Deck 10: Types and Forms of Organizational Change

Question 1

The term "framing effect" refers to a pattern of faulty decision-making that occurs when members of a group discount negative information in order to arrive at a unanimous agreement.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Human resources are an organization's most important asset.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Resistance to change lowers an organization's effectiveness and reduces its chances of survival.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Differences in functional orientation is a major internal force that encourages organizational change.

Question 5

Even thriving and high-performing organizations need to continuously change the way they operate over time.

Question 6

Sociotechnical systems theory, total quality management, and the creation of empowered, flexible work groups are three instruments of revolutionary change.

Question 7

Total quality management (TQM) is an ongoing and constant effort by all of an organization's functions to find new ways to improve the quality of the organization's goods and services.

Question 8

Reengineering, restructuring, and innovation are three important instruments of evolutionary change.

Question 9

Revolutionary change is gradual and incremental.

Question 10

As compared to organic structures, mechanistic structures are less resistant to change.

Question 11

Change usually benefits some people, functions, or divisions at the expense of others.

Question 12

Evolutionary change involves not a drastic or sudden altering of the basic nature of an organization's strategy and structure but a constant attempt to improve, adapt, and adjust strategy and structure incrementally to accommodate to changes taking place in the environment.

Question 13

The term "organizational inertia" refers to the tendency of an organization to increase the level of production in order to take advantage of economies of scale.

Question 14

Evolutionary change has a much broader focus than revolutionary change.

Question 15

For effective implementation of TQM, managers must assume the role of supervisor rather than facilitator.

Question 16

The force-field theory states that organizations have a tendency to overestimate their degree of influence over other external events.

Question 17

TQM is a quick fix that can turn an organization around overnight.

Question 18

A typical characteristic of an organic structure is standardization of behavior through rules and procedures.

Question 19

Mechanistic structure is characterized by a flat hierarchy, decentralized decision-making.

Question 20

Competition is a force that resists change.

Question 21

Team building does not focus on what the group is trying to achieve.

Question 22

Intergroup training is an OD technique that uses team building to improve the work interactions of different functions or divisions.

Question 23

Downsizing is a type of organizational restructuring.

Question 24

Process consultation is an organizational development technique in which a facilitator first observes the interactions of group members and then helps them become aware of ways to improve their work interactions.

Question 25

In general, top-down change is easier to implement than bottom-up change because it provokes less resistance.

Question 26

For the process of reengineering to be successful, it is important to centralize decision-making.

Question 27

For successfully performing reengineering, it should be organized around outcomes, not tasks.

Question 28

The European Union is a ________ force for change.

A) competitive
B) political
C) social
D) demographic

Question 29

Which of the following statements is true regarding organizational change?

A) Planned organizational change is normally targeted at increasing environmental dynamism.
B) Organizational change should take place only when the company is operating in loss.
C) Organizational change is aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the organization.
D) Organizational change typically involves changing the technical capabilities of the company without changing its human and functional resources.

Question 30

A flexible work team is self-managed.

Question 31

Which of the following is an impediment to change?

A) economic and political union among countries
B) competition
C) differences in functional orientation
D) workforce diversity

Question 32

Organizations are constantly striving to ________.

A) increase environmental dynamism
B) achieve a competitive advantage
C) decrease environmental richness
D) increase bargaining power of suppliers

Question 33

A bottom-up change is a revolutionary change.

Question 34

Instead of focusing on an organization's business processes, the managers of a reengineered organization focus on the organization's functions.

Question 35

Planned organizational change is normally targeted at improving effectiveness at one or more of four different levels: human resources, ________, technological capabilities, and organizational capabilities.

A) profitability of suppliers
B) environmental richness
C) bargaining power of customers
D) functional resources

Question 36

Which of the following is an organization's most important asset?

A) environmental richness
B) organizational structure
C) environmental dynamism
D) human resources

Question 37

Organizational change is the process by which organizations move from their current or present state to some desired future state to ________.

A) increase the bargaining power of their customers
B) increase environmental dynamism
C) increase their effectiveness
D) improve the performance of the related and supporting industries

Question 38

The process of reengineering is started with the product and not the customer.

Question 39

Which of the following is most likely to be an effect of adopting a new technology?

A) task relationships among workers change
B) selective perception of the organizational members increases
C) the production level of the organization decreases
D) the culture of the organization changes

Question 40

E-engineering refers to companies' attempts to use all kinds of information systems to improve their performance.

Question 41

Which of the following characteristics of organizational structure is most likely to resist organizational change?

