Organizational Behaviour Probable Questions for Semester

Examination
I. Fill in the blanks
1. Culture and the study of learned behavior comprise the domain of anthropology.
2. The study of organizational behavior is based on scientific knowledge and applied
practice.
3. A complete understanding of organizational behavior requires an understanding of both
human behavior and of the organizational context within which behavior is acted out.
4. Sociology is the science of humans in a society and contributed to the understanding of
group and intergroup dynamics including codes of ethics.
5. Hawthorne studies conducted during the 1920s and 1930s that suggested the importance
of the informal organization.
6. Attitude is the predisposition to respond in a particular way toward a specific object.
7. Attitude is a complex mix of feigns, beliefs and values that predisposes somebody to
behave towards something or someone in a consistent way.
8. Tension resulting from having contradictory thoughts or beliefs about something or
someone is known as cognitive dissonance.
9. Personality refers to individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.
10. Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT) is the projective test in which people express their
inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
11. Rorschach inkblot test includes set of 10 inkblots that seeks to identify people's inner
feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.
12. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality inventory designed to measure
basic personality traits that influence how a person deals with the world; based on the
theories of Carl Jung.
13. Conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion (OCEAN) are
the part of Big Five personality model.
14. Albert Bandura is the founder of social-cognitive perspective/social learning theory.
15. Excessive self-love and self-absorption is called as narcissism.
16. one's feelings of high or low self-worth is called as self-esteem.
17. When someone perceives objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images
change, it is called as perceptual constancy.
18. A predisposition or readiness to perceive something in a particular way is known as
perceptual set.
19. Images that are capable of more than one interpretation are called as ambiguous figure.
20. Figure-ground is the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand
out from their surroundings (the ground).
21. The law of perceptual grouping includes Gestalt principles of similarity, proximity,
continuity, and closure.

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 22. Motivation is the need or desire that energizes and directs behavior.
23. Theory X assumes that workers are basically lazy, error-prone, and extrinsically
motivated by money.
24. Theory Y assumes that, given challenge and freedom, workers are motivated to achieve
self-esteem and to demonstrate their competence and creativity.
25. Expectancy theory holds that people are motivated to behave in ways that produce
valued outcomes.
26. Valence is the anticipated value of outcomes influenced by the specific needs of the
employee.
27. Equity theory states that people will be motivated when they perceive that they are being
treated fairly.
28. The compatibility between an individual and a work environment that occurs when their
characteristics are well matched is referred to as Person-Environment Fit.
29. Autocratic leadership style states that workers require strict supervision and instruction.
30. “The workers are the main asset of the business”, is the believe of Laissez-Faire
Leadership style.
31. Laissez-Faire Leadership style values the creativity and opinions of workers.
32. Leadership is the art of influencing people to progress toward accomplishing a specific
goal.
33. Leader is a person who influences the behavior of individuals or groups.
34. Emotional intelligence is the ability of an individual to perceive and manage the
emotions of self
and others.
35. The leadership style that encourages active participation is called as democratic
leadership.
36. Laissez-Faire is a style of leadership that encourages active participation.
37. Leadership is a process in which leaders and followers interact dynamically in a
particular situation.
38. Leadership is the process of influencing an organized group toward accomplishing its
goals.
39. Self-fulfilling prophecy is a phenomenon occurs when our expectations or predictions
play a causal role in bringing about the events we predicted.
40. Charisma a personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty.
41. Unfreezing, movement and refreezing are the stages under change theory by Kurt
Lewin.
42. Trait theory considers personal qualities and characteristics that differentiate leaders
from non-leaders.
43. Fiedler contingency theory state that effective groups depend on a proper match between
a leader's style of interacting with subordinates and the degree to which the situation
gives control and influence to the leader.

