Overview

Chapter 11
Managing Conflict and Negotiations Answer Key

True / False Questions

1. Conflict is neither inherently good nor bad, although it is inevitable.

TRUE

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Difficulty: 2 Medium
Learning Objective: 11-01 Explain the contemporary perspective on conflict.
Topic: A Contemporary Perspective on Intergroup Conflict

2. Too little conflict leads to apathy and lethargy and provides little or no impetus for change and innovation.

TRUE

3. Evidence suggests that conflict can improve the quality of decision making and employee relations.

TRUE

4. Even dysfunctional conflict can enhance and benefit an organization’s performance.

FALSE
Functional conflict can enhance and benefit an organization; dysfunctional conflict harms the organization or hinders the achievement of organizational goals.

5. The same level of stress and conflict that creates a healthy and positive movement toward goals in one group may prove disruptive and dysfunctional in another.

TRUE

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 11-01 Explain the contemporary perspective on conflict.
Topic: A Contemporary Perspective on Intergroup Conflict

6. Every organization has an optimal level of conflict that helps generate positive performance.

TRUE

7. The “law and order” approach to conflict management, i.e., managers order people to stop arguing and to get back to work, typically causes the conflict to subside.

FALSE
Managers order people to stop arguing and to get back to work is an “ugly” approach. The conflict doesn’t disappear, but rather goes “underground” and becomes more destructive involved with the issue.

8. When managers keep potentially confrontational information (important to the group) to themselves, it serves to repress conflict.

TRUE
When managers deploy this strategy, it can lead often to higher (and uglier) levels of discord.

9. The law of interorganizational conflict proposes that every group comes into at least partial conflict with every other group with which it interacts.

TRUE

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 11-02 Describe the causes of intergroup conflict.
Topic: What Causes Intergroup Conflict?

10. Work independence is a typical source of intergroup conflict.

FALSE
Work interdependence is typically a source of intergroup conflict.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Difficulty: 1 Easy
Learning Objective: 11-02 Describe the causes of intergroup conflict.
Topic: What Causes Intergroup Conflict?