Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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AACSB Standard: Systems and processes in organizations
25. An organization’s ability to offset the process of entropy will result in ______.
A. growth and development
B. greater differentiation of products and services
C. a congruent need for integration and coordination
D. all of these
26. Deep ecology is ______.
A. an ancient paradigm
B. a sequential world view
C. sees the world as dissociative collection of parts
D. none of these
27. The pattern of organization for a living system is ______.
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
13
A. sequential
B. the configuration of relationships that determine the systems essential characteristics
C. sporadically produces itself
D. a mechanical process
28. The structure of a living network is ______.
A. inotropic
B. the embodiment of the systems physical components
C. the network of a virtual system
D. a closed nature
29. An example that assists in explaining organization and organizational change is
______.
A. organizations avoid external environments
B. it maintains itself through constant commerce with the external environment
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
14
C. still unknown
D. none of these
30. A parallel to explain organizations and organization change can be drawn from a
cells pattern that is ______.
A. carcinogenic
B. not determined by external environment
C. membership outside a larger society
D. an unnested network
31. Capra’s third criterion is ______.
A. process
B. the living system’s cognitive activity
C. allowing a living system to perceive, sort, and select specific elements from the
external environment
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
D. all of these
32. Capra’s synthesis ______.
A. is a step beyond open system theory
B. deemed epistemologically impossible
C. rejects an autopoietic process
D. none of these
33. Like human organizations, cells are ______.
A. autopoietic
B. self-sufficient
C. independent of the external environment
D. all of these
34. Autopoiesis means that ______.
A. living systems continually change their structure
B. systems renew themselves, while preserving their patterns of organization
C. having system components that continually produce and transform one another
D. all of these
35. And open system organization is open because of ______.
A. its dependence on the environment in which it resides
B. avoiding interaction with the environment in which it resides
C. existing only in the world of nonliving matter
D. expelling energy from get into the environment
1. Open-system theory stems from cell biology.
2. One of the 10 distinguishing characteristics of open systems is “systems are cycles of
events” which means that events, rather than things, provide identity.
3. If a change agent works in one part of the organization but does not consider the
impact of the rest of the organization, it is considered a partial success.
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4. The target for change is the individual not the system.
5. Process serves as the connection or link between pattern and the reinforcer of our
support for the independent structure.
6. The main way humans communicate is with language and chemical exchange just
like ants.
7. There is a definite interdependence between an organization and its external
environment. They each affect the way one functions and survives.
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
8. Equitifinality is a principal that asserts that for any given goal, there are multiple paths
that organizational members can take to achieve it.
9. The object or change is systematic; some aspect of the system is selected for change
as a result of a previous diagnosis and in collaboration with people within the
organization.
10. The organization change should be systemic since the target or change is the
system, the ritual.
1. Why should an organization change objective be systemic?
2. What is entropy, and what do energy and negative entropy have to do with an
organization’s survival?
3. Describe each part of the input—throughput (transformation)—output feedback loop
and the feedback loop’s relevance to organization change and survival.
4. In asking whether larger systems, organizations, and human societies are self-
making networks, Burke offers numerous parallels and analogies. Explain three of them.
5. Capra’s approach constitutes a paradigm shift from mechanistic physical principles to
explain the discipline or understanding reality—to the life sciences. Describe this new
paradigm of the ecology.