A) decentralized decision-making
B) standardization of behavior through rules and procedures
C) flat hierarchy of authority
D) extensive use of mutual adjustment

Question 42

Which of the following is used for accomplishing revolutionary change?

A) implementing sociotechnical systems
B) reengineering
C) creating empowered and flexible work groups
D) implementing total quality management

Question 43

Which of the following terms refers to a pattern of faulty decision-making that occurs in a team when members discount negative information in order to arrive at a unanimous agreement?

A) selective perception
B) groupthink
C) omission bias
D) congruence bias

Question 44

Which of the following statements is true regarding organizational change?

A) Competition is a force that resists organizational change.
B) As compared to mechanistic structure, organic structure is more resistant to change.
C) Change usually benefits some people, functions, or divisions at the expense of others.
D) Resistance to change increases an organization's effectiveness and its chances of survival in a changing environment.

Question 45

The ________ theory argues that two sets of opposing forces within an organization determine how change will take place.

A) hierarchy of needs
B) force-field
C) two-factor
D) acquired needs

Question 46

Which of the following is the overall goal of total quality management (TQM)?

A) achieving radical innovation
B) increasing environmental richness
C) decreasing bargaining power of suppliers
D) achieving continuous improvement

Question 47

Organizational inertia refers to the tendency of an organization to ________.

A) increasing the number of products produced so as to take advantage of economies of scope
B) increase the diversity of its workforce
C) decrease cost of production by using economies of scale
D) resist change and maintain the status quo

Question 48

Which of the following characteristics of organizational structure is most likely to increase the responsiveness of the organization to environmental changes?

A) standardization of behavior through rules and procedures
B) tall hierarchy of authority
C) extensive use of mutual adjustment
D) centralized decision-making

Question 49

A ________ is a group of workers who assume responsibility for performing all the operations necessary for completing a specified stage in the manufacturing process.

A) quality circle
B) control group
C) flexible work team
D) kaizen group

Question 50

A team in an organization resists attempts by management to change its functions or its members. This resistance to change results from ________.

A) differences in functional orientation
B) omission bias
C) group cohesiveness
D) groupthink

Question 51

The technique of total quality management (TQM) was developed by ________.

A) Kenneth Arrow
B) William Easterly
C) W. Edwards Deming
D) Kaoru Ishikawa

Question 52

According to the force-field theory, when the two sets of opposing forces, force for change and resistance to change, are evenly balanced in an organization, the organization ________.

A) attempts to grow by diversifying its business in unrelated areas
B) is operating at the optimum production level that maximizes economies of scale
C) is in a state of inertia
D) attempts to grow by engaging in vertical integration

Question 53

Which of the following statements is true regarding evolutionary change?

A) Evolutionary change is broadly focused.
B) Evolutionary change involves a bold attempt to quickly find new ways to be effective.
C) Evolutionary change is gradual and incremental.
D) One of the methods used for accomplishing evolutionary change is restructuring.

Question 54

Which of the following is most likely to be a characteristic of an organization that implements TQM?

A) The organization uses centralized decision-making.
B) The managers in the organization assume the role of supervisor rather than facilitator.
C) The employees in the organization are empowered.
D) The organization has tall hierarchy of authority.

Question 55

Which of the following methods is used for accomplishing evolutionary change?

A) reengineering
B) total quality management
C) innovation
D) restructuring

Question 56

The force-field theory of organizational change is developed by ________.

A) Frederick Herzberg
B) Kurt Lewin
C) Abraham Maslow
D) Douglas McGregor

Question 57

According to the force-field theory, to get an organization to change, managers must find a way to ________.

A) increase efficiency of the organization
B) reduce resistance to change
C) reduce environmental dynamism
D) increase economies of scope

Question 58

Which of the following statements is true regarding revolutionary change?

A) One of the methods used for accomplishing revolutionary change is creation of empowered flexible work groups.
B) Revolutionary change is gradual and incremental.
C) Revolutionary change involves a constant attempt to improve, adapt, and adjust strategy and structure incrementally to accommodate to changes taking place in the environment.
D) Revolutionary change is broadly focused.

Question 59

Which of the following theories proposed the importance of changing roles and tasks to increase organizational effectiveness?

A) sociotechnical systems theory
B) force-field theory
C) value engineering theory
D) hierarchy of needs theory

Question 60

Which of the following is the main reason behind companies losing their effectiveness?

A) depletion of resources
B) decreased bargaining power of suppliers
C) inability to change
D) decreased environmental dynamism

Question 61

Which of the following statements is true regarding flexible work teams?

