Labour Studies
Test Questions
Course Introduction
Labour Studies explores the dynamics of work, employment relations, and labour movements within local, national, and global contexts. The course examines the history and development of labour organizations, industrial relations, workplace rights, and social justice issues affecting workers. Students analyze the roles of unions, employers, and governments, as well as the impact of globalization, technology, and changing labour markets on work and society. Through interdisciplinary approaches, this course provides a critical understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing workers and workplaces today.
Recommended Textbook
Work Industry and Canadian Society 7th Edition by Harvey Krahn
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14 Chapters
375 Verified Questions
375 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Historical Perspectives on Work 1700-1950s
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27 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following social theorists best predicted what happened in Russia in 1917?
A) Adam Smith.
B) Émile Durkheim.
C) Max Weber.
D) Karl Marx.
Answer: D
Q2) Which of the following is most correct with respect to social theories about the division of labour?
A) Adam Smith believed that it led to widespread alienation among workers.
B) Émile Durkheim argued that it was both economically useful and morally good.
C) Karl Marx believed it increased both profits for owners and the happiness of workers.
D) Max Weber stated that it no longer existed in large bureaucracies.
Answer: B
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Chapter 2: Contemporary Debates on Work 1950s to Present Day
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27 Verified Questions
27 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Based on the work of Foucault, which of the following best describes how power operates in contemporary organizations?
A) Managers participate in direct observation, standing behind workers to observe them.
B) Workers realize that their peers and managers might be watching them at any time.
C) Customer surveys carry more power than manager assessments of workers.
D) New technologies are used to control the pace of work.
Answer: B
Q2) Imagine you are a historian living in the year 2115 and you are tasked to study the major socioeconomic changes that shaped work at the beginning of the 21st century. Outline the most important changes, and explain which you think had the largest impacts for society, as well as for the day-to-day experiences of work by individuals. Answer: <b>Suggested student response</b>: This question is quite open-ended. In terms of socioeconomic changes, students should define and outline industrial restructuring, deindustrialization, and neo-liberalism. Regarding impacts, students could point to the rise of interactive service work (and emotional labour), as well as mobile workers and mobile work, and other impacts they might identify.
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Chapter 3: Canadian Employment Trends
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements best exemplifies recent immigration trends in Canada?
A) Compared to the 1990s, most immigrants come to Canada from African countries.
B) The majority of immigrants now come from European countries.
C) Immigration from Asian countries is contributing to greater workplace diversity.
D) On average, immigrants are older than the Canadian population.
Answer: C
Q2) Which of the following statements best characterizes occupational trends in Canada over the past 25 years?
A) Most service-sector workers are now employed in lower-tier service occupations.
B) Blue-collar occupations have declined since the mid-1980s.
C) Men and women are equally likely to work in blue-collar occupations.
D) Men are more likely than women to be employed in health-related occupations.
Answer: B
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Chapter 4: Good Jobs, Bad Jobs, No Jobs
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is meant by the term nonstandard employment? In a few sentences explain the trends in nonstandard employment in Canada in recent years.
Q2) Based on what you have read in Chapter 4, describe how the types of jobs a Canadian might have expected to obtain have changed over the course of the 20th century. How have the chances of being jobless changed over this time?
Q3) Which of the following is correct about Canadian unemployment trends?
A) Unemployment rates in the past decade have generally been higher than they were in the 1980s and 1990s.
B) Youth unemployment rates have been systematically higher than adult rates for the past few decades.
C) There are few noteworthy regional differences in unemployment rates.
D) Unemployment was higher in the 1980s than in any other decade in the past century.
Q4) The term involuntary part-time worker best describes which of the following?
A) Workers who cannot find a full-time job.
B) Individuals who prefer to work part-time.
C) Individuals who have significant family responsibilities.
D) Students who work part-time while in school.
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Chapter 5: Labour Markets: Opportunities and Inequality
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27 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is correct about the labour force participation of Aboriginal Canadians?
A) In general, their employment and unemployment rates are comparable to non-Aboriginal Canadians.
B) Aboriginal Canadians who live in urban centres <b><u>do not</b> </u>experience discrimination and prejudice among employers.
C) Geographic location limits access to good jobs for many Aboriginal Canadians.
D) On average, Aboriginal Canadians are as likely as other Canadians to have acquired credentials that translate into better jobs.