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 44. least preferred co-worker (LPC) is an instrument that purports to measure whether a
person is task or relationship oriented.
45. charismatic leadership theory states that followers make attributions of heroic or
extraordinary leadership abilities when they observe certain behaviors.
46. Leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by
clarifying role and task requirements are called as transactional leaders.
47. Leaders who inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests and who are capable
of having profound and extraordinary effects on followers are called as transformational
leaders.
48. Laissez-faire a policy or attitude of letting things takes their own course, without
interfering.
49. people not wanting to change resulting in more call outs or quitting is called as
resistance to change.
50. Team building refers to high interaction among team members to increase trust and
openness.
51. People who act as catalysts and assume the responsibility for managing change activities
are called as change agents.
52. Therbligs are outcome of time and motion studies.
53. Harsey-Blanchard stated that there is no one best way to influence people.
54. According to Fiedler, leader-member relations, task-structure and position-power are
the situational variables.
55. Hersey-Blanchard’s theory is also known as tri-dimensional/ two factor leader
effectiveness model.
56. “Cognitive theory” of learning was given by Pavlov.
57. Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of
experience
58. In Pavlov’s experiment, the bell was a/an conditioned stimulus.
59. Operant conditioning argues that behavior is a function of its consequences.
60. Skinner thought that reinforcement was the central factor involved in behavioural
change.
61. The practice of reinforcing closer and closer approximations of a desired behaviour is
called as classical conditioning.
62. B.F Skinner said “Give me a child at birth and I can make him into anything you want”.
63. Synergy refers to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
64. Refreezing is applying what has been learned.
65. Unfreezing occurs when we discard old routines in order to learn new ones.
66. Leaders who are defined based on their accomplishments are considered to be
Transformational leaders.

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 II. OB Short Questions & Answers
1. What moderating factors can improve the statistical relationship between
attitudes and behaviour?

Ans: The moderating factors can improve the statistical relationship between attitudes and
behaviour are (a) Compensation (a fair or better than fair paycheck moderates attitudes
exceptionally well), (b) Engagement (feeling valued, feeling their input is heard, etc.), (c)
Benefits (good medical/dental/vision/401K etc.) and (d) "Perks" (ability to work from home,
on-site gym/spa/dry cleaning, etc.)

2. How can managers get employees to more readily accept working with colleagues
who are different than themselves?

Ans: Managers can initiate diversity programs that include a self-evaluation phase. People
are pressed to examine themselves and to confront ethnic and cultural stereotypes they might
hold. Additional activities designed to change attitudes include arranging for people to do
volunteer work in community or social service centers in order to meet face to face with
individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds and using exercises that let participants feel
what it is like to be different.

3. Do you thing job satisfaction means the same thing in all countries? Why or why
not?

Ans: Job satisfaction does not mean the same thing in all countries. For example, people who
live in poor countries may correlate satisfaction with pay, whereas for people in advanced
countries the relationship between pay and satisfaction disappears. For them satisfaction has
a strong denomination when the job accompanies potential challenges and more privacy.

4. Are happy workers productive workers?

Ans: It’s not always true that happy workers are productive workers. For example, if I am
being provided with better meal at the cafeteria and more paid time off, I may feel happy but
that not necessarily promote productivity. It’s not happiness rather engagement that can
make me more productive and improve business performance. Engagement is the measure of
how committed employees are, and how attached they are to delivering the team’s goals and
objectives. It stands to reason that the more engaged the group, the higher the business unit’s
performance and profitability.

5. How might employees actually learn unethical behaviour on their job?

Ans: Employees can learn unethical behavior by watching other employees cheat the system.
They can also see opportunity to take advantage of the system or steal.

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 6. If you had to take disciplinary action against an employee, how specifically would
you do it?

Ans: Disciplinary action against an employee should be taken in a constructive way. An

effective, communicative disciplinary action process should be followed by keeping the
employee informed and accountable every step of the way. Privacy should also be
maintained.

7. Define OB. Relate it to management.

Ans: Organizational behaviour (OB) - is the study of what people think, feel, and do in and
around organizations; OB researchers study individuals, groups, and organizational-level
characteristics that influence behaviour in work settings. Management - is the act of
"managing" a group of people, as in getting people together to accomplish the businesses'
goals and/or objectives; this includes, planning, organizing, leading and directing a team of
people, resources, etc.

So in managing people, you want to be as effective and efficient as possible in order to reach
your desired goal/objective. To be efficient and effective in doing so, you have to work with
your team. Understanding them and considering how they think, feel and how it affects their
actions. OB is all about that. OB studies individual behaviour, team process and
organizational culture which all in the end can contribute to effective management or explain
why management has failed. Thus there is definitely a relation between OB and management.

8. “Behaviour is generally predictable, so there is no need to formally study OB.”

Why is that statement wrong?

Ans: Because OB is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and
structure have on behaviour within an organization. OB emphasizes behaviour on the job,
absenteeism, employment turnover, productivity, human performance and management.
People are different; we need to look at OB in a contingency framework, using situational
variables to moderate cause effect relationship.

