Deck 12: The Management of Strategic Change

Question 1

Potentially important changes can go unnoticed by managers for long periods simply because managers have failed to track them.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Which of the following is NOT an example of competency-destroying change:

A) New product lines
B) New customer groups
C) New product models
D) All of these
E) None of these

Answer 2

C

Question 3

The "Attraction-Selection-Attrition" cycle can explain General Motors' failure to develop small cars by its rejection of _______________.

A) contrarian voices
B) the dominant coalition
C) supporters of the prevailing wisdom
D) All of these
E) None of these

Answer 3

A

Question 4

What two courses of action must firms follow when faced with the ongoing shifts in the competitive dimensions of their industries?

Question 5

Discuss three factors that slow or limit the responsiveness of managers to environmental change.

Question 6

Why, as a manager, would you not want to win the "boiled frog" award?

Question 7

Discuss the downside risk of the focusing characteristic of mental models.

Question 8

Why are managers and their firms frequently blindsided by significant, sudden, or catastrophic changes in their industries?

Question 9

Why did managers in the railroad industry fail to respond to the competitive threat posed by trucks and an improved national highway system?

Question 10

Discuss confirmatory bias as it relates to problems of interpretation in managers' mental models.

Question 11

What appears to have been the problem with the strategies adopted by U.S. and European automobile companies in response to the threat posed by Japanese automobile manufacturers' success in gaining market share in their home markets?

Question 12

Why is making a first-order change the incorrect response to a second-order change in a competitive market?

Question 13

Why do managers prefer to emphasize lower-level learning over higher-level learning?

Question 14

Discuss two factors that influence the extent of higher-level learning.

Question 15

When should a manager initiate a problemistic search?

Question 16

How does the "Attraction-Selection-Attrition" cycle work to produce homogeneity in managerial thinking?

Question 17

Provide support for the statement that "the rate of organization leaning for an organization must meet or exceed the rate of change in its industry environment if it is to be competitively successful."

Question 18

Which of the following is an example of competency-enhancing change?

A) Product line extensions
B) Software upgrades
C) New product models
D) All of these
E) None of these

Question 19

_______________ can ensnare firms when they become increasingly adept at routines and processes that are no longer appropriate because of changes in their competitive environments.

A) Capability cages
B) Competency traps
C) Expertise deadfalls
D) Talent trip wires
E) None of these

Question 20

____________ is the cognitive process of noticing and constructing meaning about environmental change so that organizations can take action.

A) Environmental scanning
B) Noticing
C) Problem sensing
D) Remote viewing
E) None of these

Question 21

Research suggests that changes need not be dramatic nor have major consequences for firms before their managers will take notice of them.

Question 22

Noticing changes depends on changes being seen as "breakpoints" or sharp changes from the status quo.

Question 23

Lower-level learning is characterized by improvements in or refinements of existing beliefs, understandings, and organizational processes.

Question 24

Higher-level learning involves developing totally new beliefs, understandings, and organizational processes.

Question 25

Higher-level learning is the "exploitation of the known."

Question 26

Lower-level learning is the "exploration of the new."

Question 27

Lower-level learning leads to reduced unit costs as cumulative output increases.

Question 28

Higher-level learning helps firm avoid being blindsided by new rivals, fosters development of new technologies,
and supports the introduction of new products and services.

Question 29

Second-order-or revolutionary-change can be thought of as refinements to existing products or services or technologies.

Question 30

Second-order-or revolutionary-change involves introducing totally new product lines or totally new services, reaching totally new groups of customers, or adopting new technologies

Question 31

First-order change has also been called competence-destroying change.

Question 32

Firms tend to allocate more resources to lower-level learning and first-order change than to higher-level learning and second-order change.

Question 33

Studies have shown that executives become less and less committed to the status quo as they remain in the same position, continue in employment with the same company, or stay in the same industry.

Question 34

Firms with CEOs who had served for more than ten years tended to exhibit greater misalignment with their industry environments.

Question 35

Employee turnover and workforce heterogeneity both contribute to organizational learning through greater knowledge generation.

Question 36

General managers, and not industry forces, are a much more important influence on organizational success.

Question 37

Investments in physical assets are more important than the managerial thinking that guides these investment decisions.

Question 38

Discuss the expected outcome of demographic diversity in an organization.