Q2) Julie is a 30-year-old first-generation Filipina Canadian. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from a well-respected university, yet has recently been forced to take a barista job at a local café. Use the human capital and labour market segmentation theories to analyze Julie's labour market position. Which perspective do you find more convincing? Why?
Q3) In general, what are the labour market experiences of people with disabilities in Canada, compared to the rest of the population?
Q4) Briefly define cultural capital, with a few examples. How does it relate to socioeconomic status?
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Page 7
Chapter 6: Gender and Paid Employment
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Sample Questions
Q1) Rosabeth Moss Kanter's main argument about gender inequality in organizations can be best described by which of the following?
A) Men and women employed in similar occupations in an organization will react in different ways to their job conditions.
B) There is a biological basis for gender inequality in organizations.
C) There is little gender inequality in modern organizations.
D) An individual's position within an organization influences his or her attitudes and behaviour.
Q2) Which of the following is correct about the occupational distribution of women and men in Canada?
A) In general, the gender distribution is even across occupations.
B) A larger percentage of all women work in natural and applied science occupations, compared to all men.
C) Sales and service occupations are comprised of roughly 50 percent women.
D) A larger percentage of all women work in health occupations, compared to all men.
Q3) In a few sentences, describe the "family wage ideology." What have been some of its lasting effects?
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8
Chapter 7: Household, Family, and Caring Work
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26 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Maureta has a high-pressure job as a lawyer, working 50 hours per week. She also performs the majority of the carework for her two-year-old son. Which of the following best describes the emotional and mental fatigue that Maureta experiences from balancing work and family?
A) Child-based conflict.
B) Time-based conflict.
C) Strain-based conflict.
D) Behaviour-based conflict.
Q2) Briefly discuss recent trends in time spent by women and men on housework and childcare in Canada.
Q3) Henrietta and Na'im are married with two young children. Both doctors, they work long hours and have decided to hire a live-in nanny from the Philippines. Their work-family choices best illustrate which of the following?
A) Socioeconomic status impacts a family's ability to outsource carework and household work.
B) The extent to which Canadian families are not interested in carework.
C) The trend for all Canadian families to participate in stratified hierarchies of reproduction.
D) Canadians prefer to spend more time at work than at home.
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Page 9
Chapter 8: Organizing and Managing Work
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Sample Questions
Q1) Alfred D. Chandler Jr. wrote that, "The 'visible hand' of the corporate manager replaced the 'invisible hand' of market forces." Explain what Chandler means by this statement?
Q2) Describe what is meant by the term bureaucracy. What are some of the criticisms that researchers have mounted against bureaucratic organizations? In your opinion, what role will bureaucracies have in Canada over the next half-century? Support your argument with material from Chapter 8, as well as earlier chapters if necessary.
Q3) Which of the following general approaches to management would best characterize the management approach adopted by Best Electric Cars (see Q. 15)?
A) Scientific management.
B) Corporate welfare.
C) Human relations.
D) Globally focused management
Q4) In a few sentences, describe the basic principles of scientific management.
Q5) Describe a work organization that you are familiar with and address how it utilizes elements of scientific management or human relations theory, or both. In your opinion, do these practices work well in this organization? Why or why not?
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Page 10
Chapter 9: In Search of New Managerial Paradigms
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following strategies might senior managers in a government department pursue if they wanted their department to be recognized as a "learning organization?"
A) Watching carefully what their counterparts in other provinces were doing, so they could imitate their successes and avoid their mistakes.
B) Paying close attention to what "clients" were saying, to learn what concerned them.
C) Encouraging department employees to take training courses of many kinds.
D) Paying close attention to what motivated employees in order to increase productivity.
Q2) Quality of working life (QWL) programs can involve a number of different techniques of job task and work organization redesign. In a sentence or two for each, describe four of these techniques.
Q3) Which of the new managerial paradigms discussed in Chapter 9 is likely to be the most influential in Canada 20 years from now, given current labour force and labour market trends? Explain your prediction.
Q4) Briefly define and give an example of each: pay flexibility, functional flexibility, and numerical flexibility.
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Page 11
Chapter 10: Conflict and Control in the Workplace
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following definitions of a type of management control is correct?
A) "Bureaucratic control" involves the use of government laws and regulations.
