MGT 6681 - chapter 1-12

Kneisha believes that hard evidence is the touchstone of successful change, so she makes an effort to track of all goal attainments and adjustments to the plan in the latest change initiative. Which tactic is Kneisha using to sustain change?

Measure progress

In Lewin's change model, which phase refers to the effort to work on the forces to alter their relative strength?

Moving

In what category of change does one typically see high-level firings as a way to coerce rapid transformation?

Turnaround

A manager in an organization creates a team consisting entirely of engineers, for the purpose of brainstorming innovative ideas. Which of the following properties does this team have in greatest abundance?

equipotentiality

When using the 7-S framework, the decision maker primarily...

examines how a change in one function affects the other functions

Alexis has employees who profoundly disagree with the new change initiative, and she sees little chance of reaching consensus. What is an appropriate way for Alexis to deal with this level of resistance?

explicit and implicit coercion

The lack of a cogent vision statement will usually make organizational leaders unable to...

explore core competencie

Richest medium of communication:

face to face

Consequences of a lack of coherent vision:

failure to identify when change is necessary

Joy loves to use resistance productively. One of the ways in which she is able to leverage the energy of resistance is by...

maintaining her focus on the larger objective

Which of the following sources of environmental pressure is an example of the power of mimetic isomorphism?

management fashions

Kelly wants to use a participative change management style. Which of the following effects may constitute a challenge for Kelly when she uses this style?

management loses some control over the outcomes

One of the major environmental forces for change is the need to...

restore corporate reputation

As a geometric property of complex systems, fractality refers to...

self-similarity across levels of scale

Leanest medium of communication:

signals

A common reason for the failure of an organizational vision:

too specific

What is the optimal communication approach in terms of securing maximum effectiveness from the right balance between too much and too little information?

underscore and explore

In a human production-oriented organization, throughput refers to...

value-adding processes

A goal-related competency needed for effectiveness in change leadership:

Sensitivity

Jim feels that his subordinates are depending on him to shepherd the completion of an arduous change project. The project now appears infeasible, but Jim is insisting on pursuing it to the end, to validate his employees' hard work and dedication. What determinant of escalation of commitment does Jim's persistence exemplify?

Social

In which phase of Lewin's change model would one expect to see change agents actively retraining the workforce to meet the needs of the new structure?

Thawing

Organizations often experience performance improvement after loosening, rather than tightening, their command-and-control structures. If tightening those structures would ordinarily seem to be capable of enhancing leaders' ability to move the organization in the desired direction, but doing the opposite is, instead, the real solution, then this example of organization change is...

A Paradox

Variation of action research in which change leaders study an organization in search of unusually successful processes:

Appreciative inquiry

Threat to the sustainability of a change initiative that may develop when a change initiative seems to take too long to reach its fulfillment:

Change fatigue

Which of the following dynamics is most likely to be a threat to sustainability?

Change fatigue

Which attribute of an open system refers to the implicit rules for determining how the system should react to different kinds of inputs?

Coding

Hương is creating a direction for her company's change initiative while she develops strategies to move toward the goal. What step of Kotter's model is Hương deploying?

Creating the vision

When Don uses his ability to collect meaningful data, which category of competencies is he using?

Diagnostic

In his managerial role, Blake has evidently spied on subordinates, stolen ideas, taken credit for the work of others, and occasionally spread salacious rumors about targeted individuals. Which political tactic has Blake used to aggrandize his own success?

Dirty tricks

Kenny is experiencing resistance to even small changes from his employees. After asking around, he finds that the employees are misunderstanding the change initiative, because they lack information. Which strategy for resistance should Kenny use with his people?

Education and communication

Raven is removing obstacles to the change process and encouraging employees to take some risks to make the vision a reality. What step of Kotter's model is Raven deploying?

Empowering employees

Which of the following statements most closely reflects the political tactic of positioning?

Frank considers where in the room he should stand for maximum impact

In which phase of Lewin's change model would one expect to see change agents altering the incentive structure associated with the new processes?