9. What are effectiveness and efficiency? How are they related to OB?

Ans: Effectiveness is the extent to which the individuals in the organization are able to finish
and achieve their goal. Efficiency deals with the time and resources the individuals use to
finish their task. Both the concepts are highly related to OB. More the organizations motivate
their employees, more effective and efficient they will be in performing their tasks. The
purpose of OB is to study the individuals in the organizations so that they can achieve higher
efficiency and effectiveness in achieving bigger goals such as increase in market share,
increase in productivity etc.

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 10. What behavioural predictions might you make if you knew that an employee had,
(a) low core self-evaluation, (b) low mach score, (c) type A personality.

Ans: Behavioural predictions: (a) An individual with low core self-evaluation will be less
productive especially in a managerial position than individuals with high core self-
evaluation, (b) An individual with low ach score would be predicted to be little concerned
with manipulating and controlling others, (c) A type A personality could be demanding,
impatient, concerned with deadlines and performance, and aggressive.

11. Do people from the same country have common personality type? Explain

Ans: There are no personality types for a given country. The enduring personality traits of a
given individual depend on determinants in his environment and the value system.

12. Why might managers today pay more attention to ‘person organization fit’ than
‘person job-fit’?

Ans: Given the current economic recession, as well as the current unemployment rate, it
would not surprise managers if there are numerous resumes and applications flooded in for
job positions, with many well qualified applicants. From the employers' mentality, from such
a pile of excellent applicants, choosing an applicant's personality and attitude is one of the
main factors now. Employers and supervisors want someone who will not bring down the
team. As rightly said, "A person who has no relevant job skills but has a great attitude is
always a better candidate than someone with all the right job skills and a negative attitude
because job skills can always be trained, but a negative attitude/personality is much harder to
retrain."

13. How are our perceptions of our own actions different from our perceptions of
actions of others?

Ans: Our perception of our own actions mostly depends on external causality whereas others
action is judged on the basis of their internal state. We tend to make common fundamental
attribution error in case of others whereas in our own case we have self- serving bias.

14. How does selectivity affect perception? Give an example of how selectivity can
create perceptual distortion?

Ans: Selective perception is the process by which individuals screen and select various
objects and stimuli that via for their attention. Selectivity works as a shortcut in judging other
people by allowing us to “speed-read” others, but not without the risk of drawing an
inaccurate picture. Because we see what we want to see, we can draw unwarranted
conclusions from an ambiguous situation. For example, employees who need positive
feedback to feel good about themselves might pick up on positive statement made by the

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 supervisor by neglecting the negative comment. As here the negative comment by the
supervisor is being omitted because of selectivity, it gives rise to perceptual distortion.

15. Does motivation come from within a person or is it a result of the situation?

Ans: In some cases motivation come from within a person and some other cases it is result of
the situation. Some people are internally motivated - they get their drive from within. If they
see something that needs to be done, they do it without external stimulus, for example-
starting morning walk to lose weight. Some people are externally motivated - they won't do
the "right thing" unless they are "forced" to do it by others. This could be a kid not doing
their homework and needing mom to yell at them. Studying hard during examination could
be another example of situation affecting motivation.

16. What is role of self-efficacy in goal setting?

Ans: Self-efficacy is the extent or strength of one's belief in one's own ability to complete
tasks and reach goals. As an example, self-efficacy directly relates to how long someone will
stick to a workout regimen or a diet. High and low self-efficacy determines whether or not
someone will choose to take on a challenging task or "write it off" as impossible. Thus self-
efficacy helps an individual to set challenging and realistic goals and also persuade to
achieve it.

17. If you were a manager at a busy clothing store, how would you balance increasing
positive customer experiences with preventing the loss of good employees who
might worn down by nasty or hostile customers?

Ans: The different dimensions of emotional intelligence like self-awareness, self -

management, social awareness and relationship management would play a great role in
keeping the employees upbeat during handling a hostile and nasty customer. As a manager
the position demands facilitation of various sessions helping the employees develop EI at
work place.

18. What is group demography and why is it important?

Ans: Group demography refers to the composition variables related to a team like ability and
personality of team members, allocating roles and diversity, size of the team, member
flexibility and member preference for team work. It is important for taking staffing related
decision for a team.

19. What is process variables associated with team performance?

Ans: The process variables associated with team performance are common purpose, specific
goals, team efficacy, conflict levels and social loafing.

