Exam 15: Organizational Change

Until recently,employees at a regional building of a large telephone company were throwing out nearly two tons of rubbish every day.To reduce the amount of waste at the 12-storey building,a special task force was set up consisting of respected employees representing most areas within the building.The task force reviewed practices in other organizations and developed action plans to implement the changes.Employees received weekly information via email during the two months before the program started about what changes they should expect.Employees attended special sessions that showed them how to reduce paper waste by using both sides of paper,using scrap paper as memo pads,reusing office envelopes and relying more on email and voice mail than written memos.A special telephone hotline was set up so that employees could get answers to questions about recycling and ease their concerns about the change.The program also created barriers to wasteful behavior.Paper towels were replaced with electric hand dryers in the washrooms.Styrofoam cups were replaced with reusable mugs at each employee's desk.Wastepaper baskets in each cubicle were removed.In their place,employees were given tiny reusable bags to carry non-recyclables to specially marked trash cans located elsewhere in the building.The task force monitored waste every week and displayed the results on a large graph in the building entrance.What strategies did this company use to minimize resistance to change?

Appreciative inquiry tries to break away from the approach to change advocated by action research.

Communication should be applied to reduce resistance to change where the change must occur quickly with little financial cost.

ABC Corp.selected employees from across the organization to find new ways to serve customers.The team operated independently of the main organization and experimented with new service delivery approaches.This team is most similar to:

Action research is:

Organizational change is more successful if the change agent prevents its diffusion from one part of the organization to other parts.

According to the action research model,what occurs before diagnosing the need for change?

The textbook suggests that resistance to change represents:

The textbook describes several strategies to initiate change.Which two of these strategies should be applied LAST?

Coercion should never be used to manage change in organizations.

Which of the following organizational change activities is identified with "bringing the entire system into the room"?

In organizational change,future search events mainly:

Which approach to organizational change explicitly embraces the dual philosophy that change is both applied change and theory testing?

Unfreezing occurs by making the driving forces stronger,weakening the restraining forces,or a combination of both.

Which model of organizational change explicitly refers to unfreezing the current situation and refreezing the desired state?

Increasing the driving forces and reducing the restraining forces tends to:

Which of the following is NOT an effective strategy to unfreeze the status quo?

Which of the following types of resistance to change is often a deliberate strategy to 'prove' that the decision is wrong or that the change agent is incompetent?

Coaching and other forms of learning reduce resistance to change mainly by helping employees break previous routines and develop new role patterns.

Describe appreciative inquiry and explain how it differs from traditional organizational change interventions.