Freezing

From the perspective of Lewinian assumptions, change is...

Goal oriented

Among the major internal pressures for change, the life cycle model of organizations implies a periodic need for change due to...

Growth

Threat to change sustainability caused by employees' migrating into new job positions in your unit, from other units where practices still reflect old approaches:

Importation

A first-order type of change is...

Incremental

The sense-making approach opposes certain key assumptions of the traditional OD literature, including that of...

Inertia

When Cait is making recommendations and helping customers with goal setting, which category of competencies is she employing?

Initiation

Phương has convened a meeting to devise how to package her team's current proposal to optimize its acceptability to the board of directors. What political tactic is Phương using?

Issue selling

Radical Change

Kaikaku

Incremental change:

Kaizen

Åke regularly spends time interacting with various people informally, in a variety of settings. In these encounters, he usually has no agenda other than to interact and strengthen friendship, but he is also keen to identify important insights about company developments and shifts in power among company officials. In what political tactic is Åke engaging?

Networking

Brian has been hard at work building a leadership module for his client. On which category of competencies is Brian relying?

Organizational

Tracee's company has been actively undergoing a change initiative for six months. Lately, Tracee has started withholding information and supportive actions from her manager. What is Tracee displaying?

Passive resistance

Essence of the social determinant of escalation of commitment:

Peer pressure

Frank is adamant that the difficulties that the current change project is facing are merely transitory, and that conditions will soon improve enough to justify persisting in the project. What determinant of escalation of commitment does Frank's persistence reflect?

Project based

As in the case of much of the management literature, many ideas in the literature on organization change have stood the test of time and therefore remain important objects of study in the 21st century. However, this fact can make the manager's effort to absorb the literature challenging, given the need to study a particularly large volume of material. Thus, one of the impediments to practitioners' mastery of the literature on organization change is that of its...

Rich History

Action research places high priority on...

Root cause analysis

During which political tactic might you hear this response? "I'm sorry, but you have used the wrong form, at the wrong time, with the wrong arguments; we can't set inconsistent precedents."

Rule games

Closest substitute for the 7-S framework:

SIX-BOX model

The sense-making school of thought opposes certain common assumptions of traditional OD. One of these assumptions is that of...

Systematic change

Change managers can do little to stop the natural development of an organization. This axiom is a key assumption of both life cycle theory and...

Systems Theory

Type of change consisting of fine-tuning under the direction of the organization's leadership:

Taylorism

In the Confucian view, change is...

The start of a journey

A leader should insist on conveying difficult message content, such as an adverse employment decision, using...

a face-to-face opportunity

What is the ideal leadership structure for a change initiative?

a guiding coalition is the most effective way to organize leadership

The optimal message channel for routine messages is...

a lean medium

General systems theory is correctly construable as...

a paradigm to guide theory development

As he is about to operate the printer, Quark observes a report in the printer output tray regarding an ongoing change initiative. Rather than laying the report aside to operate the machine, as is the custom in his unit, Quark sticks the report in the shredder and tells no one about it. Quark's action is consistent with...

active resistance

When using the star model, the decision making endeavors to...

align the choices made in each component with the choices made in each other component

Where does employee training fit into the systems perspective?

anabolism

In Schein's model of organizational culture, the one feature that undergirds all human attitudes and actions in the organization, but which no one ever directly acknowledges, is that of...

assumptions

Systems theory's academic domain of origin:

biology

Should organizations mainly undertake transformational change or solve small-scale problems as they arise?

both types of change initiatives have their place in organizational life

One of the common perceptions that a person may have, which can explain the person's resistance to a change initiative:

breach of psychological contract

How may a person increase a message's communication richness?

by adding affective content to it

Upon concluding a change initiative, organizational leaders should, as an ongoing practice, find ways to remind everyone of the nature of the original pressures that justified the change initiative, such as by disseminating a periodic report on developments in the organization's competition. Which threat to sustainability does this strategy target?

complacency

Portia sees the concept of organizational vision as being of little importance in an organization's efforts to change or improve, because too many outside forces interfere with the best intentions of the leadership. Portia's view reflects that of the...