20. Under what conditions will challenge of creating team players be greatest?
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 Ans: The challenge of creating team players would be greatest under situations like:

(a) When the national culture is highly individualistic,

(b) With the presence of individual issues like difference in race and religion amongst
workers,
21. What shall be the implications if leaders are inflexible in adjusting their style?
If leaders don't adapt to changing environment leadership will be ineffective. The
relationship between leadership style and effectiveness suggests that under condition “a”,
style x would be appropriate.

22. When can charisma be a liability?

Charisma appears to be most appropriate when the follower’s task has an ideological
component or when the environment involves a high degree of stress and uncertainty.
This may explain why, when charismatic leaders surface, it is more likely to be in
politics, religion, wartime; or when a business firm is in its infancy or facing a life-
threatening crisis. During times of non-crisis this type of leadership is unnecessary.

23. How are ethics involved in leadership?

Ethics touches leadership at number of junctures. Transformational leaders teach moral
values when they try to change the attitude and behaviour of the followers. Charisma too,
has an ethical component. Leadership effectiveness depends upon the means that a leader
uses in trying to achieve goals as well as the content of those goals. Leadership is not
value free.

24. What is the difference between job satisfaction and organization culture?
Job satisfaction indicates an employee happiness/unhappiness (group of workers morale)
in doing a job. Unhappiness may be because of payment, job below for one’s capability,
monotony in job..
Organization culture represents the internal work environment created for operating an
organization. It represents how employees are treated by their bosses, how peers treat one
another (expected treatment), with which vision & motivation an organization is working
internally.
25. What defines organization’s sub cultures?
The definition of subculture is less known to leaders of some organizations then the
definition of organizational culture. It’s necessary to understand that there are many
“local” cultures in one organization. It means each culture is divided into different parts,
such as levels, branches, professional, regional, national and other groups. They can
coexist under the roof of general culture.

26. Can an employee survive in an organization if he or she rejects its core culture?

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 Organization culture is a system that distinguishes it than other organizations. This
system is a set of key characteristics which the organization values. Organization culture
is concerned with how employees perceive these characteristics, not if they like them or
hate them. Job satisfaction is highly related to the organization’s work environment, its
reward practices and its expectation from the employees. So, if a person does not fit the
organizational culture, he/she will have significant difficulty to survive. The dominant
culture expresses the core values that are shared by the majority. Not sharing those values
will place the individual out socially and organizationally.

27. “Resistance to change is an irrational response”. Do you agree or disagree.

Explain
One of the well-documented findings from studies of individual and organizational
behaviour is that organizations and their members resist change. This resistance is
rational, even though it may appear not to be because it doesn’t necessarily surface in
standardized ways. Resistance can be overt, implicit, immediate, or deferred. Implicit
resistance efforts are more subtle—loss of loyalty to the organization, loss of motivation
to work, increased errors or mistakes, increased absenteeism due to “sickness”—and,
hence, more difficult to recognize. A change may produce what appears to be only a
minimal reaction at the time it is initiated, but the resistance surfaces weeks, months, or
even years later. A single change that might have little impact becomes “the straw that
breaks the camel’s back.” Reactions to change can build up and then explode in some
response that seems totally out of proportion to the change action it follows. The
resistance, of course, has merely been deferred and stockpiled. What surfaces is a
response to an accumulation of previous changes.

28. Are all managers change agents? Discuss

Change agents can be managers or non-managers, current or new employees or outside
consultants. All mangers cannot be change agents. For becoming an effective change
agent an individual must be fore-sighted, hind-sighted and far sighted. He has to be
forward looking and empathetic. Broadly speaking the most important contributions to be
made through the change agent role are those that sustain the organization’s current
performance and assure its future performance i.e.
• Enabling people to work effectively as they plan, implement and experience change
• Increasing people’s ability to manage future change
29. Social loafing: It is the tendency for individuals to expand less effort when working
collectively than when working individually. It is a situation in which people exert less
effort when working in teams than when working alone. It is contrary to synergy.
Synergy is the creation of a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts.

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 30. Therbligs: Therbligs refers to any of a set of fundamental motions required for a
worker to perform a manual operation. Therbligs are outcome of time and motion
studies. It represents one of the 18 motions standardized by the husband and
wife team of US industrial engineering pioneers Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924) and Dr.
Lillian Gilbreth (1878-1972). Therblig is Gilbreth spelled backwards.

