BA544 Nominal Group Technique & Boundary Spanning Exam Practice

UIU BA 544 Nominal Group Technique & Boundary Spanning Exam Practice

Question 1

Team characteristics—such as member diversity, task interdependence, team size, and so forth—have an impact on team effectiveness.

1) True

2) False

Question 2

Lou chose the new product team very carefully, recruiting only the best performers from marketing, operations, finance, and HR. She expected this group to design and develop a stellar new product in record time. She doesn't understand why this team composed only of superstars has not lived up to her expectations. Lou's group has not demonstrated synergy.

1) True

2) False

Question 3

Social loafing can hinder a team's effectiveness.

1) True

2) False

Question 4

Organizations no longer use brainstorming because of the problems associated with it.

1) True

2) False

Question 5

The nominal group technique involves utilizing a combination of individual and team settings to generate ideas and solutions and arrive at a good idea.

1) True

2) False

Question 6

By making people write down ideas on their own, the nominal group technique increases social loafing and production blocking.

1) True

2) False

Question 7

Cohesiveness tends to promote higher levels of team performance.

1) True

2) False

Question 8

Team states refer to the effectiveness of teams and the degree to which teams are capable of remaining together as ongoing entities.

1) True

2) False

Question 9

Kat is not worried about offering contrary or radical ideas in team meetings because both the team leader and the team members are supportive of new or even seemingly strange ideas and don't laugh at or criticize each other. Kat has a strong feeling of psychological safety within her team.

1) True

2) False

Question 10

Team process training helps a team function and perform more effectively as an intact unit.

1) True

2) False

Question 11

A psychology class has been assigned an individual case study project as well as a group project. The members of the group will receive the same grade for the group project but will be graded separately for their individual projects. Drew, Ben, Donna, and Julia are members of one such group. Drew and Donna worked very hard on the group project. Ben and Julia, however, did not contribute much to the group project because they felt that Drew and Donna would manage to get good grades for it. Instead, they focused their efforts on their individual projects.

Ben and Julia's behavior is an example of:

1) groupthink.

2) staff validity.

3) self-serving bias.

4) social loafing.

5) attribution error.

Question 12

Britney, a manager in an advertising firm, was assigned a team and asked to come up with ideas for an advertising campaign. Britney briefed her team and outlined the purpose of the meeting clearly, after which she asked the members to individually generate ideas and bring their list to the next meeting. In the second meeting, the ideas were compiled, doubts clarified, and ideas built-on, after which the members were then asked to individually rank the ideas and submit the list to Britney, who tabulated the scores and created a list of the five highest rated ideas. Britney adopted _____ to generate the ideas.

1) cross-training

2) conflict management

3) positional rotation

4) cognitive bias

5) nominal group technique

Question 13

_____ reflects whether members possess adequate information about their own task responsibilities.

1) Staff validity

2) Hierarchical sensitivity

3) Boundary spanning

4) Decision informity

5) Groupthink

Question 14

Which three specific factors have been found to account for a team's ability to make effective decisions?

1) Groupthink, social loafing, and process rotation

2) Decision informity, staff validity, and hierarchical sensitivity

3) Transactive memory, transformative memory, and decision memory

4) Individual effort, team effort, and boundary spanning effort

5) Decision redundancy, social facilitation, and transactive memory

Question 15

Rebecca and her students from the drama class have been asked to conduct a play to raise funds for the school library. To make the play a success, Rebecca consults and enlists the help of the headmaster and senior teachers, while her students meet a few theater artists. They also consult a costume designer and a dance choreographer who have agreed to help the team with the play. Such activities involving individuals and groups who are not part of the team are termed as:

1) social loafing.

2) nominal group technique.

3) staff validity.

4) boundary spanning.

5) hierarchical sensitivity.

Question 16

Matt, a training coordinator at ARC Technologies, and his team are organizing a workshop for the employees. Matt is meeting the vice president of finance to get support for an increase in the budget to accommodate a session by a well-known motivational speaker. Matt, in this case, is performing a(n) _____ activity of the boundary-spanning process.

1) groupthink

2) social loafing

3) scout

4) action learning

5) ambassador

Question 17

_____ activities refer to things team members do to obtain information about technology, competitors, or the broader marketplace.

1) Social loafing

2) Task coordinator

3) Action learning

4) Scout

5) Ambassador

Question 18

_____ involve communications that are intended to smooth the performance of work with people or groups in other functional areas.

1) Groupthink activities

2) Scout activities

3) Social loafing activities

4) Ambassador activities

5) Task coordinator activities

Question 19

Which of the following statements is truewith regard to transition processes?