caretaker

Among those features of the literature on organization change that keep practicing managers from easily mastering the relevant theory, a particular source of confusion is the proliferation of guidance ranging from large-scale paradigms to small-scale practical techniques, also known as...

conceptual spread

From the perspective of systems theory, open systems have...

considerable inertia

In what step of Kotter's change model would one normally expect to see adjustments to the incentive structure, such as new pay policies?

consolidating gains

A charismatic transformation usually involves what style of change management?

consultative

Certain kinds of open systems include input-throughput-output features. When it is present, this aspect of an open system constitutes its...

cybernetic structure

Which of the following characteristics is always present in an open system, regardless of its particular type?

cyclicality

From the perspective of the Confucian worldview, change is...

equilibrium-maintaining

One of the steps in a gap analysis is that of...

defining the desired status in a given area of performance

Necessary step in a gap analysis:

determine how to transition from current status to desired status

In the director persona, the change agent...

determines the kinds of changes that must occur

What kind of organization change initiative is usually consultative but incremental in nature?

developmental transition

Phileon sees vision as quite necessary for successful change and that organizational leaders must articulate it early in any change effort. Which image of change is Phileon demonstrating?

director

If an organization fails to adapt to the changing pressures of the external environment, what phase in the typical organizational life cycle does the organization ultimately experience?

dissolution

A production-oriented open system, such as a human organization with a value-adding mission, adjusts its behavior gradually based on information from the environment that appears to be a function of what the organization is seeking to do. This information is...

feedback

Many organizational leaders will call systems thinking the...

fifth discipline

An empowerment-building initiative constitutes an example of...

first-order change

Restructuring is an example of...

first-order change

The literature on organization change can be difficult for most people to grasp, for a number of reasons. Once such reason is the appearance, within the literature, of...

fluid boundaries

Systems property whereby the same pattern repeats itself across levels of scale:

fractality

In the navigator persona, the change agent...

guides the system toward the goal while being open to unexpected outcomes

A benefit of a correctly crafted vision statement:

helps identify gaps in current organizational practices

A common characteristic of alpha males:

high generalized self-efficacy

Most likely to act as an external force for change:

hypercompetition

Approach to organizational communication consisting of mostly controlling the information flow to maintain a defensive posture in terms of managing rumors and innuendo:

identify and reply

In the aftermath of a crisis that an organization has survived, the organization should...

implement a change in its way of managing the affected issue

To a considerable extent, social media have grown due to investment by business organizations, such as in response to a goal to...

improve employee engagement

Which of the following is highest in terms of communication richness?

in person meetings

The interpreter persona sees the task of organization change...

in terms of shared meaning among the organization's members

An organizational vision is likely to fail if it is...

inflexible

The innovation adoption model characterizes one group as "associating," or finding ways to link ideas across disparate fields of interest. This group is the definition of...

innovators

As part of its ruling in a discrimination lawsuit, a federal court ordered Chevron USA to make organizational changes to promote diversity within the company and its subsidiaries. This order is an example of a category of pressure for change known as a...

mandate

Change in the pattern of change:

metachange

Which of the following effects is likely to be an advantage of using a participative change management style?

minimal time is necessary for persuasion

What is our business? This question is inherent in the organizational...

mission statement

What is one feature in the literature on organization change that strongly impedes practitioners' access to comprehensible solutions and their ability to translate academic research into practical settings?

multiple perspectives

Demetria believes that vision emerges largely from debate among the organization's various stakeholders. The leader must mold the various perspectives into a coherent statement to guide the organization. Demetria is demonstrating the perspective of the...

navigator

Open systems tend toward higher order over time, reflecting the systems characteristic of...

negative entropy

Characteristic of complex systems:

non-linearity

In Al's conception, vision is an emergent property of an organization rather than the creation of any individual, with a temporary existence. Al's perspective is consistent with that of the...

