Deck 12: Guiding Organizational Change and Innovation

Question 1

To change continuously for the better, Georgia-Pacific relies heavily on teamwork.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

At Georgia-Pacific, the basic process for creating change is fairly unstructured.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Radical change occurs when organizations make minor adjustments in the ways they do business.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The radical change model was developed by social scientist Kurt Lewin.

Question 5

During radical change, the transitioning stage occurs between the unfreezing and the freezing stage.

Question 6

Bonnie Nixon-Gardiner, of Hewlett-Packard, initiated a code of conduct for her own industry to monitor how employees are treated.

Question 7

Reactive change can be incremental or radical.

Question 8

Incremental anticipatory change is future-oriented and involves constant tinkering and improvements.

Question 9

By its nature, chaotic change is difficult to manage.

Question 10

Innovation and change will occur without disorder if the seven steps that constitute the basic components of a change process must be followed in their proper sequence.

Question 11

A roofing company that receives a large number of water damage claims has probably done a good job of communicating a vision for the future to employees.

Question 12

The aim of organizational diagnosis is to identify both the nature and the extent of problems.

Question 13

Organizations often hire outside consultants to assist with problem diagnosis because they may be better able to conduct interviews and interpret data in an unbiased manner than insiders.

Question 14

For major change efforts, the organization's action plan can be quite complex and may not be easily understood by most employees.

Question 15

For change to be effective, it is best to avoid setting specific goals and timetables, because they are not likely to be achieved anyway.

Question 16

In the Self-Management Competency feature, the Reactions to Change questionnaire helps individuals gain more awareness of their feelings about change.

Question 17

In the Reactions to Change questionnaire, an individual who scored 10 or higher feels reacting to change is a burden and would try to avoid changes that will cause frustration.

Question 18

Some resistance to change can be good, with employees operating as a check-and-balance mechanism to ensure that management properly plans and implements change well.

Question 19

Communication, delegation, and incentives are three methods used by managers to overcome resistance of employees.

Question 20

People who have vested interests in maintaining things as they are often embrace change.

Question 21

Managers who initiate change are likely to face a lot of problems if they assume that anyone with the same information would make the same decision.

Question 22

Empowering workers by giving them some control over the change process is an effective way to reduce the stress they experience.

Question 23

One way to reduce cynicism is to make successful change a normal part of daily life in the organization.

Question 24

The results of a change process are typically monitored at random intervals.

Question 25

There are four methods of organizational change: technological, organization redesign, job redesign, and organizational development. Seldom is significant change be based on one of these methods alone.

Question 26

Technological change involves incremental changes that affect workflows, production methods, and materials.

Question 27

Sometimes the need for organizational redesign follows directly from implementing new technologies.

Question 28

Active hiring is a familiar approach to structural redesign.

Question 29

Reengineering typically means reconfiguring the organization by changing the levels of authority, responsibility, and control.

Question 30

Downsizing is usually a reactive response to poor organizational performance.

Question 31

Several researchers have found that downsizing is not guaranteed to work; many downsized firms end up in worse financial shape after the downsizing than they were before.

Question 32

Reengineering involves redesign of an organization's processes (e.g., logistics, distribution, and manufacturing) with the goal of designing the most effective process for making and delivering a product.

Question 33

Changing job specifications to broaden and add challenge to the tasks required and toincrease productivity is called job enrichment.

Question 34

The downside to job simplification is that it leads to low employee commitment and high turnover.

Question 35

Organization development is a planned, long-range behavioral science strategy for understanding, changing, and developing an organization's workforce in order to improve its effectiveness.

Question 36

Focus groups need to operate in an open, non-threatening environment where there is no designated leader.

Question 37

When employee surveys are designed to address issues of strategic importance, they can be used to enhance the organization's competitive advantage.

Question 38

As organizations become flatter and rely more on teams to get work done, the importance of team building has also grown.

Question 39

ERP software is usually designed to be used by a single department that needs a quick solution to help cut costs.

Question 40

Installing ERP software can be considered a radical change.

Question 41

Fairchild Semiconductor understands that involving employees in the design of new technologies goes a long way toward gaining employee support and cooperation.

Question 42

Like many other companies, Fairchild Semiconductor chose an ERP application that did not need to be adapted to its specific processes, so changing to the new software was easy and quick.

Question 43

Innovation can involve the discovery, identification, and diagnosis of unusual and ambiguous problems and/or the development of unique or creative solutions.

Question 44

Innovation and change are more important environmental elements for new organizations than for established organizations.

Question 45

Innovation, with a focus on customers, is a key element in Alan Lafley's strategy for P&G.

Question 46

Alan Lafley, CEO of P&G, orchestrated the acquisition of Gillette in hopes of stimulating new ideas and new products.

Question 47

Three basic types of innovation are evaluative, process, and developmental.

Question 48

Rapid development of business-to-business e-commerce represents process innovation.

Question 49

Offering flexible work schedules to employees is an example of an administrative innovation.

