BU288 MIDTERM #1 STUDY GUIDE (SECTIONS B2 & B6)
Date: Saturday January 30, 2021
Time: 3:00 – 4:30 pm
Location: online (Respondus Lockdown Browser + WebCam)
*Make sure you complete the online exam preparation quiz on MyLS before the exam
Duration: 90 minutes
Weight: 20%
Guidelines for using Respondus Lockdown Browser
https://students.wlu.ca/virtual/assets/resources/guidelines-for-the-use-of-responduslockdown-browser-and-monitor-in-assessments.html
The midterm will consist of:
• 30 multiple-choice questions (1 point each)
• 3 short-answer questions (10 points each) – there will be 4 questions, but you only need
to answer 3 of them.
The midterm will include the following materials:
• Textbook chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, & Appendix on Research in OB
• All lecture slides
**Note: if you miss a class, it’s your responsibility to borrow notes from your classmates
How to prepare for the midterm:
1. Multiple-choice questions:
- Read the 11th ed. of the textbook (multiple-choice questions will be drawn
directly from the textbook).
- Make sure you go over the textbook topic checklist (see below) – some concepts
from the textbook that are not covered in class may appear on the midterm as
multiple-choice questions.
- Go over textbook chapter summaries that are on MyLS.
2. Short-answer questions:
- Go over the lecture slides (short-answer questions will be based on both what
was covered in lectures and the textbook).
- Make sure you understand (rather than simply memorize) the material on the
lecture slides. You will be tested on your understanding and application of the
material. My best suggestion is to be familiar with the terms and concepts and
think about how they would apply to a real work setting. Integration and
application of materials from the class is what I am looking for.
- We will go over example short-answer questions and model answers in class the
week before the midterm.
Happy studying and good luck!
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TEXTBOOK TOPICS CHECKLIST
CHAPTER 1 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR AND MANAGEMENT
CHAPTER 1 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define organizations and describe their basic characteristics.
2. Explain the concept of organizational behaviour and describe the goals of the field.
3. Define management and describe what managers do to accomplish goals.
4. Contrast the classical viewpoint of management with that advocated by the human
relations movement.
5. Describe the contingency approach to management.
6. Explain what managers do — their roles, activities, agendas for action, and thought
processes.
7. Describe the four contemporary management concerns facing organizations and how
organizational behaviour can help organizations understand and manage these
concerns.
CHAPTER 1 TEXTBOOK STUDY CHECKLIST
• What are organizations?
• What is organizational behaviour?
o Organizational behaviour
o Human resources management
• Why study organizational behaviour?
• How much do we know about organizational behaviour?
• Goals of organizational behaviour
o Predicting organizational behaviour
o Explaining organizational behaviour
o Managing organizational behaviour
o Evidence-based management
• Early prescriptions concerning management
o The classical view and bureaucracy
o The Human Relations Movement and a critique of bureaucracy
• Contemporary management — the contingency approach
• What do managers do?
o Managerial roles
o Managerial activities
o Managerial agendas
o Managerial minds
o International managers
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• Some contemporary management concerns
o Diversity – local and global
o Employee health and well-being
o Talent management and employee engagement
o Corporate social responsibility
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CHAPTER 2 PERSONALITY AND LEARNING
CHAPTER 2 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define personality and describe the dispositional, situational, and interactionist
approaches to organizational behaviour.
2. Discuss the Five-Factor Model of personality, locus of control, self-monitoring, and selfesteem.
3. Discuss positive and negative affectivity, proactive personality, general self-efficacy, and
core self-evaluations and their consequences.
4. Define learning and describe what is learned in organizations.
5. Explain operant learning theory and differentiate between positive and negative
reinforcements, and extinction and punishment, and explain how to punish effectively.
6. Explain when to use immediate versus delayed reinforcement and when to use
continuous versus partial reinforcement.
7. Explain social cognitive theory and discuss observational learning, self-efficacy
beliefs, and self-regulation.
8. Discuss the following organizational learning practices: organizational behaviour
modification, employee recognition programs, and training and development programs.
CHAPTER 2 TEXTBOOK STUDY CHECKLIST
• What is personality?
• Personality and organizational behaviour
o The Five-Factor Model of personality
Research evidence
o Other personality concepts
Locus of control
Self-monitoring
Self-esteem
Positive and negative affectivity
Proactive personality
General self-efficacy
Core self-evaluations
• What is learning?
o What do employees learn?
o Operant learning theory
• Increasing the probability of behaviour
o Positive reinforcement
o Negative reinforcement
o Organizational errors involving reinforcement
Confusing rewards with reinforcers
Neglecting diversity in preferences for reinforcers
Neglecting important sources of reinforcement
• Performance feedback
• Social recognition
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o Reinforcement strategies
• Reducing the probability of behaviour
o Extinction
o Punishment
Using punishment effectively
• Social cognitive theory
o Observational learning
o Self-efficacy beliefs
o Self-regulation
• Organizational learning practices
o Organizational behaviour modification
o Employee recognition programs
o Training and development programs
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CHAPTER 3 PERCEPTION, ATTRIBUTION, AND DIVERSITY
CHAPTER 3 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define perception and discuss some of the general factors that influence perception.
2. Explain social identity theory and Bruner’s model of the perceptual process.
3. Describe the main biases in person perception.
4. Describe how people form attributions about the causes of behaviour and various biases
in attribution.
5. Discuss the concepts of workforce diversity and valuing diversity and how racial, ethnic,
religious, gender, age, and LGBT stereotypes affect organizational behaviour and what
organizations can do to manage diversity.