nurturer

Nonrational, self-reinforcing, sociopsychological structure:

organization

In one perspective regarding the effect of exogenous pressure for change on an organization, the onset of large-scale external pressures may prompt innovative solutions and restructuring. This expectation is consistent with the argument of...

organizational learning

When writers refer to systems theory, they are often using a shorthand term for the rather more challenging enunciation of...

paradigm of self-organizing systems

Melissa has observed that her employees are rather fearful about a new change initiative. Which strategy for resistance would work well for Melissa?

participation and involvement

In the tension between reliance on organizational capabilities to effect change and approaching the task by leveraging personal talent, which avenue is more likely to reap substantive rewards?

personal talent is the main ingredient in a successful change initiative

In the context of organization development and change, leaders within organizations often want a simple answer to the question, "What works?" Which of the following issues contributes to difficulty in trying to answer this question?

slippery causality

Lowest level of depth in a change initiative:

solving minor problems

How important is the pursuit of rapid change in a change initiative, given the threat of the so-called acceleration trap?

speed creates momentum, but a methodical approach prevents destabilizing the system

Approach to communication consisting of overloading the organization with information:

spray and pray

The variables highlighted in this model are most consistent with the basic design components of an organization:

star model

Which of these choices is lowest in terms of communication richness?

stoplight

Action research models depict a change initiative as a...

strict, step-by-step process

To use resistance productively, a change leader may most logically choose to...

study the arguments of the resistors

Depression and demotivation experienced by employees retained after a downsizing event:

survivor syndrome

Peter Senge's fifth discipline:

systems thinking

Which of the following observations may typically emerge from a PEST analysis?

technological opportunities

People find the literature on organization change hard to comprehend due, in part, to the need to customize specific solutions for different kinds of organizations under different kinds of strategic situations. In other words, one of the key impediments to mastering the literature on organization change is its application to...

varied settings

Unique to true open systems and absent in machines:

primary attributes

In the typical life cycle of an organization, what is the central organizing principle of the rapid-growth phase?

professionalization

Alpha males tend to...

put extreme performance pressure on others

The search for elementary particles or lower-order objects to explain a phenomenon is...

reductionist

A touchstone by which to turn the energy of resistance to productive use is to...

refrain from reacting to attacks

In order to leverage the energy of resistance, a change leader should endeavor to demonstrate...

respect for the views of the resistors

Considered in terms of the basic types of change, kaikaku would be an example of...

second-order change

As a characteristic of a change agent in the persona of coach, the change manager...

shapes the organization's capabilities to ensure success

One of the major reasons for the infeasibility of prescribing an unambiguous, universally applicable method of changing an organization is...

shifting priorities

Communication strategy that seeks to minimize how much employees know about organizational decisions:

withhold and uphold

In the modern conception, to adopt a vision statement, a leader should...

write a draft, then solicit broad participation to modify it

Anson sees vision as the vehicle through which to articulate an organization's core values. This view is consistent with that of the...

interpreter

One of the ways to promote psychological safety in the workplace:

invite employees to participate in discussions about key work policies

One of the most effective ways to convert the energy of resistance into a source of productive energy to move a change initiative forward is to...

join the resistors by looking for points of common agreement

The task of reworking leadership development and succession plans should occur in which phase of Kotter's change model?

institutionalizing the new approaches

Organization change initiatives often require convincing employees to accept technological change that will render their current skills or knowledge obsolete. Employees may understand the benefits of the new technology while nevertheless resisting the prospective change for the sake of their personal survival. Thus, the opposing pressures inherent in this proposition create...

