noncohesive groups without groupthink
Cohesive groups in alignment with organizational goals
Noncohesive groups in alignment with organizational goals
Cohesive groups not in alignment with organizational goals
If a manager commits a halo error in performance appraisal, the manager may have done which of the following?
Based assessment on most recent performance rather than an entire period.
Based assessment on an entire period performance rather than most recent.
Based assessment on a single attribute of employees’ performance.
Given every employee the same rating of “average.”
Failed to give feedback to employees about their performance.
Which of the following best describes a team that brings together organizational members from various areas such as marketing, engineering, human resources, and production to work on a task?
Command
Self-managed
Cross-functional
Restrictive
Informal
Which of the following is NOT an input, according to equity theory?
Effort
Experience
Education
Seniority
Pay incentives
Which of the following terms best describes leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by stressing rewards and the consequences of not conforming to expectations?
Transactional
Transformational
Charismatic
People-oriented
Informal
Which of the following is the primary purpose of the management-by-objectives (MBO) approach?
Aligning goal setting and planning
Creating a dynamic and complex work environment
Reducing employee resistance to change
Implementing standard operating procedures
Implementing a decision rule to respond to a designated problem
Which of the following is best defined as a process that involves defining organizational objectives and goals, establishing an overall strategy, and developing a hierarchy of plans to integrate activities?
Manipulating
Leading
Planning
Managing by objectives
Controlling
Which of the following terms best describes a corporation’s sexual harassment policy?
A single-use plan
A standing plan
A strategic plan
A short-term plan
A specific plan
The preparations that a small town might make for a visit by the President of the United States would be considered what type of plan?
Strategic
Directional
Standing
Long-term
Single-use
Which of the following best describes a type of planning in which multiple scenarios are developed to test possible future outcomes?
Queuing theory
Simulations
Linear regression
Marginal profits
Project management
Which of the following describes the critical path in a Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) process?
Parts that require the most costly materials
The most time-consuming sequence of events and activities
The shortest route to the project completion
The central guideline for quality control
The property insurance
Which of the following oversees the transformation process that converts inputs such as labor and raw materials into outputs such as goods and services?
Operation management
Control management
Strategic management
Human resource management
Project management
An employee manual is given by a supervisor to employees reporting to that supervisor. The manual outlines attendance policies. This is an example of which of the following methods of developing norms in groups?
First behavior precedents
Secondary behavior
Explicit statements from an authority figure
Critical events in the team’s history
Carryover from other experiences
The behavior of young athletes when they imitate the way they see professional athletes celebrate on television is most likely explained as
classical conditioning
operant conditioning
cognitive learning
social learning
behavior modification
Which of the following best describes the situation in which an employee arrives for work on time in order to avoid being placed on probation for a second time?
Positive reinforcement
Negative reinforcement
Extinction
Intermittent reinforcement
Cognitive learning
Which of the following are most likely to cause a team to avoid groupthink?
I only
I and II only
I and III only
II and III only
I, II, and III
If a manager announces a casual-dress policy on Fridays and then comes to work dressed casually on the following Friday, this is an example of
planning
organizing
leading
controlling
negative reinforcement
Which of the following models classifies products as stars, question marks, cash cows, or dogs?
Porter’s five forces model
Theory X
The Boston Consulting Group Matrix
Theory Y
Kanban
If George blames new software for his group’s poor performance in the most recent quarter, but attributes the group’s success in the prior quarter to his outstanding managerial skills, he is most likely exhibiting
projection
selective perception
fundamental attribution error
self-serving bias
Pygmalion effect
Praise received from an employee’s peers is best described as an example of
an extrinsic reward
an intrinsic reward
low valence
high instrumentality
high directive leadership
Which of the following procedures is (are) appropriate when disciplining an employee?
I only
II only
I and II only
II and III only
I, II, and III
When a company adopts telecommuting, which core job characteristic is likely to be influenced the most?
Skill variety
Task identity
Task significance
Autonomy
Job feedback
If jobs are designed so that each worker assembles a different part of a product on an automated assembly line, the job design is most likely to
provide high levels of intrinsic rewards
be highly challenging
make it easy to train workers
be highly satisfying
demand creativity from the workers
If individual contributions in a group project are not evaluated, which of the following is likely to occur?
Synergy
Task significance
Social loafing
The Leavitt effect
Vertical loading
Determining whether membership of a group should be heterogeneous or homogeneous should be most influenced by which of the following factors?
The group size
Status congruence
The organizational setting
The goals, rewards, and resources
The nature of the task
Which of the following describes the most favorable situation for a leader of a group?
The group has high group cohesiveness and positive group performance norms
The group has high group cohesiveness and negative group performance norms
The group has low group cohesiveness and positive group performance norms
The group has low group cohesiveness and negative group performance norms
The group has both moderate cohesiveness and moderate performance norms
In their classic study of the bases of social power, John R. P. French and Bertram Raven explicitly identified all of the following sources EXCEPT
referent
expert
coercive
information
reward
If an investor buys a stock based on the recommendation of a broker because the broker’s previous recommendations have been profitable, the broker possesses which type of power?
