Unit 4: Conflict, Negotiations and Stress - Practice Quiz

1 Which organizational condition commonly causes conflict when employees must compete for a limited budget?

2 Conflict caused by unclear messages or misunderstandings is mainly linked to:

3 Which factor may create conflict when two departments pursue incompatible outcomes?

4 Which source of conflict arises when an employee receives incompatible demands from different managers?

5 Conflict occurring within a single individual is called:

6 A disagreement between two coworkers is an example of:

7 A dispute between the marketing and production departments is best classified as:

8 Which type of conflict focuses on disagreement about how work should be completed?

9 The traditional approach generally views organizational conflict as:

10 According to the modern interactionist approach, some conflict can be:

11 Conflict that supports organizational goals and improves performance is known as:

12 Negotiation is a process in which parties attempt to:

13 Which negotiation approach aims to find a solution that benefits all parties?

14 What is the role of a mediator in conflict resolution?

15 A factor or condition that causes stress is called a:

16 Which workplace condition is a common source of employee stress?

17 Which outcome is commonly associated with prolonged workplace stress?

18 Which technique can reduce stress by helping employees organize tasks and deadlines?

19 Which physical activity is commonly recommended for managing stress?

20 Which practice manages stress by focusing attention calmly on the present moment?

21 Two departments repeatedly disagree because both require the same limited pool of technical specialists to meet their deadlines. What is the primary source of this conflict?

22 A project team agrees on its goal but disagrees about whether tasks should be assigned by expertise or availability. Which type of conflict is occurring?

23 An employee feels torn between reporting a colleague's misconduct and remaining loyal to the colleague. At which level is this conflict primarily occurring?

24 A manager believes all workplace conflict is harmful and immediately suppresses any disagreement during meetings. Which approach does this represent?

25 A team leader deliberately encourages respectful debate because the team has become passive and uncreative. Which view of conflict supports this action?

26 A supplier and retailer resolve a price dispute by agreeing to a longer contract in exchange for a lower unit price. Which negotiation approach are they using?

27 Before salary negotiations, an applicant decides that accepting another company's existing offer is preferable to receiving less than $60,000. What does the other offer represent?

28 Two departments negotiate over how to divide a fixed annual budget, and any additional amount received by one reduces the amount available to the other. What form of negotiation is this?

29 Employees and management invite a neutral person to facilitate discussion without imposing a binding decision. Which conflict-resolution method is being used?

30 During a wage negotiation, both sides use industry salary surveys rather than relying only on their opening demands. Which negotiation principle does this illustrate?

31 A newly promoted employee receives no clear information about decision-making authority or performance expectations. Which workplace stressor is most evident?

32 An employee spends substantial time completing unnecessary approval forms that prevent progress toward important goals. How is this demand best classified?

33 After months of intense emotional demands, a customer-service employee becomes exhausted, detached from customers, and doubtful about personal effectiveness. What is the most likely condition?

34 A moderate deadline improves an analyst's concentration, but an extremely tight deadline causes errors and anxiety. Which principle best explains this pattern?

35 An employee responds to workload stress by negotiating priorities, delegating suitable tasks, and requesting an adjusted deadline. Which strategy is being used?

36 A nurse cannot change an unusually demanding shift, so she uses breathing exercises to regulate anxiety during breaks. Which strategy does this illustrate?

37 A manager feels overwhelmed by competing deadlines. Which action would most directly improve time management?

38 Employee surveys show widespread stress caused by unpredictable schedules. Which organizational intervention most directly addresses the source?

39 A design team cannot finish its work until the research team provides customer data, while the research team needs design input to structure its study. Which source of conflict is most likely?

40 Marketing favors rapid product customization, while operations favors standardization to control costs. The disagreement is mainly an example of which level of conflict?

41 A sales unit is rewarded for maximizing customized orders, while operations is rewarded for minimizing product variation. Because production cannot begin until sales finalizes specifications, disputes recur even when communication is accurate. Which diagnosis best identifies the conflict source?

42 After a restructuring, both product managers and regional managers believe they have final authority over pricing. Their objectives are compatible, but decisions are repeatedly delayed. What is the most direct source of conflict?

43 Engineers use the term release-ready to mean technically stable, while compliance officers use it to mean legally approved. Both groups act consistently with their own interpretation and subsequently blame each other. Which source is primary?

44 A project team agrees on both its objective and the preferred technical solution. Members nevertheless dispute who should perform each activity, when handoffs should occur, and how responsibilities should be coordinated. What type of conflict predominates?

45 An analyst is instructed by the finance director to delay a report until every figure is verified, but the operations director orders the analyst to release it immediately. The analyst accepts both supervisors' authority. How should this conflict be classified?

46 Within one innovation team, long-tenured engineers are concentrated in hardware roles and recent recruits are concentrated in software roles. A technical disagreement rapidly becomes an old-versus-new employee dispute. Which interpretation is most accurate?

47 A manager treats every disagreement as evidence of poor leadership and immediately suppresses dissent to restore harmony. Which assumption most closely underlies this response?

48 A cohesive executive team approves proposals rapidly, rarely questions assumptions, and repeatedly overlooks strategic risks. Under the interactionist view, what is the best intervention?

49 During a design review, evidence-based disagreement initially improves the proposal. Later, members begin questioning one another's competence, information sharing declines, and implementation slows. Which conclusion best fits the modern view of conflict?

50 A buyer can obtain a substitute for $124,000 but would incur an additional $4,000 integration cost. A seller's best alternative yields $113,000 but requires $5,000 in transaction costs. Assuming the current deal has no corresponding extra costs, what is the bargaining zone?

51 A supplier values predictable production more than a high unit price, while a buyer values flexible delivery more than extended payment terms. Which proposal most directly applies integrative negotiation?

52 A counterpart opens with an extreme but superficially credible demand, creating a strong anchoring risk. Which response is most likely to reduce that anchor's influence without making an immediate concession?

53 Two departments have reached an impasse, but they need to preserve their working relationship and want to retain authority over the final agreement. Which third-party process is most suitable?

54 A buyer and seller disagree sincerely about whether a new product will exceed one million sales, and neither side has superior evidence. What agreement best exploits rather than merely compromises this difference?

55 Two managers face equally demanding assignments. One views the assignment as a controllable opportunity for mastery; the other views it as an uncontrollable barrier to advancement. Which concept best explains their different stress reactions?

56 A service employee must remain courteous to abusive customers, conceal genuine frustration, and display emotions the employee does not feel. Which stressor is most directly present?

57 A complex diagnostic task and a routine sorting task are performed under increasing physiological arousal. According to the arousal-performance relationship, which prediction is most defensible?

58 An organization rewards perfect attendance despite sustained overload. Recorded absenteeism falls, but errors, exhaustion, and working while ill increase. Which interpretation is strongest?

59 Which set correctly matches the level of stress intervention with an example?

60 An employee faces an imminent audit containing correctable documentation gaps and an irreversible past decision that cannot be changed. Which coping strategy is most appropriate?