Tension

In complex systems, when change occurs due to the natural forces of self-organization, it will usually be...

abrupt and unpredictable

Approach to organization change that involves studying a specific organization, identifying gaps, and altering processes to close the gaps:

action research

What systems process explains how employees naturally adapt to an organization's culture to such a point that they eventually become representations of that culture to later employees?

catabolism

Which of the eight standard change sustainment strategies matches Kotter's step of planning and highlighting small wins as they occur?

celebrating en route

The modern conception of vision statement formulation emphasizes...

co-creation

Penelope understands the nature of organizational vision in terms of an agenda-shaping force, as a co-creation between the leader and stakeholders whose success depends largely on the leader's ability to persuade others to participate in this co-creative process. In this respect, Penelope holds the view of the...

coach

Removing a business unit by either selling it to another company or arranging for it to separate and become a stand-alone company:

divestiture

Overall reduction of the company workforce:

downscaling

Divestiture of certain business units that strategists deem to be peripheral or nonessential to the core business:

downscoping

Goal synthesis is a key challenge in the context of...

downsizing

Survivor syndrome is a significant challenge of...

downsizing cycle

Retaining key employees is often a difficult goal in the context of...

downsizing episode

What characteristic defines systems as cycles of events?

dynamic morphology

The innovation adoption model depicts one group as always studying the marketplace of new ideas and therefore being sources of information on best practices. This group consists of...

early adopters

In the innovation adoption model, which group waits to ascertain the practical value of a new idea before adopting it?

early majority

According to the innovation adoption model, a common reason for organizations to wait before embracing a new process or type of technology is...

economic constraints

An observation that may reasonably emerge from a PEST analysis:

economic threats

According to Stjernberg and Philips (1993), positive change occurs as long as a small number of these people can act within the system:

eldsjälar

Which of the following effects may often be an advantage of using a consultative change management style?

employee commitment tends to be stronger

Which of the following is an advantage of a cogently formulated vision statement?

enabling employees to identify with the organization

In Kotter's change model, the activities associated with empowering employees include...

encouraging risk taking and unconventional thinking

One of the distinctive advantages of a new CEO:

energy for change

In the implementation steps of Kotter's change model, what should change leaders do to sustain the momentum of change toward the vision?

target and celebrate short-term wins as they occur

Mechanistic thinking is deterministic. In contrast, on this same dimension, systems thinking is...

teleological

Which approach to communication consists of informing organization members to a significant degree, coupled with efforts to persuade regarding the merits of organizational decisions?

tell and sell

Common perception-based cause of resistance to a change initiative:

the change is too large in scale

Which of the following is a driver of social media?

the desire to increase profitability through targeted marketing

The interpreter image of change management sees resistance to change as occurring most often when employees have difficulty comprehending...

the impact of the change on the people involved in the process

A driver of social media:

the need to optimize certain business processes, such as customer feedback

The arrival of a new CEO often signals that the old ways are about to change. This effect of a new CEO falls in the change category of:

the new-broom dynamic

Should change leaders mainly use systematic tools or primarily engage in the political process of creating broad coalitions?

the political process is more important than adhering to systematic tools

Among the elements of strategy, one of the considerations in the arena of strategic action is...

the product categories

One of the considerations in the area of staging for strategic action, within the five elements of strategy:

the sequence of events

Of these possibilities, resistance to change at the individual level is most likely to stem from a perception that...

the timing is wrong

An assumption of systems theory:

the whole is greater than the sum of the parts

Adam likes to use the tell-style of change management. Kimberly prefers using a tell-and-sell style. What do these two styles have in common?

they leave management in control

The expectation that managers lose their ability to make productive decisions when faced with overwhelming external pressure is consistent with the theoretical argument of...

threat rigidity

Theorists in the sense-making school of thought often comment that the traditional OD school sees systems as semi-static until a change agent acts upon them. Using Lewinian terminology, this assumption is that of...

unfreezing

Which of the following kinds of activities should occur in Kotter's step of consolidating gains?

updating performance metrics

According to Schein's model of organizational culture, which feature is most likely to manifest itself in the form of intentional statements by organizational leaders concerning purposes and principles?

values

The question of what the organization seeks to achieve is inherent in the organizational...

vision statement

Blake sees himself as an interpreter for others in working through a change initiative. In his view, resistance is likely where people have trouble understanding...

what is happening

Example of the new-broom category of internal pressure for change:

when a new CEO takes over the organization

A correctly performed PEST analysis will reveal...

whether any regulatory threats are present

One of the decisions in the domain of economics, among the five elements of strategy:

whether to use premium pricing