Chapter 8: Interdepartmental Communication   1: Which of the following are examples of boundary spanning activities? a. working in cross-functional teams b. negotiating agreements with off-shore partners c. supervising units in different nations d. all of the above   2: A "silo" mentality is where employees are concerned with their own narrow departmental issues, oftentimes at the exclusion of overall company issues. a. true b. false   3: Research has revealed that high context cultures (such as Asian countries) value pithiness and understatement, whereas low context cultures (like the U.S.) value explicitness. a. true b. false   4: How does office design impact interdepartmental communication? a. As separation distance increases, the probability of communicating at least once a week decreases. b. Office design has not been shown to have an effect on the likelihood of communication. c. The taller the partitions separating offices, the greater the likelihood of interpersonal conflict.   5: A geometric increase in the number of departments leads to an arithmetic increase in the number of communication links. a. true b. false   6: Your author notes that _____ skills are especially important for boundary spanners. a. developing and maintaining relationships b. managing meetings c. resolving conflicts d. all of the above e. a and c   7: What type of personal orientation does your author recommend to encourage effective boundary spanning? a. focus on the values of the other culture b. foster an anthropological mindset c. create awareness of one's personal culture d. all of the above e. a and b   8: A company has four departments. They are thinking about adding one more department. How many more communication links will be added to the organization if they add this department? a. one b. two c. three d. four   9: Cross-functional teams bring together people from different departments to manage a project. a. true b. false   10: More recently, innovative companies like Microsoft have set up concurrent or parallel processes where different departments might work on a project at roughly the same time. a. true b. false