Deck 12: Strategy and Strategic Change

Question 1

Strategic change could involve ______.

A) a change in the direction and scope of an organization
B) reconfiguring organization cultures
C) introducing a new IT architecture
D) all of these

Answer 1

D

Question 2

According to Balogun and Hope Hailey, what percentage of strategic change projects is thought to fail to achieve their aims?

A) 10%
B) 25%
C) 50%
D) 70%

Answer 2

D

Question 3

According to your textbook, what do Whittle and Mueller think makes a change 'strategic'?

A) what stakeholder needs it addresses
B) what the market demands
C) what the powerful decide is strategic
D) all of these

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The process of defining, categorizing or labelling a particular change as ______ is both an ______ of an ongoing ______ process and is itself a ______ act.

A) strategic/action/leadership/dynamic
B) strategic/outcome/political/political
C) necessary/outcome/strategic/masterful
D) none of these

Question 5

Which of the following could be a strategic change?

A) moving from a focus on cost towards differentiation through superior product or service features
B) selling new products/services to existing customers or selling existing products/services to new customers
C) decisions to integrate activities previously done by suppliers or decisions to outsource activities previously done in-house
D) all of these

Question 6

Which of the following would NOT be associated with the socio-political approach to understanding the causes of change?

A) political contests between business units vying for power or resources
B) new leaders seeking to display strong leadership through a symbolic break with the past
C) gathering information about the threats and opportunities posed by changes in the external environmental
D) fads and fashions in management thought driven by gurus and consultants

Question 7

What is strategic drift?

A) strategies that enable the firm to keep pace with changes in the strategic environment
B) radical changes that enable the firm to make sudden shifts in strategy to match major changes in the strategic environment
C) incremental changes that enable the firm to make small steps to keep pace with minor changes in the strategic environment
D) failing to keep pace with incremental changes in the strategic environment over a period of time

Question 8

Which of the following is a good example of a firm that has experienced strategic drift?

A) Google
B) Apple
C) Blockbuster
D) Facebook

Question 9

The strategic environment is best thought of as ______, according to your textbook?

A) objective reality
B) nature
C) a dynamic and interactive process
D) all of these

Question 10

Meyer analysed the strategic choices made by three hospitals in the face of ______.

A) changed market conditions
B) a terrorist outrage
C) a strike
D) an earthquake

Question 11

The set of core beliefs and assumptions that get embedded in the organization over time are referred to by Gerry Johnson as the organization's ______.

A) strategic disadvantage
B) paradigm
C) strategic advantage
D) all of these

Question 12

A ______ is usually deeply ______, according to your textbook.

A) system/flawed
B) culture/divided
C) paradigm/institutionalized
D) all of these

Question 13

The trigger to reflect on - and think about changing - the organization's dominant paradigm could come from which source?

A) a sudden decline in sales performance
B) an unexpected innovation by a competitor
C) a strike amongst employees
D) all of these

Question 14

What does SARFIT stand for?

A) strategic adaptation required for information technology
B) strategic adjustment required to fit expectations for legitimacy
C) strategic agility recognized for international trade
D) strategic adjustment required to regain fit

Question 15

Studies have consistently found that what percentage of mergers fails?

A) 10-30%
B) 30-50%
C) 50-70%
D) 70-90%

Question 16

What does a contingency view of strategic change suggest?

A) 'One size fits all' models are wrong.
B) 'One size fits all' models are right.
C) There is no model.
D) none of these

Question 17

What does the term evolutionary change mean?

A) changes in corporate DNA
B) a small adaptation consistent with the organization's core paradigm
C) new people in the organization with new DNA
D) none of these

Question 18

What does the term revolutionary change mean?

A) a Marxist social movement
B) warfare
C) a large shift that breaks with the organization's core paradigm
D) none of these

Question 19

Revolutionary change is sometimes referred to as ______ change.

A) radical
B) breakthrough
C) Marxist
D) critical

Question 20

Evolutionary change is sometimes referred to as ______ change.