B) "Responsible autonomy" involves workers regulating themselves.
C) "Technical control" is almost impossible in assembly-line manufacturing.
D) "Electronic control" might be effective, but is illegal in Canada and the United States.
Q2) Employees in many workplaces put a great deal of effort into their work. Which of the following reasons for working this hard would be the best example of Michael Burawoy's concept of "hegemonic organization of work"?
A) Employees want their company to be successful because they feel committed to it.
B) Employees are anxious about being laid off.
C) Employees are aware their performance is being monitored by management.
D) Employees are paid according to their performance.
Q3) Which of the following are the main definitional components of work-related skill?
A) Substantive complexity and decision-making autonomy.
B) Social interaction and technological involvement.
C) Substantive complexity and technological involvement.
D) Decision-making autonomy and social interaction.
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Unions and Industrial Relations
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements best describes results of research on the economic impact of unions?
A) Overall, unions lead to reduced productivity in unionized workplaces.
B) At the societal level, unions are associated with lower wage inequality.
C) On average, they have virtually no effect on employees' wages.
D) They generally lead to higher wages for members, but have no other real effect on working conditions or employment relationships.
Q2) According to mainstream industrial relations theory, the rules and regulations regarding collective agreements have which of the following functions?
A) To ensure that the government does not have to get involved in labour relations.
B) To inject stability into employment relations by making sure unions don't have too much power.
C) To inject stability into employment relations by tilting the balance of power slightly away from management.
D) To discourage workers from joining unions.
Q3) How have Canadian unions changed over the past century? In your opinion, what are some of the key challenges they face today?
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Page 13
Chapter 12: Alternative Approaches to Economic Organization
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following forms of worker involvement are most typical of industrial democracy in Germany?
A) Mandatory works councils in all but the very smallest workplaces.
B) Extensive quality-of-working-life programs.
C) Government support for high-performance workplaces.
D) Widespread employee share ownership plans.
Q2) "No fault compensation systems" for dealing with workplace health and safety issues in Canadian workplaces are characterized by which of the following?
A) Injured workers are compensated for lost wages but cannot sue their employer.
B) The system is funded by contributions provided by both workers and companies.
C) Companies' safety records do not affect how much they have to pay into the system.
D) The system is jointly funded by unions, companies, and provincial governments.
Q3) Briefly explain the key difference between a "worker buyout" and a "producer co-operative."
Q4) Compare and contrast the different approaches to industrial democracy found in Germany and Sweden. Would either of these approaches, or some aspects of them, possibly be useful in Canada? Explain your answer.
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Chapter 13: Work Values and Work Orientations
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Sample Questions
Q1) Briefly discuss some of the manifest and latent functions of work. Make reference to research on unemployment which helps us understand the latent functions.
Q2) Which of the following would be a "latent function" of work, according to Marie Jahoda?
A) Enjoyable interactions with coworkers.
B) A pension that helps maintain a person's standard of living after retirement.
C) The need to get a good education in order to get a good job.
D) The profits a company owner obtains from the work of employees.
Q3) Canada's resource-extraction communities often attract large numbers of workers who come there to make a lot of money quickly. They don't have any strong feelings, either negative or positive, about their bosses, since all they are interested in is earning money and spending it, either immediately or some time later. Which of the following concepts would David Lockwood have used to identify such workers?
A) Privatized workers.
B) Proletarian workers.
C) Maximizing workers.
D) Deferential workers.
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Page 15
Chapter 14: Job Satisfaction, Alienation, and Work-Related Stress
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following was demonstrated by Melvin Kohn's research on "occupational self-direction?"
A) Workers in more complex jobs become less fatalistic and more self-confident.
B) People with few things that interest them are more likely to choose jobs that require little thinking.
C) Many people become self-employed because they don't like taking directions from other people.
D) People working alone are generally more satisfied than those who work in groups.
Q2) Canadian research on the gap between work preferences and work rewards reveals the largest gap for which of the following job characteristics?
A) Interesting work.
B) Opportunities for career advancement.
C) Good pay.
D) Opportunities to make decisions.
Q3) Discuss the negative consequences of job dissatisfaction. Will worker productivity go up if job satisfaction increases in a workplace? Why or why not?
Q4) Briefly outline Karasek's "demand-control" model of workplace stress.
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