Organisational Behaviour and HR Basics Questions and Answers

Answer: D

A rule-of-thumb shortcut in decision-making is a heuristic.

Heuristics are simple judgemental shortcuts that people use to make decisions quickly with limited information, such as the availability heuristic (judging likelihood by how easily examples come to mind) or the representativeness heuristic. They save effort but can produce systematic errors, which is why they are discussed among decision biases.

Framing bias is being swayed by the way a problem is presented, such as a 90 per cent survival rate versus a 10 per cent death rate. Hindsight bias is believing, after the event, that the outcome was predictable. Over-confidence bias is overrating the accuracy of one's own judgement. None of these is the rule-of-thumb shortcut itself.

Answer: C

Dividing a job into steps, each done by a different person, is work specialization.

Work specialization, or division of labour, is the degree to which tasks in an organisation are subdivided into separate jobs. Instead of one person doing a whole job, it is broken into steps and each step is completed by a different individual, as on an assembly line. It raises efficiency through repetition and skill, though carried too far it causes boredom.

Departmentalization is the grouping of jobs, once divided, into units such as functions or products. Information sharing and collectiveness are not elements of organisational structure in this sense.

Answer: A

The barriers are moralising, being judgemental and comments of consolation.

These are classic blocking responses. Moralising (telling people what they ought to do) and judging put the listener on the defensive, and ready-made comments of consolation ('don't worry, it will be fine') dismiss the other person's feelings. Each signals that the speaker is not really listening, so the conversation closes down.

Dialogue, summarising and self-review help communication. The third option mixes helpful habits (simple words, a cool reaction) with a barrier (a defensive attitude), so it is not a list of barriers. Personal statements, eye contact and simple narration are all aids to effective communication.

Answer: A

The policy area not in the classification is adjudication policies.

Personnel (HR) policies are classified by the functions of human resource management they govern: employment policies (recruitment, selection, terms of employment), promotion policies, and relations policies (employee and industrial relations), along with others such as pay, training and welfare. These are matters on which a company sets its own policy.

Adjudication is different. It is the compulsory settlement of an industrial dispute by a labour court or tribunal under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, a statutory process outside the employer's control, so it is not a category of personnel policy.

Answer: B

Training need assessment does not need to consider training objectives.

A training need assessment (TNA) comes first in the training cycle. It finds the gap between the performance required and the performance actually achieved by looking at three levels: the organisation (including changes in the external environment and key changes in technology), the task, and the person whose skills are being assessed.

Training objectives are the result of that assessment. They are written after the needs have been identified, to say what the training must achieve, so they are not an input to the assessment. The environment, technology and the person all are.

Answer: B

When the latest information dominates a perception, it is the recency effect.

The recency effect is the tendency to give most weight to the most recent information. In performance appraisal it shows up when a rater judges a whole year by the employee's last few weeks of work, good or bad.

The 'primary effect' (properly the primacy effect) is the opposite: first impressions dominate. The halo effect (printed 'Hallo') is letting one good or bad trait colour the whole judgement of a person. Projection bias is attributing one's own characteristics to others. None concerns the timing of information.

Answer: D

Voluntary behaviour is learned through operant conditioning.

In operant conditioning, described by B.F. Skinner, behaviour is a function of its consequences. A person voluntarily acts, and if the action is followed by a reward it is more likely to be repeated, while if it brings punishment or no reward it becomes less likely. Learning to work hard for a bonus is an example.

Classical conditioning, from Pavlov's experiments with dogs, explains reflexive, involuntary responses to a stimulus, not voluntary behaviour. 'Voluntary conditioning' and 'social conditioning' are not the names of the standard learning theories.

Answer: A

Learning by observing and imitating others is explained by social learning theory.

Albert Bandura's social learning theory holds that people learn not only from their own experience but also by watching models, such as parents, teachers, colleagues and bosses, and copying behaviour that they see rewarded. Attention, retention, reproduction and reinforcement decide how much of the observed behaviour is learned.

Cognitive learning stresses thinking and insight rather than imitation. Programmed learning is a method of self-instruction in small steps with immediate feedback. 'Linear learning' is a format of programmed instruction, not a theory of learning from others.

Answer: C

The University's key gives reinforcing accountability. What could and could not be confirmed: no textbook passage was found that links a common core of values to accountability in particular, so the keyed option rests on the key.

A team's shared core values give its members a common standard against which to judge their own and one another's conduct, and holding each other to that standard is what accountability in a team means; this is the sense in which the key reads the item. Shared values also help a team work together, which is why 'team workability' (option D, printed 'Reforcing') is a close rival that the key does not choose.

Transferability and team role perception have no evident link to a common set of values: role perception is about who does what, not about what the members hold in common.

Answer: B

The correct matching is 1-IV, 2-I, 3-III, 4-II.

• POSDCORB (planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, budgeting) was coined by Luther Gulick in 1937.
• Esprit de corps, union is strength, is one of the fourteen principles of Henri Fayol.
• Integration as the constructive way to resolve conflict is the idea of Mary Parker Follett.
• The illumination experiments at the Hawthorne works were directed by George A. Pennock of Western Electric, before Elton Mayo's team joined.

Options A and C give integration to Pennock, and option D gives esprit de corps to Pennock and the illumination experiment to Fayol, so only option B is right.