PYC4810 – Psychology of Work Exam Preparations
Exam Questions and Answers to past papers from January/February 2016,
January/February 2017 and October/November 2017
Answers taken from the chapters in the prescribed book: Greenberg, J. (2011).
Behaviour in organizations (10th ed.). Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
Compiled by: PsychHonours Student
,CHAPTERS IN THE PRESCRIBED BOOK
Chapter 1: The field of organizational behaviour
Chapter 2: Organisational justice, ethics, and corporate social responsibility
Chapter 3: Perception and learning: understanding and adapting to the work
environment
Chapter 4: Individual differences: personality, skills, and abilities
Chapter 5: Coping with organisational life: emotions and stress
Chapter 6: Work-related attitudes: prejudice, job satisfaction and organisational
commitment
Chapter 7: Motivation in organisations
Chapter 8: Group dynamics and work teams
Chapter 9: Communication in organisations
Chapter 11: Interpersonal behaviour at work: conflict, cooperation, trust and deviance
Chapter 13: Leadership in organisations
,JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016
SECTION A
QUESTION 1
Briefly define the concept of downsizing and the divergence hypothesis and discuss
how the field of organisational behaviour is currently being influenced by advances in
technology as well as racial and ethnic diversity in the workplace. (25 marks) (Chapter
1)
Unlike the gradual process of automaton today’s technology – and the process of
informating – is occurring so rapidly that the very nature of work is changing as fast as
we can keep up. With this, many jobs are appearing, leaving organisations (at least the
most successful ones!) smaller than before.
“Downsizing” organisations have been rapidly reducing the number of employees
needed to operate effectively. “Divergence hypothesis” is an approach to the study
of management which recognises that knowing how to manage most effectively requires
clear understanding of the culture in which people work.
There is influence nowadays by the advances in technology.
As more work is shifted to digital brains, some work that once was performed by human
brains becomes obsolete. Many organisations need fewer people to operate today than
in the past – sometimes. It’s important to note that we’re talking here not about jobs lost
due to economic downturns but to change in the way work is organised that no longer
makes certain jobs necessary.
By “outsourcing” completely eliminate those parts of themselves that focus on
noncore sectors of the business (i.e. tasks that are peripheral to the organisation) and
hire outside firms to perform these functions instead. The key capability, which is
known as its “core competency” is the process of outsourcing secondary activities, so
that an organisation can focus on what it does best.
A “virtual organisation” is a highly flexible, temporary organisation formed by a group
of companies that join forces to exploit a specific opportunity. As more and more
companies are outsourcing various organisational functions and are paring down to
their core competencies, they might not be able to perform all the tasks required to
complete a project. However, they certainly can perform their own highly specialised
parts of it very well. Now, if you put together several organisations whose
competencies complement each other and have them work together on a special
project, you’d have a very strong group of collaborators. This is the idea behind an
organisational arrangement that is growing in popularity.
, The practice of “telecommuting” or “teleworking” has been growing in popularity. This
is the practice of using communications technology to enable work to be performed from
remote locations, such as the home or any place with e-mail access.
Racial and ethnic diversity is reality
Just as growing numbers of women have made men less of a majority, so too has an
influx of people from different racial and ethnic groups and differences in birth rates
made white people a smaller majority.
QUESTION 2
Briefly define the concept of communication and describe how technology has
influenced organisational communication. Explain how communication skills may be
improved. (25 marks) (Chapter 9)
We define “communication” as the process by which a person, group, or organisation
(the “sender”) transmits some type of information (the “message”) to another person,
group or organisation (the “receiver”).
Techniques include measures that can be taken by individuals, as well as tactics for
improving communication that involve entire organisations
Improving Your Communication Skills
Use Jargon Sparingly
“Jargon” is a specialised language limited to use by people in certain fields. Jargon
also plays another important function. It allows professionals to identify unknown others
as people in their field because they “speak the same language.” Obviously, within
professions jargon helps communication, but it can lead to confusion when use outside
the groups within which it has meaning although jargon may be useful to those who are
in the know, it only confuses messages sent to the uninitiated. In many cases, jargon
takes the form of “acronyms,” a series of letters serving as an abbreviation for a
particular entity of some type, usually pronounced as if it were a word. As such, they
serve as useful shortcuts – if, of course, you know what they mean.
Be consistent in what you say and do
Managers communicating with their subordinates often send inconsistent messages by
saying one thing but doing another. We’re not necessarily even talking about major
things such as speaking out against fraud but committing it oneself. Inconsistencies in
even small things can lead to problems.
Consider, for example, the case of Kristen J. the operations manager of a large
consumer products company. For years, she has been telling her direct reports to
