Deck 10: Organizational Change and Innovation: Lifelong Challenges for the Exceptional Manager

Question 1

China and India are changing the way American companies work, in part, through substantial labor savings.

Answer 1

True
Explanation: China, India, Mexico, the Philippines, and other countries offer workers and even professionals willing to work twice as hard for half the pay, giving American businesses substantial labor savings.These developing nations also, says BusinessWeek, offer "enormous gains in efficiency, productivity, quality, and revenues that can be achieved by fully leveraging offshore talent."

Question 2

While customers may act as a force for change, shareholders support stability.

Answer 2

False
Explanation: Shareholders have begun to be more active in pressing for organizational change.Customers are also becoming more demanding, being more inclined to take their business elsewhere if they do not get what they want from a given company.

Question 3

Proactive change involves making carefully thought-out changes in anticipation of possible or expected problems or opportunities.

Answer 3

True
Explanation: In contrast to reactive change, proactive change or planned change involves making carefully thought-out changes in anticipation of possible or expected problems or opportunities.

Question 4

According to Jim Collins, researcher of enduring great companies, hubris and denial are among the stages of institutional decline.

Question 5

Demassification refers to a trend of customer groups being segmented into smaller, specialized groups responding to narrowly targeted messages.

Question 6

BP handled the 2010 oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico in a proactive manner.

Question 7

People are generally comfortable with and embrace change, even change in apparently major matters.

Question 8

Hasbro's move to create a version of its Monopoly game for iPad for technology-obsessed children is an example of proactive change.

Question 9

The marketplace is becoming more homogeneous and moving toward more similar products.

Question 10

One of the strengths of Virgin Group Ltd.is its ability to enter new businesses quickly.

Question 11

Employee problems are one type of outside force for change in the organization.

Question 12

Successful large companies are more able than other firms to survive and prosper in an environment of radically innovative change.

Question 13

The two types of change are practical and theoretical.

Question 14

An important component of dealing with change is to allow grieving over the loss of old ways.

Question 15

Secondhand shops suffering from a recession-induced decline in thrift store donations is an example of an outside force for organizational change.

Question 16

Managers' behavior is one type of inside force for change in the organization.

Question 17

Information is rapidly becoming the new competitive advantage.

Question 18

The need for change comes solely from outside the organization.

Question 19

Coleman Natural Foods began selling natural beef back when most shoppers were unaware of the term.This is an example of proactive change.

Question 20

Reactive change is carefully thought out.

Question 21

Kotter's change step of anchoring new approaches in the culture corresponds to refreezing in Lewin's model.

Question 22

Mistrust between change agents and employees can cause failure of well-conceived changes.

Question 23

Sabotage can be a form of resistance to change in the workplace.

Question 24

The four areas in which change is most apt to be needed are people, technology, structure, and strategy.

Question 25

Kotter's research reveals that management of organizational change is more essential than leadership throughout it.

Question 26

People changes in an organization are not required until that organization reaches about 20 people in size, when the level of specialization reaches a critical point.

Question 27

One of the reasons employees resist change is fear of the unknown.

Question 28

In the context of change, technology refers to computer technology used to gain a competitive advantage.

Question 29

The most complex, costly, and uncertain kind of change is known as radically innovative change.

Question 30

During the refreezing stage of Lewin's change model, managers should model the change themselves, as well as coach employees and reinforce the desired behaviors.

Question 31

Innovative change is the introduction of a practice that is new to the organization.

Question 32

Adaptive change involves introducing a practice that is new to an industry.

Question 33

Changes in power structures that occur with administrative and technological changes are generally embraced by employees because of the new opportunities they present.

Question 34

Innovative change is the least threatening type of change and is therefore least likely to create resistance.

Question 35

In the refreezing stage of change of Lewin's change model, employees need to be given new information, perspectives, and models for behavior.

Question 36

Job dissatisfaction within an organization can be an indicator that change is needed.

Question 37

Putting an end to servant leadership is a change that is likely to improve manager-employee relationships.

Question 38

According to Lewin, for unfreezing to take place, people need to become dissatisfied with the old way of doing things.

Question 39

Benchmarking is a technique that can be used in the refreezing stage of Lewin's change model.

Question 40

The recent structural trend is toward a taller organizational hierarchy.

Question 41

Patagonia was satisfied with its OD intervention to become greener.

Question 42

Intervention is the treatment phase of OD in which problems are corrected.

Question 43

The first step of the OD process is evaluation, which uses employee surveys, interviews, and observation to ascertain attitudes and problem areas.

Question 44

One of the primary situations in which OD is used is when adapting to mergers.

Question 45

An OD intervention that worked in the United States is likely to work equally well around the world because the practices are very fundamental to human nature.