1) These processes are important as the task work is being accomplished.

2) Transition processes are important between periods of work activity.

3) They involve members going out of their way to help or back up other team members.

4) They involve keeping track of things that the team needs to accomplish its work.

5) They drive toward conformity at the expense of other team priorities.

Question 20

What synchronizes team members' activities in a way that makes them mesh effectively and seamlessly?

1) Goal specification

2) Systems monitoring

3) Coordination

4) Helping behavior

5) Strategy formulation

Question 21

Having a cell phone conversation during a rock concert is difficult because of:

1) lack of communication competence.

2) emotional issues.

3) information richness.

4) network structure.

5) the presence of noise.

Question 22

If you say that the information richness of a communication process is high, it means that:

1) the amount of noise in the communication process is high.

2) the amount and depth of information getting transmitted in the communication process is high.

3) the sender is encoding unnecessary information in the communication process.

4) the receiver is unable to decode the information encoded by the sender.

5) the receiver is transmitting an overload of feedback to the sender.

Question 23

In communication, the _____ network is the most effective for teams handling complex tasks.

1) all channel

2) circle

3) Y

4) wheel

5) Y and wheel

Question 24

_____ refer(s) to specific types of feelings and thoughts that coalesce in the minds of team members as a consequence of their experience working together.

1) Team processes

2) Team states

3) Relationship conflict

4) Team contingencies

5) Transportable competency

Question 25

When members of a team develop strong emotional bonds to other members of the team and to the team itself, it refers to _____, which tends to foster high levels of motivation and commitment to the team.

1) cohesion

2) mental models

3) transactive memory

4) potency

5) boundary spanning

Question 26

Which of the following refer(s) to the level of common understanding among team members with regard to important aspects of the team and its tasks?

1) Cohesion

2) Mental models

3) Groupthink

4) Potency

5) Boundary spanning

Question 27

In a project team at Kaizen International, everyone focuses on his or her specialty and what they do best. Members know exactly where they can go to get information when there are gaps in their knowledge, and this team produces synergistic results. This shows that the project team at Kaizen has an effective:

1) staff validity.

2) mental model.

3) transactive memory.

4) potency.

5) hierarchical sensitivity.

Question 28

Burt, Ryan, and Heather are members of the marketing team at Model Industries, Inc. (MII), responsible for generating ideas for new marketing strategies. Burt has done a phenomenal job in gathering information necessary to help the team understand the desires and needs of the client. All things being equal, Heather has the best record of making good recommendations to Jeremy, vice president of marketing. Ryan can make some good recommendations, but sometimes his recommendations are completely off base. Usually, Jeremy pays careful attention to what Heather has to say, but generally does not pay much attention to what Ryan proposes. In addition to Jeremy, Heather has been meeting with the vice president of operations and other members of the executive team to gain support for their request to increase the marketing budget.

The decision-making records of Heather and Ryan reflect which factor in effective decision making at MII?

1) Cohesion

2) Staff validity

3) Hierarchical sensitivity

4) Decision informity

5) Transactive memory

Question 29

Burt, Ryan, and Heather are members of the marketing team at Model Industries, Inc. (MII), responsible for generating ideas for new marketing strategies. Burt has done a phenomenal job in gathering information necessary to help the team understand the desires and needs of the client. All things being equal, Heather has the best record of making good recommendations to Jeremy, vice president of marketing. Ryan can make some good recommendations, but sometimes his recommendations are completely off base. Usually, Jeremy pays careful attention to what Heather has to say, but generally does not pay much attention to what Ryan proposes. In addition to Jeremy, Heather has been meeting with the vice president of operations and other members of the executive team to gain support for their request to increase the marketing budget.

Jeremy's tendency to listen to Heather and ignore Ryan reflects which factor in effective decision making?

1) Production blocking

2) Staff validity

3) Hierarchical sensitivity

4) Decision informity

5) Transition process gain

Question 30

A special surveillance and rescue team is being deployed to counter the menace of pirates in the Indian Ocean. Nick, Sid, Leah, and Kevin are the core members of the team. Nick was elected as the leader of the team. Sid is responsible for monitoring the team's progress toward its goals. Kevin took on the role of motivator and confidence builder for the team. This team has worked together before and has developed a high level of common understanding regarding the team and its mission. Members also strongly believe that the team can be effective across a variety of situations and tasks. As a standard practice, before deployment, the team members observe how other members perform their roles by shadowing and going through simulations.

The team's high level of common understanding refers to which of the following?

1) Potency

2) Cohesion

3) Transactive memory

4) Mental models

5) Boundary spanning