Referent
Legitimate
Informal authority
Charismatic
Expert
Which of the following styles of leadership is most likely to be effective with workers who have experience and are professionally oriented?
Supportive
Task-oriented
Achievement-oriented
Mentoring
Authoritarian
“You are always late to meetings and this will have to change!” Which of the following best describes the comment above by a manager to an employee?
Proxemics
Constructive feedback
A general overspecific comment
A specific overgeneral comment
Nonverbal communication
The power base that relies on the use of knowledge to persuade is best described as
rewards
expert
referent
coercive
legitimate
Which of the following is the most accurate description of a grapevine in an organization?
It is a constant source of disruptive information.
It follows the chain of command.
It can be suppressed once it is recognized.
It plays an important role in organizations.
Most managers believe that it is a positive source of information.
Which of the following business situations is most appropriate for telecommuting?
Workers thrive on competition.
Decisions and actions are predetermined.
Decisions rely on negotiation and social interaction.
There is an oversupply of workers.
Individual productivity is of primary importance.
Empowerment opportunities are LEAST likely to be found in which of the following?
Participative goal setting
Serving as a messenger
Delegation of work
Self-managed teams
Freedom to experiment
Which of the following pairs of functions of management are most closely interdependent?
Staffing and organizing
Staffing and controlling
Planning and leading
Planning and controlling
Disciplining and recruiting
Which of the following is the primary concern of employees responsible for strategic planning in a company?
Monitoring daily cash flow
Determining the contribution each subunit should make to the overall corporation
Determining how to accomplish specific tasks with available resources
Determining how to pursue long-term goals with available resources
Preparing the annual statement
Which of the following is most likely to result from the use of flowcharts in planning?
A guarantee that work will progress according to schedule
A visual sequencing of activities
A chart useful for comparing cash flow during two different quarters
A scheduling process
A combined sequencing and scheduling plan
Which of the following is a deterrent to “escalation of commitment”?
A desire to justify earlier decisions
Organizational politics
An efficiency “reality check”
The Abilene paradox
A cultural emphasis on persistence
Which of the following is most likely to be a major advantage of group-aided decision making?
Social pressure can drive the decision.
Goal displacement and hidden agendas can occur.
Groupthink may occur.
The likelihood that the decision will be accepted increases.
It frequently saves both time and money.
Which of the following basic leadership styles most closely matches the “high structure, low consideration” of the Ohio State leadership studies?
Country club
Team
Selling
Relationship motivated
Telling
According to Fiedler’s contingency studies, for organizations that were considered “moderately favorable” in terms of leaders’ authority, task definition, and leader-member relationships, which of the following is the most effective style for the leader to have?
Country club
Team
Selling
Relationship motivated
Telling
Large organizations are likely to structure their work operations and personnel in any of the following ways EXCEPT
accounting
divisional
geographic
market
product
The span of control most appropriate in a given organization is primarily influenced by which of the following?
Types of services or products being produced
Amount of supervision needed by subordinates
Amount of authority given to a supervisor
Number of hierarchical levels within the organization
Presence of work teams
The extensive use of work teams in an organization is most likely to occur under which of the following circumstances?
Control is centralized by top management.
The management style is primarily autocratic.
Employees are unmotivated.
Supervisors have a narrow span of control.
Employee involvement is a management goal.
Which of the following quality tools utilizes a visual depiction of a process to help identify problem areas?
Vector diagram
Histogram
Scatter diagram
Cause-and-effect diagram
Pareto chart
Outsourcing allows an organization to have which of the following?
Higher employee motivation
Improved labor-management relations
Lower accident rates
Greater flexibility in staffing
Increased control over employees
Requiring a prospective employee to demonstrate the ability to do a specific task during the screening process is defined by which type of test?
Achievement
Aptitude
Assessment
Work sampling
Spatial
Intrinsic rewards can be classified as rewards that do which of the following?
Allow the employee to establish flexible working hours.
Provide a sense of achievement and accomplishment.
Create work coordination among all employees.
Improve communication effectiveness.
Allow greater span of control.
The best tangible measurement of leadership effectiveness is which of the following?
Financial success
Turnover ratios
Training and development rates
Employee job performance
Employee morale
The use of transactional leadership is based on the concept of which of the following?
Using rewards and coercive power
Stressing intrinsic motivators
Creating team-based goal setting
Using peer-based performance evaluations
Implementing employee involvement plans
Group or team cohesiveness is usually influenced by which of the following?
Employee incentive systems
Goal-setting processes
Identification with the group by its members
Size of the organization
Type of organizational structure
Resolving conflict through collaboration requires that parties do which of the following?
