In recent years much attention has been paid to distilling those

Question

In recent years much attention has been paid to distilling those factors that create a positive work environment for corporate employees. The goal ultimately is to discover what allows some companies to foster high employee morale while other companies struggle with poor productivity and high managerial turnover. Several theories have been posited, but none has drawn as much interest from the corporate world, or has as much promise, as value congruence, which measures the "fit" between an employee's values and those of co-workers and the company itself.

Value congruence can be broken into three main subcategories: person-environment ("P-E"), person-person ("P-P"), and perceptual fit ("PF"). Person-environment congruence refers to a harmony between the personal values of the employee and corporate culture of the company in which he or she works. Someone with a high P-E congruence feels personally in tune with his company's stated policies and goals. Conversely, someone with a low P-E congruence feels a sense of disharmony between his own values and the stated policies and goals of his company. A high P-P congruence indicates a sense of solidarity with one's co-workers in terms of shared values and goals. A low P-P congruence indicates a sense of isolation from co-workers brought about by an absence of shared values. Finally, strong PF suggests a strong correspondence between the values that an employee perceives his company to have (whether or not the company actually does) and the values that his co-workers perceive the company to have (again, whether or not it actually does). A weak PF implies that an employee's perception of his company's values differs significantly from that of his co-workers.

Research has shown that P-E and PF congruence are important measures of employee satisfaction, commitment, and likelihood of turnover, although P-P congruence has little bearing on these parameters. Moreover, PF is especially important in establishing harmonious relations between workers and managers. These measures give corporations a robust paradigm on the basis of which to create long-term personnel plans and productivity growth targets: in particular, P-E and PF congruence allow companies to discover dysfunctional work relationships and clarify misperceived company policies and goals. With these tools in hand, companies can look forward to increased employee satisfaction and, ultimately, improved company performance.   1 
 1. According to the passage, which of the following was a motivation in the creation of the system of value congruence?

A. a desire to minimize the liability of upper management for employee dissatisfaction
B. a desire to help companies to improve their internal harmony
C. a desire to allow employees to increase their earning potential
D. a desire to foster awareness of factors influencing managerial success
E. a desire to eliminate discrepancies between a company’s goals and the values of its employees

2 
 2. The passage suggests that perceptual fit congruence would be most useful in determining which of the following?

A. whether a company ought to make its policies and goals more transparent
B. whether a company ought to provide sensitivity training for its management
C. whether a company ought to create more opportunities for interaction among workers
D. whether a company ought to address employee grievances more directly
E. whether a company ought to implement a more elaborate orientation program for new employees

3 
 3. The primary focus of the passage is on which of the following?

A. Comparing a new theory of corporate performance to a discredited theory and predicting the usefulness of the new theory.
B. Illustrating a new approach to measuring employee satisfaction through a detailed analysis of a particular case.
C. Challenging an old view of employee commitment and suggesting that a new paradigm is necessary.
D. Promoting a new method of measuring the likelihood of corporate success by explaining its benefits
E. Defending a proposed system of corporate analysis through examples of its success.

guddo · Accepted Answer

Official Explanations:

1. The question asks us to determine which of the choices was a motivation in the creation of the system of value congruence. According to the passage (lines 6-9), value congruence was one of the theories that was posited "to discover what allows some companies to foster high employee morale while other
companies struggle with poor productivity and high managerial turnover."

(A) Poor productivity, high managerial turnover, and employee morale have little to do with the liability of upper management for employee satisfaction.

(B) CORRECT. Poor productivity, high managerial turnover, and employee morale are related to a company's internal harmony or

lack thereof. The proof sentence does not correlate directly to this answer choice, making this a fairly difficult question.

(C) Poor productivity, high managerial turnover, and employee morale have little to do with the earning potential of employees.

(D) Poor productivity, high managerial turnover, and employee morale have little to do with the factors influencing managerial success.

(E) Poor productivity, high managerial turnover, and employee morale have little to do with the discrepancies between a company's goals and the values of its employees.

The correct answer is B

2. The question asks us to determine which of the choices would be the best use for perceptual fit ("PF"). The passage defines perceptual fit as the congruence between a given employee's perception of his company's values and the perception of the company's values held by other employees. Therefore, we need to determine which answer choice could be determined using this measure.

(A) CORRECT. This choice suggests that PF could be used to determine whether a company ought to make its policies and goals more transparent. PF will indicate to a company whether its employees generally see the company's values the same way. This would be useful in determining whether the company needed to do a better job in making those values clear to its employees.