6. Discuss trust perceptions and perceived organizational support, and describe
organizational support theory.
7. Discuss person perception and perceptual biases in human resources.
CHAPTER 3 TEXTBOOK STUDY CHECKLIST
• What is perception?
• Components of perception
o The perceiver
The perceiver’s experience, needs, and emotions can affect his or her
perceptions
o The target
o The situation
• Social identity theory
• A model of the perceptual process
o Bruner’s model points out three common perceptual tendencies
Selectivity
Constancy
Consistency
• Basic biases in person perception
o Primacy and recency effects
o Reliance on central traits
o Implicit personality theories
o Projection
o Stereotyping
• Attribution: perceiving causes and motives
o Three implicit questions guide our decisions as to whether we should attribute
the behaviour to dispositional or situational causes
Does the person engage in the behaviour regularly and consistently?
(consistency cues)
Do most people engage in the behaviour, or is it unique to this person?
(consensus cues)
Does the person engage in the behaviour in many situations, or is it
distinctive to one situation? (distinctiveness cues)
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•
•
•
•
o Attribution in action
o Biases in attribution
Fundamental attribution error
Actor-observer effect
Self-serving bias
Person perception and workforce diversity
o Workforce diversity
o The changing workplace
o Valuing diversity
o Stereotypes and workforce diversity
o Stereotype threat
Racial, ethnic, and religious stereotypes
Gender stereotypes
Age stereotypes
LGBTQ stereotypes
o Managing workforce diversity
Perceptions of trust
Perceived organizational support
Person perception in human resources
o Perceptions of recruitment and selection
o Perceptions in the employment interview
o Perceptions and the performance appraisal
Objective and subjective measures
Rater errors
• Leniency
• Harshness
• Central tendency
• The halo effect
• Similar-to-me effects
o Techniques for reducing perceptual errors & biases
Behaviourally anchored rating scale (BARS)
Frame-of-reference (FOR) training
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CHAPTER 4 – VALUES, ATTITUDES, AND WORK BEHAVIOUR
CHAPTER 4 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define values and discuss the implications of cross-cultural variation in values for
organizational behaviour.
2. Define attitudes and explain how people develop attitudes.
3. Explain the concept of job satisfaction and discuss some of its key contributors,
including discrepancy, fairness, disposition, mood, and emotion.
4. Explain the relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism, turnover,
performance, organizational citizenship behaviour, and customer satisfaction.
5. Differentiate affective, continuance, and normative commitment and explain how
organizations can foster organizational commitment.
CHAPTER 4 TEXTBOOK STUDY CHECKLIST
• What are values?
o Generational differences in values
o Cultural differences in values
Work centrality
Hofstede’s study
• Power distance
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Masculinity/femininity
• Individualism/collectivism
• Long-term/short-term orientation
Cultural distance
Cultural tightness versus looseness
Implications of cultural variation
• What are attitudes?
o Attitude behaviour
o Belief + value attitude behaviour
• What is job satisfaction?
• What determines job satisfaction?
o Discrepancy theory
o Fairness
Distributive fairness
Procedural fairness
Interactional fairness
o Disposition
o Mood and emotion
o In summary, job satisfaction is a function of certain dispositional factors,
discrepancy between the job outcomes wanted and received, and mood and
emotion. People experience greater job satisfaction when they meet or exceed
the job outcomes they want, perceive the job outcomes they receive as
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equitable compared with those others receive, and believe that fair procedures
determine job outcomes
o Some key contributors to job satisfaction
Mentally challenging work
Adequate compensation
Career opportunities
People
• Consequences of job satisfaction
o Absence from work
o Turnover
o Performance
o Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB)
o Customer satisfaction and profit
• What is organizational commitment?
Affective commitment is commitment based on identification and
involvement with an organization.
Continuance commitment is commitment based on the costs that would
be incurred in leaving an organization.
Normative commitment is commitment based on ideology or a feeling of
obligation to an organization.
o Key contributors to organizational commitment
o Consequences of organizational commitment
o Changes in the workplace and employee commitment
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APPENDIX – RESEARCH IN ORGANIZTIONAL BEHAVIOUR
APPENDIX – LEARNING OBJECTIVES 3 A.4 A.5 A.6
1. Explain what a hypothesis is and define the meaning of a variable.
2. Distinguish between independent and dependent variables and moderating and
mediating variables.
3. Differentiate reliability from validity and convergent validity from discriminant validity.
4. Understand observational research and distinguish between participant and direct
observation.
5. Describe correlational research and explain why causation cannot be inferred from
correlation.
6. Explain experimental research and the meaning of internal validity, and discuss threats
to internal validity.
7. Discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of different research techniques.
8. Describe random sampling, random assignment, and external validity and the role they
play in the research process.
9. Explain quasi-experimental design and how it differs from experimental research.
10. Explain the Hawthorne effect and how it can occur.
11. Discuss the basic ethical concerns to which researchers must attend.
APPENDIX – TEXTBOOK STUDY CHECKLIST
• The basics of organizational research
o Types of variables
Independent variable
Dependent variable
Moderating variable
Mediating variable
o Measurement of variables
Reliability
Validity
• Convergent validity
• Discriminant validity
• Observational techniques
o Participant observation
o Direct observation
• Correlational techniques
o Correlation & causation
• Experimental techniques
o Control group
o Threats to internal validity
Selection of participants
Testing
Instrumentation
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Statistical regression
History
Maturation
Mortality
• A continuum of research techniques
• Combining research techniques
• Issues and concerns in organizational behaviour research
o Sampling
External validity
Random sampling
o Hawthorne Effect
o Ethics
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