Work cooperatively
Have a third party intervene
Involve a supervisor in the process
Establish predetermined outcomes
Prepare written plans
Coaching as a leadership technique is most likely to work when which of the following exists?
Employees are well trained.
Job descriptions are valid.
Performance-development needs are known.
A performance appraisal process is used.
Training programs are offered.
All of the following criteria are commonly used to evaluate decision-making alternatives EXCEPT
ethicality
economic feasibility
legality
practicality
popularity
All of the following are considered steps in the planning process EXCEPT
determining the organization’s mission
establishing goals and objectives
formulating strategies
implementing strategies
measuring performance
Job enrichment can be an effective tool to achieve which of the following?
Better communication
Increased job responsibility
Improved work relations
Teamwork
Shared decision making
Social Security, unemployment benefits, and workers’ compensation are benefits required by law. If a company has 120 employees, what other benefit does federal law require a company to provide?
Health insurance only
Paid vacations only
Family and medical leave
Both health insurance and paid vacations
Flextime
Which of the following best describes managerial ethics?
It is the social obligation that the individual manager has to fulfill.
It is a statement of the social responsibility of the organization.
It is the standard of conduct that guides a person’s decisions and behavior.
It is the mission statement of the organization.
It is a behavior that conforms to legal principles of justice.
A manager decides to lay off 10 percent of the workforce and justifies the action by noting that 90 percent still have jobs and the company will remain solvent. This manager has utilized which of the following views of ethics?
Rights view of ethics
Theory of justice view of ethics
Integrative social contracts view of ethics
Utilitarian view of ethics
Golden rule view of ethics
Ten years ago, Ruth’s company would have been classified as which type of e-business?
A total e-business organization
An e-business enhanced organization
An e-business enabled organization
An e-business committed organization
An e-business learning organization
Five years ago, Ruth’s company would have been classified as which type of e-business?
A total e-business organization
An e-business enhanced organization
An e-business enabled organization
An e-business committed organization
An e-business learning organization
According to Hofstede, the degree of individualism found in a country is most closely related to which of the following characteristics?
Age
Wealth
Religion
Location
Democracy
A multinational company expands its operation to Brazil and hires Brazilians to manage the operation of the new branch. The company is using which type of approach to expand its operations?
Ethnocentric
Polycentric
Monocentric
Geocentric
Egocentric
Knowledge management involves encouraging members of an organization to
create educational programs targeted at the average employee
develop new training programs to help new employees learn their jobs
develop a corporate university to provide educational solutions in-house
systematically gather information and share it with others
retrain top managers through traditional MBA programs
Which of the following is the type of team that is made up of experts in various specialties working together on various organizational tasks?
Functional
Cross-functional
Self-directed
Vertical
Autonomous
Which of the following types of questions would be the best to use during a job interview?
Open-ended
Rotational
Technology-ended
Prodding
Hypocritical
In one stage of group development, group members come to accept and understand one another; differences are resolved and members develop a sense of team cohesion. This stage of group development is known as
Adjourning
Performing
Storming
Norming
Forming
Solomon is reviewing the types of power the company has provided him for his job as a department head. A certain degree of authority comes with his position. He will directly exercise authority through which form of power?
Referent
Information
Expert
Legitimate
Decision making
A performance-appraisal method that utilizes evaluation information from supervisors, employees, and coworkers is known as
paired-comparison feedback
programmed-feedback decision
behaviorally anchored rating scale
360-degree feedback
graphic rating scale
Which of the following refers to gender-related problems in the career advancement of employees?
Flextime
Glass ceiling
Job enrichment
Job sharing
Career anchor
The breakeven point is defined as the level of production at which
fixed costs are covered by revenue
variable costs are covered by revenue
total revenue is sufficient to cover total costs
marginal revenue equals marginal cost
the law of diminishing returns is activated
Which technology integrates financial, marketing, operational, and human resource applications on a single computer system?
Universal application server (UAS)
Material requirements planning (MRP)
Vendor managed inventory (VMI)
Electronic data exchange (EDI)
Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
The Hawthorne studies are examples of which management approach?
Classical
Behavioral
Modern
Administrative
Scientific
A Gantt chart is a visual depiction of the time frame planned for completing specific tasks as compared to which of the following?
The delivery date promised to the customer
The actual progress made on each task
The manager’s projected task completion
The budgeted task completion
The weighted-average task-completion score
A manager who outlines a problem to employees, accepts suggestions, and makes a decision is said to be following what style of leadership?
Free reign
Democratic
Charismatic
Autocratic
Laissez-faire
Which of the following should be the first step in a decision-making process?
Implementing a decision
Assigning the problem to qualified personnel
Considering all alternatives
Knowing when to decide
Defining the problem
Which of the following can best be described as a planning function?
Monitoring operations
Determining objectives
Acquiring necessary resources
Controlling inventory
Coordinating interdepartmental activities