(B) This choice suggests that PF could be used to determine whether a company ought to provide sensitivity training for its management. PF is not relevant to issues of sensitivity training.

(C) This choice suggests that PF could be used to determine whether a company ought to create more opportunities for interaction among workers. Since PF is used to determine whether employees hold the same view of the company's values, this choice may seem attractive. But it does not specifically relate to the notion of company values, as choice A does.

(D) This choice suggests that PF could be used to determine whether a company needed to address employee grievances more directly. PF is not related to the concept of company values.

(E) This choice suggests that PF could be used to determine whether a company ought to have a more elaborate orientation program for new employees. PF is not related to the concept of company values as seen by employees.

The correct answer is A.

3. This question asks us to find a choice that describes the primary focus of the passage. The correct answer must cover the entirety of the passage without misrepresenting it.

(A) This choice mentions a comparison between a new theory and a "discredited theory". Since there is no discussion of a discredited theory in the passage, this choice is incorrect.

(B) This choice mentions a "detailed analysis of a particular case". Since the passage does not focus on a particular case, this choice is incorrect.

(C) This choice describes the passage as challenging an "old view of employee commitment". Since the passage does not discuss old views of employee commitment, this choice is incorrect.

(D) CORRECT. This choice describes the passage as "promoting a new method of measuring the likelihood of corporate success" – so far, so good – and as "explaining its benefits". This covers the entirety of the passage and describes its purpose and function accurately.

(E) This choice states that the passage defends "a proposed system of corporate analysis through examples of its success." Since the passage does not discuss examples of success, this choice is incorrect.

The correct answer is D.

arvind910619 · Answer

Although i got question 2 wrong .
But on the second reading of the passage it became clear that A is the correct answer.
Moreover, PF is especially important in establishing harmonious relations between workers and managers. These measures give corporations a robust paradigm on the basis of which to create long-term personnel plans and productivity growth targets: in particular,  P-E and PF congruence allow companies to discover dysfunctional work relationships and clarify misperceived company policies and goals.

jawele · Answer

This one's a nice passage. I got all in 8 min. and 1 wrong

1. According to the passage, which of the following was a motivation in the creation of the system of value congruence?
A) a desire to minimize the liability of upper management for employee dissatisfaction  (I think the answer is here: 'much attention has been paid to distilling those factors that create a positive work environment for corporate employees.') 
B) a desire to help companies to improve their internal harmony
C) a desire to allow employees to increase their earning potential
D) a desire to foster awareness of factors influencing managerial success
E) a desire to eliminate discrepancies between a company’s goals and the values of its employees  (this one's tempting, but this may be the goal of VC, not the motivation to develop it)

thangvietnam · Answer

this passage is a great example of a scenario of RC in which the passage is easy to understand but the questions are hard to answer. the reason is the inference needed to answer questions requires high level of reasoning. this scenario dose occur in official books. the lession is that focus on reading hard passage is only a part of RC job. the other job is practice answering questions. this practice has more to do with POE (power of eliminating) than prethinking (prethink an answer before reading answer choices). POE is time consuming and require you to find one wrong word in an answer to eliminate it. POE is a skill gmat want us to have because POE require a higher level of understanding the test

while prethinking requires us to find a piece of information in the passage and then find a match among answer choices. POE requires us to understand fully eachh answer choices. So, the job of POE can be 5 time more than the job of prethinking. prethinking is only helpfull for easy question.

when we read a question stem, the first thing we do is prethinking. we return to the passage, find the relevant text and find the information needed. but for harder questions, prethink dose not help. we can not find the relevant text and can not find the information needed. we have to read each answer choice and find our 1 or 2 words which is not consistent with the information in the passage to eliminate the answer choices.

anticipate this kind of scenario, easy passage-close answers, to slow down, calm down, and take enough time to do POE for each answer choice. never rush on this kind of scenario.

Harsh2111s · Answer

carcass   MentorTutoring   SajjadAhmad   lnm87

Option E says "whether a company ought to implement a more elaborate orientation program for new employees"
Now if there is more elaborate orientation for new employee, there will be a strong correspondence between the values that an employee perceives his company to have and the values that his co-workers perceive the company to have.

Option E looks better than A.
Kindly help.

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  Harsh2111s . I see the line of reasoning you are pursuing, but your scenario is one step removed from what the passage states, requiring you to assume a certain type of orientation to more or less program employees to think alike, regarding their perception of the company's values. I would refer you to the post above by  arvind910619 , since a suggestion or inference question always fits into one of two categories:

1) A restatement of what is presented in the passage, sometimes with synonymous words, sometimes with an expression of similar ideas.

