Human Resource Management: Strategic and International Perspectives
Student Resources
Multiple Choice Quiz
1. Definitions of HRM tend to assume that:
- HRM is a strategic perspective on people management
- That an organisation’s sustained competitive advantage will only be secured by an investment in your people
- It is essential to secure a highly skilled and committed workforce
- All of the above
Answer:
d. All of the above
2. Ulrich & Brockbank’s (2005) HR Leader Model proposes the following roles for HRM:
- Strategic Partner, Human Capital Developer, Employee Advocate and Functional Expert
- Conformist Innovator, Deviant Innovator, Problem Solver and Change Agent
- Regulator, Handmaiden, Advisor and Change Maker
- Adapter, Consultant, Synergist and Champion
Answer:
a. Strategic Partner, Human Capital Developer, Employee Advocate and Functional Expert
3. ‘Hard HRM’ refers to HR policies and practices that:
- Focus on gaining the commitment and engagement of employees
- Focus on setting targets and measuring employees’ performance
- Are difficult for employers to initiate
- Help develop a robust and tenacious workforce
Answer:
b. Focus on setting targets and measuring employees’ performance
4. ‘Soft HRM’ refers to HR policies and practices that:
- Focus on the control and coordination of employees’ work
- Emphasise employees’ compliance with organisational rules and regulations
- Focus on developing employees’ intrinsic motivation at work
- Promote a weak and feeble workforce
Answer:
c. Focus on developing employees’ intrinsic motivation at work
5. Scientific Management proposes that greater workplace efficiency will be promoted by:
- Mechanising the workplace, simplifying and routinising work and closely aligning pay with individual productivity outputs
- Mechanising the workplace, simplifying and routinising work and closely aligning pay with team-based productivity outputs
- Developing cross-functional teams and providing employees with greater decision-making responsibility and ownership
- Providing a greater role for Research and Development in organisations.
Answer:
a. Mechanising the workplace, simplifying and routinising work and closely aligning pay with individual productivity outputs
6. Critical perspectives on HRM suggest that:
- HRM is just a new name for traditional management practices
- HRM is principally about gaining the control and compliance of employees against the strategic goals of the organisation
- Empirical evidence for the positive outcomes of HRM is limited and thus the ‘reality’ of HRM in practice is limited.
- All of the above
Answer:
d. All of the above
7. HR outsourcing:
- Is about setting up your HR function in a foreign country
- Is about reducing the costs of the HR function
- Is an HR organising model that seeks to support both the strategic and operational roles of HRM
- All of the above
Answer:
c. Is an HR organising model that seeks to support both the strategic and operational roles of HRM
8. PESTEL refers to the:
- Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Educational and Legal environment factors that affect a business and its HR policies and practices
- Political, External, Social, Technological, Educational and Legal environmental factors that affect a business and its HR policies and practices
- Political, Economic, Scientific, Technological, Educational and Legal environmental factors that affect a business and its HR policies and practices
- Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors that affect a business and its HR policies and practices
Answer:
d. Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors that affect a business and its HR policies and practices
9. The ‘triple bottom line’ refers to an organisation’s:
- Economic, HR and CSR performance
- Economic, Social and Environmental performance
- Business, HR and Environmental performance
- Social, Environmental and Sustainability performance
Answer:
b. Economic, Social and Environmental performance
10. The CIPD suggest that HR professionals require the following skills/traits to be a successful HR practitioner:
- Curious, decisive, collaborative, credible
- Autocratic, egoistic, autonomous, risk taking
- Affable, generous, easy going, caring
- Risk averse, introverted, conforming, agreeable
Answer:
a. Curious, decisive, collaborative, credible