Question 50

A learning organization is one that sees changes and innovations as a part of a daily routine.

Question 51

Continuous learning is especially important at HP Labs, the Hewlett-Packard's central research unit.

Question 52

HP Labs decided to use radical modifications in polices to help create change in the organization.

Question 53

One of the key characteristics of learning organizations is that they are customer-focused.

Question 54

As a result of providing a culture of innovation within the organization, Southwest Airlines employees are always looking for better ways to meet customers' needs for low-cost, reliable air travel.

Question 55

The tall, centralized structure found in learning organizations facilitates learning more than a flat, team-based organization.

Question 56

Xerox hired an anthropologist to study the ways the firm's workers went about their jobs.

Question 57

Managers in learning organizations aggressively scan both the external and internal environments for information.

Question 58

At Georgia-Pacific, a(n) _________ begins with each project team conducting an all-day kick-off meeting to set a specific goal, establish the methods they will use to track changes, and set up a work plan to achieve the goal.

A) forecast
B) gathering
C) wave
D) overture

Question 59

Located in Atlanta, Georgia-Pacific manufactures and markets:

A) packaging
B) building products
C) paper
D) all of the above

Question 60

__________ change refers to any transformation in the design or functioning of an organization.

A) Restructuring
B) Organizational
C) Redesigning
D) Incremental

Question 61

A(n) _______ change occurs when organizations make major adjustments in the ways they do business.

A) radical
B) incremental
C) innovative
D) redesigning

Question 62

All of the following are true concerning radical change except __________.

A) it occurs relatively infrequently
B) merging with another organization is an example
C) it can be stimulated by changes in the environment
D) it generally takes a short time to implement

Question 63

All of the following correctly describe the common framework for radical organizational change except __________.

A) the framework was developed by social scientist Kurt Lewin
B) the model divides the change process into three stages
C) stage 1 is referred to as "unfreezing"
D) the change is solidified in the "transitioning" stage

Question 64

Monitoring the intended outcomes and providing support for new behaviors are completed in what stage of radical organizational change?

A) freezing
B) transitioning
C) refreezing
D) accumulating

Question 65

__________ change is an ongoing process of evolution over time, during which small changes occur routinely.

A) Anticipatory
B) Radical
C) Transitory
D) Incremental

Question 66

TQM (total qualify management) relies heavily on ___________ organizational change.

A) incremental
B) radical
C) anticipatory
D) reactive

Question 67

Bonnie Nixon-Gardiner, a middle-level manager at Hewlett-Packard worried about sweatshop conditions when the tech industry began outsourcing manufacturing to low-wage countries. To address these concerns, she began by ___________ how other companies monitored their suppliers.

A) documenting
B) reviewing
C) benchmarking
D) none of the above

Question 68

The degree and ________ of change combine to form different types of change.

A) severity
B) timing
C) depth
D) development

Question 69

__________ change occurs when an organization is forced to respond to some event in the external or internal environment.

A) anticipatory
B) reactive
C) evolutionary
D) precautionary

Question 70

General Electric managers are encouraged to make __________ change through Work-Out sessions.

A) reactive
B) voluntary
C) incremental
D) both a and c

Question 71

All of the following are considered types of organizational change except __________.

A) incremental anticipatory change
B) radical incremental change
C) incremental reactive change
D) radical reactive change

Question 72

__________ change occurs when managers make organizational changes in advance of upcoming events or early in the cycle of a new trend.

A) anticipatory
B) reactive
C) radical
D) incremental

Question 73

The process of planned organizational change comprises a series of steps. The first step is to __________.

A) follow-up the change
B) diagnose organizational problems
C) assess the environment
D) identify sources of resistance

Question 74

All of the following are components of organizational change except for __________.

A) assessing the environment
B) anticipating and reducing resistance
C) determining the performance gap
D) creating a mission statement

Question 75

Of the environmental factors listed, which is the least responsible for stimulating organizational change?

A) customers
B) political action groups
C) technology
D) competitors

Question 76

Of the environmental factors listed, which is the most responsible for stimulating organizational change?

A) globalization
B) technological advances
C) the workforce
D) actions of important stakeholders

Question 77

Marriott Hotels and Bank of America use __________ and other forms of market research to assess customers' preferences.

A) diagnostic methods
B) "whack-o-meter" sessions
C) performance appraisals
D) customer satisfaction surveys

Question 78

The __________ is the difference between what the organization wants to do and what it actually does.

A) performance gap
B) observance diagnosis
C) conversion system
D) behavioral displacement

Question 79

Forman Industries is going through a planned process for organizational change. They have just finished analyzing the environment. Next they should ___________.

A) get feedback from the environment
B) determine all new technical breakthroughs
C) determine the difference between what the organization aspires to do to take advantage of its opportunities and what it actually does
D) identify the nature and extent of their competitors' problems

Question 80

The aim of the __________ step in the planning process for organizational change is to identify the nature and extent of problems before taking action.

A) communication
B) refreezing
C) monitoring
D) organizational diagnosis