Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
1
Chapter 7: Organization Change: Research and Theory
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Friedlander and Brown’s (1974) review of early organization change research framed
their review in terms of two types of interventions that led to outcomes. The two
categories of interventions were ______.
A. people and systems
B. people and technology
C. structure and technology
D. systems and structure
2. Faucheux, Amado and Laurent (1982) broadened Friedlander and Brown’s (1974)
context of organization change by adding a linkage between a given organization and
______.
A. its leadership context
B. its values
C. the society within which it resides
D. success as measured by profitability
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
2
3. Beer and Walton (1987) described which of the following four types of problems with
organization change research?
A. The research attempts to determine causation.
B. Most organization change research takes snapshot rather than a longitudinal view.
C. Imprecise interpretation of the data due to ignoring environmental and historic
contest.
D. The way the results were reported were not user (management)-friendly.
E. All of these.
4. Another problem with early organization change research is that ______.
A. the research objective should, but did not always, dictate the research methodology
B. researchers included too many variables in their change models
C. there were too many change models
D. there was not enough agreement between researchers on how to measure the
variables
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
3
5. What is alpha change?
A. another term for “first order” change
B. a recalibration of an interval along some constant dimension of reality
C. a difference that occurs among a relatively stable dimension of reality, typically
measured comparatively, before and after the intervention
D. a major change in the perspective or frame of reference within which phenomena are
perceived and classified
6. What is beta change?
A. another term for “first order” change
B. a recalibration of an interval along some constant dimension of reality
C. a difference that occurs among a relatively stable dimension of reality, typically
measured comparatively, before and after the intervention
D. a major change in the perspective or frame of reference within which phenomena are
perceived and classified
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
7. What is gamma change?
A. another term for “first–order” change
B. a recalibration of an interval along some constant dimension of reality
C. a difference that occurs among a relatively stable dimension of reality, typically
measured comparatively, before and after the intervention
D. A major change in the perspective or frame of reference within which phenomena are
perceived and classified
8. Alpha, beta and gamma change illustrate that ______.
A. measurable change occurs in an orderly fashion
B. predicting what might change during an intervention is not simple
C. change is congruent with what you measure
D. none of these
9. Which of the following physical sciences precipitated a change in organization
change research methods?
A. chaos theory
B. nonlinear systems theory
C. fractal theory
D. all of these
10. The complex systems approach to organization change research takes into account
______.
A. patterns of interconnections among variables
B. the fact that patterns of interconnections and the strength associated with each
interconnection may vary
C. that organization change occurs over time and that change measurements will vary
over time
D. all of these
11. A phase space depicts ______.
A. any discrete change
B. a discrete change that occurs within a designated time period
C. multiple behavioral measurements over time
D. multiple behavioral measurements within a given time period
12. What is an attractor?
A. a pattern of behavior that can be traced over time
B. a discrete pattern of behavior
C. an irrelevant pattern of behavior that detracts from the variable being investigated
D. none of these
13. First-order change is to evolutionary change as ______.
A. second-order change is to transformational change
B. second-order change is to revolutionary change
C. second-order change is to episodic change
D. all of these
14. The planned organization change model developed by Porras (1987) is grounded in
______.
A. chaos theory
B. no theory
C. open system theory
D. revolutionary theory
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15. The shift from “normal” science for organization change research and theory moved
to which of the following approaches?
A. open systems approach
B. complex systems approach
C. closed systems approach
D. a non-system approach
16. Which one of the following proposed that a “complete” organization change theory
contains the four elements what, how, why and who/where/when?
A. Porras
B. Friedlander and Brown
C. James and Lange
D. Whetten
17. Which of the following psychologists suggested that emotional behavior precedes
emotional experience?
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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A. Porras
B. Friedlander and Brown
C. James and Lange
D. Whetten
18. Porras and Silvers’ (1991) Planned Process Model of Organizational Change
distinguishes between which of the following types of change interventions?
A. continuous change and evolutionary change
B. organization transformation and organization development
C. incremental and evolutionary change
D. none of these
19. According to Porras and Robertson, 1992, alpha, beta and gamma changes have to
do with ______.
A. interventions that affect employees’ thought processes
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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B. the environment
C. responding to the organization’s competition
D. all of these
20. Organizational change is ______.
A. predictable
B. ongoing
C. rational
D. none of these
21. Burke still contends that action science will promote more creativity in the future
than ______.
A. normal science
B. natural science
C. earth science
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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D. none of these
22. Following traditional methods of normal science may be straightforward, but
______.
A. they are difficult to achieve
B. the results may not be achieved
C. the null hypothesis is difficult to state
D. none of these
23. Oreg and colleagues (2011) provided a critique of 79 studies that they had reviewed
and concluded that ______.
A. there is no change in any of the variables
B. executives are often incapable of predicting how change recipients will react
C. were pleased with the vast majority of studies explored
D. the studies involved self-reports from multiple sources
Instructor Resource
Burke, Organization Change, 5th edition
SAGE Publishing, 2018
12
24. The consistent findings from Oreg and his colleagues (2011) review of change
recipient’s reaction in 79 studies led them to conclude that three aspects of organization
change are critical ______.
A. involvement, trust, and selection
B. ethics, decision-making, and empathy
C. risk aversion, availability bias, and salience
D. all of these
25. The meta-analysis conducted by Oreg and colleagues focused mainly on the
recipients of change, another meta-analysis conducted by Ford and Ford (2012)
targeted ______.
A. the leadership of change
B. the timing of change
C. resistance
D. surveys of change