2) Fitting together different parts of the passage into one statement.

Here, since the question asks about  perceptual fit congruence  (PF) in particular, we need to stick strictly to what the passage says about PF. You cannot ignore the penultimate line of the passage:

P-E and PF congruence allow companies to discover dysfunctional work relationships and  clarify misperceived company policies and goals .

Another way of stating the above is, well, just what answer (A) says, with  more transparent  standing in for  clarify  from the passage. In my mind,  more elaborate  in choice (E) could simply mean extra cake at the orientation, or perhaps fancier napkins. The passage points to (A).

I hope that helps. If you have further questions, feel free to ask. Thank you for tagging me, and good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

unraveled · Answer

Harsh2111s It's my pleasure that asked, although this is my first MGMAT passage that too a 700+ level. Also, since Mentortutoring has answered, i don't know if my response is going to be any good. I'm glad that you asked me about the option E here which was i was able to eliminate so it's easy for me. But I will try to give my thoughts on all questions. Seeing that 700+ tag from MGMAT made me get on my toes and i hate to see the tags because they affect my approach and my thought process. I was torn between two options in every questions. Each I have highlighted and red texts show red flags i.e. they are questionable parts of the option which must be answered clearly. 1. According to the passage, which of the following was a motivation in the creation of the system of value congruence? A) a desire to minimize the liability of upper management for employee dissatisfaction - first 'liability' jumps out of the option - needs to be checked. Also, to say 'to minimize' is extreme. B) a desire to help companies to improve their internal harmony - first paragraph helps in this. C) a desire to allow employees to increase their earning potential - This's one easiest to remove. D) a desire to foster awareness of factors influencing managerial success - 'awareness' and 'influencing' are out of scope. E) a desire to eliminate discrepancies between a company’s goals and the values of its employees - its extreme to say 'eliminate' and 'discrepancies' is out of scope. I faulted in this one for the question is an inference and i opted a choice that was more specific in detail that i realised post attempt. Also, to answer this question we need to understand what is P-F, which we can find in the 2nd and 3rd para - more specifically the last line of the 2nd para is helpful. 2. The passage suggests that perceptual fit congruence would be most useful in determining which of the following? A. whether a company ought to make its policies and goals more transparent - Though 'transparent' initially looked out of scope but this option covers the scope of passage broadly. B. whether a company ought to provide sensitivity training for its management - 'sensitivity' is a different aspect more so that it is too specific in nature when we are just looking for broader company policies and employee perception in general. C. whether a company ought to create more opportunities for interaction among workers - well i can only say that 'çreating more opportunities' is certainly one of the aspects that would help company bridge the gap between employees' perception and company's policies. It's a good option but better is available in the form of A. D. whether a company ought to address employee grievances more directly - 'grievances' and 'more directly' are questionable. First, 'grievances' is out of scope. Second, again, it's too specific. E. whether a company ought to implement a more elaborate orientation program for new employees - First, we don't know about who 'new employees' are - one year old, six months old or a week old. Second, do they have perception yet. Third, does their perception matter for the company yet. Fourth, this may be an outside knowledge but it helps, are new employees significant enough to weigh-in their perception. Again made a silly mistake. 3. The primary focus of the passage is on which of the following? A. Comparing a new theory of corporate performance to a discredited theory and predicting the usefulness of the new theory. - Nowhere the passage suggests to compare theories. What is that 'discredited theory'? 'Predicting' still is okay somewhat. B. Illustrating a new approach to measuring employee satisfaction through a detailed analysis of a particular case . - 'Illustrating' is fine. But since it's a primary purpose type question, 'particular case', although not discussed, can only cover a small part of the passage. C. Challenging an old view of employee commitment and suggesting that a new paradigm is necessary. - What are these three.?? D. Promoting a new method of measuring the likelihood of corporate success by explaining its benefits - I was 90% sure that this was the answer but thought 'promoting' was done only in the last line of the 3rd para. So, rejected due to a miscalculation. But, overall, all that details in 2nd para and foundation laying in 1st para are for getting to know how Value Congruence could help companies. E. Defending a proposed system of corporate analysis through examples of its success. - Where are the examples?? There's nothing defensive in the passage and what is that 'analysis'. Good passage. I was able to understand it but got stuck in subtle things of the options. I still hope that this is helpful.

In recent years much attention has been paid to distilling those

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In recent years much attention has been paid to distilling those

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