A) slow
B) incremental
C) conservative
D) laggard

Question 21

Change in Lewin's terms involves three ______.

A) learning loops
B) steps
C) mental models
D) none of these

Question 22

What is the third phase of Lewin's model of change?

A) thawing
B) freezing
C) refreezing
D) icing up

Question 23

Why do Clegg, Kornberger and Pitsis argue that the 'root metaphor of unfreezing/freezing is profoundly problematic'?

A) organizations don't get cold
B) organizations don't freeze
C) organizations are always in motion
D) organizations are centrally heated

Question 24

What is the third step in Kotter's model of strategic change?

A) create a vision for the future
B) form a powerful coalition
C) remove obstacles
D) create a sense of urgency

Question 25

What is the last step in Kotter's model of strategic change?

A) build on the change
B) remove obstacles
C) anchor the change in corporate culture
D) anchor the change in IT systems

Question 26

Dunphy and Stace identify which dimension as crucial to change?

A) scale of change
B) emotion of change
C) speed of change
D) tools of change

Question 27

Which of the following is NOT a type of change in Dunphy and Stace's framework identify?

A) guided evolution
B) participative evolution
C) charismatic transformation
D) dictatorial transformation

Question 28

Where an organization has little time available to implement a radical transformation that has little or no support amongst affected stakeholders, what kind of change approach do Dunphy and Stace suggest would work best?

A) participative
B) facilitated
C) democratic
D) dictatorial

Question 29

Sensegiving refers to the process through which strategists

A) attempt to influence the sensemaking of others towards a preferred version of reality
B) attempt to interpret confusing or ambiguous cues
C) use frames to generate meaning
D) use frames to impose meaning

Question 30

Rouleau and Balogun argue that middle managers undertake ______ and ______ during periods of strategic change.

A) scene stealing/dominating the conversation
B) scene setting/building a conversation
C) scene setting/performing the conversation
D) scene making/facilitating conversations

Question 31

Sense-making perspectives consider organizations to be ______ systems.

A) information
B) data
C) interpretative
D) none of these

Question 32

What strategic problem changed the New York Port Authority's sensemaking about their strategy?

A) flooding
B) homelessness
C) terrorism
D) earthquake

Question 33

Which of the following is the key strategic change skill, according to your textbook?

A) planning
B) storytelling
C) data mining
D) accounting

Question 34

Which of the following are prevalent metaphors of strategy, according to your textbook?

A) game
B) engineering
C) biological processes
D) all of these

Question 35

What metaphor of strategy does Cespedes deplore in the Harvard Business Review?

A) warfare
B) celebrity
C) bureaucracy
D) anarchy

Question 36

Framing is the process through which people ______ the meaning of an event or experience through the use of symbolic constructs, such as words, images or metaphors.

A) record
B) picture
C) socially construct
D) display

Question 37

Your textbook states that during strategic change 'politics is ______'.

A) best avoided
B) a source of cognitive dissonance
C) best avoided and a source of cognitive dissonance
D) normal

Question 38

According to a survey by Badham, the majority of respondents agreed that:

A) politics can be used to start up and drive useful change initiatives
B) politics can be effective in dealing with resistance to change
C) politics can be used to slow down and block useful change initiatives
D) all of these

Question 39

Your textbook states that during strategic change 'resistance is ______'.

A) best avoided
B) a source of cognitive dissonance
C) best avoided and a source of cognitive dissonance
D) normal

Question 40

Which TWO of the following are NOT a reason for resistance to change identified by Kotter and Schlesinger (1979)?

A) parochial self-interest
B) failure to understand the strategic problem
C) low tolerance for change
D) militant attitudes

Question 41

Which of the following dimensions are NOT types in Ashforth and Mael's typology of types of resistance to change?

A) explicit and implicit
B) targeted and diffuse
C) facilitative and oppositional
D) authorized and unauthorized

Question 42

Zoller and Fairhurst coined the term:

A) facilitative leadership
B) collaborative leadership
C) resistance leadership
D) political leadership