Chapter 1: Integrating OB and HRM

1. Max Weber recommended ___________________ as the most efficient and rational way to organize workplaces.

bureaucracy capitalism scientific management division of labour

2. One of the drawbacks of Taylor's focus on efficiency was that it:

had high set-up costs deskilled the workers placed too much pressure on managers did not give enough consideration to performance monitoring

3. Which of the following is NOT a field of study which contributes to OB?

psychology sociology political science mathematics

4. Mary Parker Follett recommended that managers learn to deal with conflict by:

developing their negotiating skills adopting a confident and coercive style of management using a participative approach with employees avoiding it unless it was seriously disrupting performance

5. Many of the tasks that HR departments carry out today were originally part of the supervisors' role.

True False Only true in the USA True in most of the world, but not the USA

6. Boxall (2007) suggests that HRM can be understood as the management of strategic tensions. An example of one of these tensions is:

short-term productivity and long-term adaptability short-term adaptability and long-term productivity short-term productivity and long-term control short-term control and long-term adaptability

7. The best way to develop a depth of understanding of HRM is to:

learn about best practice examples develop an analytical approach to HRM that strives to identify underlying assumptions learn the HRM theories very well learn about the practical tasks of managing employees

8. The 'hard' approach to HRM:

recommends treating human interactions as 'hard data' to be used in strategic decisions tends to be more employee-focused than the 'soft' approach manages 'human' resources in the same way as other organizational resources and takes a quantitative approach aims to ensure fairness, welfare and well-being of employees

9. One of the challenges in the study and application of HRM and OB is that:

they deal with complex situations for which there is rarely 'one right answer' they are too vague to be of any use they both focus too much on theory and not enough on practice they are too difficult to learn

10. A reflective practitioner is someone who:

makes use of benchmarking studies that reflect best practice is skilled at thinking about theories does not need to engage in continuous professional development engages in continuous assessment of their practice and learns from it

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