31. How to minimize social loafing?

Ans: by understanding the causes of social loafing we can identify ways to minimize this
problem. The way may be of two types: (a) by making each member’s performance more
viable and (b) by increasing each member’s motivation to perform his/her task within the
group. These include:
 Form smaller team
 Specialize tasks
 Measure individual performance
 Increase job enrichment
 Select motivated employees
32. Measurement of attitude: measurement in its broadest sense is the assignment of
numerals, to objects or events according to the rules. There are many methods of
attitude measurement. All methods are classified into four types:
 Self-report
 Indirect test
 Direct observation technique
 Psychological reaction techniques

33. Least preferred co-workers: A scale developed by American scientist Fred Fiedler
to identify whether an individual's leadership style is relationship-oriented or task-
oriented. Fiedler identified the a Least Preferred Co-Worker scoring for leaders by
asking them first to think of a person with which they worked that they would like
least to work with again, and then to score the person on a range of scales between
positive factors (friendly, helpful, cheerful, etc.) and negative factors (unfriendly,
unhelpful, gloomy, etc.). A high LPC leader generally scores the other person as
positive and a low LPC leader scores them as negative.
34. How to improve perception?
Ans: perception can be improved by making various attempts like:
 Perceiving oneself accurately
 Improving one’s self-concept
 Be empathetic
 Having positive attitude
 Avoiding perceptual distortions

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  Communicating openly
35. Types of job related attitudes: There are mainly three job satisfaction, job
involvement and organizational commitment. Job satisfaction refers to an individual’s
pleasurable or positive emotional state towards his or her job. Job involvement is the
degree to which employees immerse themselves in their jobs, invest time and energy
in them, and consider work as a central part of their overall lives. Organizational
commitment is an attitude about employee’s loyalty to their organization.
36. Goal setting theory: In 1960’s, Edwin Locke put forward the Goal-setting theory of
motivation. This theory states that goal setting is essentially linked to task
performance. It states that specific and challenging goals along with appropriate
feedback contribute to higher and better task performance.

37. Bounded rationality model: Hebert Simon created the bounded rationality
model to explain why limits exist to how rational a decision maker can actually be
within a decision-making environment. His model earned him a Nobel Prize in 1978
and is also known as the administrative man theory. The main thrust of his model is
that there exist specific constraints that force a decision maker to be less than rational.
There are four assumptions to his model:

 Managers select the first alternative that is satisfactory.

 Managers recognize that their conception of the world is simple.
 Managers are comfortable making decisions without determining all the alternatives.
 Managers make decisions by rules of thumb or heuristics

38. Leader-member exchange theory: This is a theory that supports leader’s creation of
in-groups and out-groups; subordinates with in-group status will have higher
performance ratings, less turnover, and greater job satisfaction.
39. Change agent: Persons who acts as catalysts and assume the responsibility for
managing change activities. They see a future for the organization that others have not
identified, and they are able to motivate, invent, and implement this vision.
40. Learning organization: an organization that has developed the continuous capacity to
adapt and change.

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 III. Topics important for long questions:
1. Theories of motivation
2. Group formation stages
3. Contingency theories of leadership (Hershey-Blanchard & Fiedler’s model)
4. Personality determinants
5. Personality models (Big five & MBTI model)
6. Kurt Lewin’s change model
7. Forces of resistance to change
8. Perceptual process (receiving stimuli, selecting stimuli, organizing & interpretation)
9. Factors related to perception (perceiver, target & situation)
10. OB models
11. Difference between managers and leaders
12. Difference between team and group
13. Styles of leadership
14. Kotter’s eight step plan
15. Personality and job fit theory
16. Components of attitude
17. Classical and operant conditioning

IV. Additional short questions:

1. How OB is related to individual?
2. What do you mean by time and motions study?
3. What are the major outcomes of Hawthorne’s study?
4. What is Machiavellian?
5. What is narcissism?
6. What do mean by TAT?
7. What is Rorschach test?
8. What do you mean by locus of control?
9. What is selective attention?
10. What is selective distortion?
11. What is selective retention?
12. What is self-fulfilling prophesy?
13. What is the difference between Pygmalion and golem effect?
14. What are the different types of motives?
15. What are the key elements of motivation?
16. What is valence?
17. What do you mean by laissez-faire style of leadership?
18. Who is a charismatic leader?
19. “Great leaders are born not made”, do you agree with the statement? Why or why not?
20. What is managerial grid?

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 21. Who is a country club manager?
22. What do you mean by ‘middle of the road management’?
23. What is LPC scale?
24. What are the key situational factors as per Fiedler’s model?
25. What do mean by resistance to change?
26. Why do people want to join a group?
27. What are the key factors that are responsible for high resistance to change amongst
employees?
28. What are the difference types of organizational change?

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