A) Flexible work teams typically consist of members of the top-management team.
B) A department head assigns a task to a flexible work team.
C) Flexible work teams are typically used as a quick fix that can turn an organization around overnight with the help of a radical innovation.
D) Flexible work teams are self-managed.

Question 62

Which of the following statements is true regarding reengineering?

A) The process of reengineering is used to achieve evolutionary change.
B) Reengineering involves decentralizing decision-making to the point where the decision is made.
C) Reengineering involves improving an organization's functions by focusing on the functions in isolation from one another.
D) The reengineering process is started with the product and not the customer.

Question 63

A finance manager observes that the return-on-investment (ROI) for his organization is only 10 percent compared to the industry average of 20 percent. The manager informs top managers about her observation. According to this information, this organization is in which stage of the action research process?

A) diagnosing the organization
B) determining the desired future action
C) eliminating obstacles to change
D) selecting a strategy for change

Question 64

________ refers to the process by which managers change task and authority relationships and redesign organizational structure and culture to improve organizational effectiveness.

A) Restructuring
B) Innovation
C) Total quality management
D) Reengineering

Question 65

Which of the following statements is true regarding total quality management (TQM)?

A) The technique of TQM was developed by Kaoru Ishikawa.
B) The technique of total quality management is used for achieving radical innovation.
C) Changes associated with TQM are changes in task, role, and group relationships.
D) TQM is a quick fix that can turn an organization around overnight.

Question 66

The term ________ refers to companies' attempts to use all kinds of information systems to improve their performance.

A) reengineering
B) restructuring
C) reorganizing
D) e-engineering

Question 67

Which of the following is one of the organizational development (OD) techniques to promote change?

A) reengineering
B) restructuring
C) process consultation
D) flexible work teams

Question 68

Which of the following methods of achieving organizational change is highly interrelated and complementary to TQM?

A) flexible work teams
B) reengineering
C) innovation
D) restructuring

Question 69

________ is the process of developing new goods and services.

A) Reengineering
B) Innovation
C) Restructuring
D) Functional reorganization

Question 70

Which of the following statements is true regarding top-down change?

A) Generally, top-down change is more difficult to implement than bottom-up change.
B) Top-down change is implemented by employees at low levels in the organization and gradually rises until it is felt throughout the organization.
C) A top-down change is an evolutionary change.
D) Typically, organizations that engage in top-down change are well-run, are used to change, and change often.

Question 71

________ is an OD technique that takes team building one step further and uses it to improve the ways different functions or divisions work together.

A) Intergroup training
B) Action research
C) Reengineering
D) Process consultation

Question 72

Which of the following terms, popularized by Michael Hammer and J. Champy, refers to fundamental rethinking and radical redesigning of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service, and speed?

A) restructuring
B) e-engineering
C) reengineering
D) TQM

Question 73

The move from a functional structure to some form of divisional structure, and the move from one divisional structure to another, represents one of the most common kinds of ________ effort.

A) restructuring
B) innovation
C) TQM
D) reengineering

Question 74

Which of the following is a technique that organizations can use to help individuals to understand the nature of their own and other people's personalities and to use that knowledge to improve their interactions with others?

A) restructuring
B) organizational cultivating
C) reengineering
D) sensitivity training

Question 75

Which of the following is an OD technique in which a facilitator first observes the interactions of group members and then helps them become aware of ways to improve their work interactions?

A) action research
B) team-building
C) process consultation
D) reengineering

Question 76

Which of the following organizational development techniques brings together all of the managers of an organization at a meeting to discuss the issue of whether the organization is meeting its goals effectively?

A) process consultation
B) team building
C) organizational confrontation meeting
D) organizational mirroring

Question 77

The goal of "reengineering" is to ________.

A) achieve continuous, incremental improvements in organizational functions
B) obtain resources from the external environment at the lowest possible costs
C) improve businesses processes
D) decrease the bargaining power of the customers

Question 78

Which of the following is an OD technique that involves a facilitator working closely with a manager on the job to help the manager improve his or her interactions with other group members?

A) mentoring
B) process consultation
C) sensitivity training
D) team building

Question 79

________ is an OD technique in which a facilitator helps two interdependent groups explore their perceptions and relations in order to improve their work interactions.

A) Restructuring
B) Action research
C) Reengineering
D) Organizational mirroring

Question 80

Which of the following terms refers to a strategy for generating and acquiring knowledge that managers can use to define an organization's future state?

A) restructuring
B) organizational Development
C) action research
D) benchmarking