Quiz

Test you understanding of key chapter concepts by working through this quiz. You can check your answer by clicking on the arrow to the right or on what you think the correct answer is.  The correct answer will then be revealed to you for that question. 

1. Which of the following is part of the definition of culture?

  1. A pattern of learned and shared assumptions
  2. How things are done, or are expected to be done, in a particular organizations
  3. The framing of how organizational members think, perceive and feel
  4. All of the above

Answer: D

2. Why is culture important?

  1. It allows organizational members to understand what is acceptable behavior within the organization
  2. It establishes a set of norms that can be transferred to new organizational members
  3. It aligns members behavior to the objective of the organization
  4. All of the above

Answer: D

3. If all members of an organization understand, share and are committed to the organization’s systems of beliefs and values, that organization is said to have what?

  1. Sub-cultures
  2. A strong culture
  3. A weak culture
  4. A total institution

Answer: B

4. Edgar Schein conceptualized culture as existing at three levels. Which one of the following is NOT one of those levels?

  1. Values
  2. Basic assumptions
  3. Climate
  4. Artifacts

Answer: C

5. Which of the following is an incorrect assumption about “strong” organizational culture?

  1. Strong culture means everyone in the organization shares and is committed to the organizations norms
  2. Organizations with strong cultures will always outperform other organizations
  3. Strong culture can lead to organizational problems like groupthink
  4. Both a and b

Answer: B

6. The argument that a strong organizational culture leads to superior organizational performance was originally articulated by ___________.

  1. Karl Marx
  2. Kono and Clegg
  3. Peters and Waterman
  4. Terence and Patrick

Answer: C

7. If a sub-culture reflects a cohesive group and is a defender of plausible ideas it may become _______________.

  1. A danger to organizational culture
  2. An illegitimate sub-culture
  3. A legitimate subculture
  4. None of the above

Answer: C

8. If sub-culture challenges legitimate values it becomes _______________.

  1. A counterculture
  2. A dominant culture
  3. A legitimate subculture
  4. A deadly subculture

Answer: A

9. Which one of the following would NOT be typical of the fragmentation perspective of organizational culture?

  1. Culture defragments people into a unified, strong culture
  2. Culture promotes ambiguity which provides a protective shroud from the meaninglessness of everyday organizational life
  3. Culture is never consistent nor clearly contested, it forms around certain emergent issues and then dissolves as people regulate their position within cultural spaces created for and around them
  4. All of the above

Answer: A

10. Which of the following statements are characteristics of ‘postmodernist’ conceptions of organizational culture as text?

  1. Organization culture is complex, and can be read in fragments
  2. Culture can be viewed more as a ‘text’
  3. All texts suppress, silence and marginalize some elements of discursive reality
  4. All of the above

Answer: D

11. Which one of the following constructs are NOT one of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions?

  1. Power distance
  2. Indulgence versus restraint
  3. Power status
  4. Masculinity versus femininity

Answer: C

12. Which one of the following constructs are NOT one of the variable of culture identified in the GLOBE Project?

  1. Power distance
  2. Humane orientation
  3. In-group collectivism
  4. Risk-avoidance

Answer: D