Question 46

In OD, combined interventions have been found to work better than single interventions.

Question 47

In 1961, Procter & Gamble introduced the first affordable, readily-available disposable diaper called Pampers.At that time, Pampers were an example of a radical innovation.

Question 48

Innovation differs from creativity or invention in that it requires useful application.

Question 49

Even when it comes to technology-induced change, OD can be helped by opening communication and dealing with stress.

Question 50

Radical innovation is the creation of products, services, or technologies that replace existing ones.

Question 51

According to Scott Berkun, the search for wealth is one of six seeds of innovation.

Question 52

Having employees that experiment may limit an organization's ability to learn from failure.

Question 53

In the OD process, feedback is used to refine the diagnosis.

Question 54

The self-serving bias can lessen an employee's ability to learn from failure.

Question 55

Innovation most often happens in a "eureka" moment of epiphany.

Question 56

A product innovation is a change in the way a product or service is conceived, manufactured, or disseminated.

Question 57

The three steps of the OD process are diagnosis, experimentation, and adaptation.

Question 58

A change agent is a behavioral sciences consultant who helps organizations deal with old problems in new ways.

Question 59

OD focuses specifically on the technology aspects of change.

Question 60

Hard data about absenteeism, turnover, and profitability are used in the intervention stage of the OD process.

Question 61

Which of the following is an example of a force for change originating outside the organization?

A)Productivity issues
B)Conflict management
C)Structural reorganization
D)Absenteeism
E)Social pressures

Question 62

The three most important ways to encourage innovation are by providing the right organizational culture, a team-based structure, and creative talent.

Question 63

Walmart's implementation of RFID, a type of technology that allows it to improve inventory tracking, is an example of a(n) ______ change.

A)reactive
B)incremental
C)proactive
D)responsive
E)radical

Question 64

Which of the following is an example of a proactive change?

A)Ciara's staff is unhappy about the long hours they have been working and several of them quit before she knows there is a problem.
B)Ciara cannot get permission to hire another person until her group misses several deadlines.
C)Ciara's group sent a product that was nearing its launch date back to the drawing board based on a competitor's superior new offering.
D)Ciara explores improvements in bonus structures with her staff and begins to implement them despite the fact that her employees are generally content.
E)Ciara is constantly "putting out fires," responding to daily crises in her group.

Question 65

A change that is made in response to arising problems or opportunities is called

A)reactive change.
B)incremental change.
C)proactive change.
D)radical change.
E)process change.

Question 66

Conventional electric vehicle batteries use a liquid electrolyte but an Orlando start-up is developing a solid-state lithium-ion battery with improved stability and lifetime.This is an example of incremental innovation.

Question 67

The most effective way to handle rewards for innovation is to provide them at the end of a successful project.

Question 68

Which of the following is not a supertrend shaping the future of business?

A)More niche products.
B)Traditional companies struggling with radically innovative change.
C)Information becoming a competitive advantage.
D)Offshore suppliers affecting U.S.business.
E)Faster speed-to-market.

Question 69

According to Jim Collins, undisciplined pursuit of more and grasping for salvation are stages of organizational

A)innovation.
B)change.
C)intervention.
D)resistance.
E)decline.

Question 70

Which of the following is an effective way to deal with change and innovation?

A)Insist on success.
B)Increase work rules and hierarchy.
C)Copy others' successes.
D)Have the courage to follow your ideas.
E)Jump right into it.

Question 71

The increasing diversity of the American workforce is an example of a(n) ______ force for change.

A)demographic
B)market
C)social and political
D)political
E)economic

Question 72

Innovation can be fostered by withholding raises or promotions from those whose attempts to innovate are not successful.

Question 73

Entrepreneurs tend to be tolerant of ambiguity.

Question 74

One step for fostering innovation is gaining allies by communicating your vision.

Question 75

Inside forces for change include which of the following?

A)Domestic competition
B)Low productivity
C)Advancements in automation
D)Immigration
E)Recession

Question 76

Chicago Cutlery reinstituted a sales contest with the same rules as the one that it used five years ago.This is an example of a process innovation.

Question 77

An organizational culture that celebrates failure helps foster innovation.

Question 78

The invention of a machine to make plastic corks for wine bottles has severely affected companies that produce traditional cork.This is an example of a(n) ______ force for change.

A)market
B)social and political
C)demographic
D)technological
E)economic

Question 79

Most organizations experience innovation as a matter of course; it happens naturally as part of everyday business.

Question 80

Arizona Pottery is having a difficult time finding inexpensive labor, which it attributes to an unfriendly climate toward Hispanics since passage of tough illegal immigration legislation in that state.This is an example of a(n) ______ force for change.

A)market
B)employee
C)social or political
D)technological
E)economic