Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
Test Bank
CHAPTER 1: CHANGING ORGANIZATIONS IN OUR COMPLEX WORLD
Multiple Choice
1. Organizational change is the planned alteration of organizational components to
improve the ______ of organizations.
a. effectiveness
b. profitability
c. efficiency
d. culture
2. According to the authors’ focus, which of the following can be classified as
organizational change?
a. increasing production of a popular product line
b. installing new technology
c. increasing existing sales efforts
d. adding staff to the marketing department
3. Which of the following about organizational change as defined by the authors is true?
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
a. Organizational change can happen by accident.
b. Organizational change includes additional effort on existing strategies.
c. Organizational change is clear and linear.
d. Organizational change requires concrete initiatives.
4. What is the best way to foster strong organization change and commitment?
a. Instill a broader perspective in employees’ connection to their work.
b. Focus on initiatives piecemeal to disrupt as little of the operations as possible.
c. Tell employees exactly what to do so they don’t have to think about it.
d. Offer financial incentives for employee compliance.
5. Which employee perspective increases the likelihood that change will be accepted
and internalized?
a. when employees are detached and just think of their work as a job, because then
they don’t really care about major organizational changes
b. passive employees who don’t fight against proposed changes
c. employees who understand and identify with the vision and mission of the
organization
d. employees who are focused on one task at a time
6. Which of the following would be an example of a company strategy to address issues
related to gender, race, and diversity?
a. Change the sales commission rewards structure.
b. Redirect conversations about gender and diversity to lessen conflict.
c. Change recruiting strategies to attract more diverse candidates.
d. Provide lunch at meetings to increase morale.
7. Which of the following should companies consider when expanding their reach
internationally?
a. how to keep wages modest so they can maintain profitability
b. maintaining their culture and norms despite cultural shifts
c. nothing; if they are small companies they will not be affected
d. diversity-related challenges and differing rules and regulations
8. The triple bottom line focuses on ______.
a. profitability
b. sustainability
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
c. efficiency
d. equality
9. Which of the following is a macro-change facing us today?
a. digitization of information
b. barriers to global communication
c. increased isolation
d. a shrinking market
10. Which of the following is an example of episodic change?
a. alteration of core competencies over time
b. small changes that tweak the existing system
c. a new technology that makes current operations obsolete
d. a decade-long change in the make-up of the workforce
11. Which characteristic describes continuous change?
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
a. infrequent
b. simple
c. cumulative
d. episodic
12. Which of the following describes Tuning?
a. minor changes in response to external stimuli
b. small, deliberate, ongoing changes
c. large strategic change resulting from internal planning
d. significant shift due to external events
13. Which of the following statements is true?
a. Reorienting is more time consuming and challenging than re-creating
b. Tuning is more laborious than adapting
c. Reorienting is much more challenging than tuning
d. Adapting requires much more effort than overhauling
14. If one department in an organization is being reorganized in response to customer
feedback, this can be considered what kind of change?
a. tuning
b. re-orienting
c. adapting
d. overhauling
15. Since change initiatives so often fail, it is best for organizations to ______.
a. avoid change projects whenever possible
b. wait until an issue becomes critical before enacting change
c. enact change, but use fewer resources
d. move forward boldly with the change project
16. Which of the following are the four change roles described in the book?
a. implementers, initiators, recipients, and facilitators
b. leaders, followers, resisters, and receivers
c. initiators, champions, recipients, and facilitators
d. agents, leaders, facilitators, and planners
17. Which of the following statements is true about change roles?
a. If you are the change initiator, it doesn’t matter how anyone else feels about the
change.
b. You can only have one change role at a time.
c. If you are the change leader, you cannot also be a change recipient.
d. Change recipients often have to change their behavior to make the change effective.
18. Which of these describes the role of a change implementer?
a. Talk up a good idea and spread the vision.
b. Align internal systems and processes.
c. Identify the need for change.
d. Initiate the change.
19. Which are characteristics commonly found in change facilitators?
a. stubborn, persistent, and independent
b. self-aware, emotionally mature, with high interpersonal skills
c. power hungry, politically motivated, and strong public speaker
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
d. nice, in a position of power, and persuasive
20. Which of the following is a common managerial difficulty mentioned in the book?
a. Communicate the change too strongly.
b. See transitions as an investment rather than a cost.
c. They are hyper-aware of their own behavior causing them to overthink.
d. Assume they have the power and rationale to enact the change.
21. People who are on the receiving end of change are called ______.
a. change victims
b. change participants
c. change receptacles
d. change recipients
22. What is a common response for people who feel that they’ve had little to no voice in
the process?
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
a. engagement
b. dedication
c. sadness
d. absenteeism
23. Change leaders will be most effective if they have which of the following
characteristics?
a. distrust of organizational fads
b. seeing the world in linear terms
c. low tolerance for ambiguity
d. pessimism
24. How should change leaders respond to resistance?
a. Understand that resisters are just being oppositional and difficult.
b. Do whatever you can to silence resisters so they don’t disrupt the change.
c. Consider their perspective and why they are resisting the change.
d. Try to overcome their attitudes by getting more people on board to override them.
25. Macro-changes are ______ changes that affect organizations and what they do.
a. relatively small and internal
b. large-scale environmental
c. large-scale self-imposed
d. modest and predictable
26. What is the purpose of organizational change?
a. to enhance the organization’s effectiveness to generate value
b. to become more global
c. to increase its footprint and grow substantially
d. to make employees and consumers happy
27. Successful change leaders require which of the following attributes?
a. only a basic understanding of forces in the external world since all change happens
within an organization
b. linear thinking and a need for clarity so they can push the change along and help
others understand it
c. comfort with power and risk assessment so they can make sound decisions and lead
confidently
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
d. a cursory understanding of the stakeholders, so they can remember their names in
meetings
28. Which of these is not one of the paradoxes that change leaders must embrace to be
successful?
a. drive and enable
b. ego and humility
c. patience and impatience
d. outcomes and process
29. PESTEL stands for ______.
a. political, economic, social, technological, ecological, and legal
b. positively eager staff together embracing learning
c. potent, easy, simple, timely, efficient, and lifelong
d. politicians, environmentalists, students, technicians, executives, and librarians
30. What are common managerial difficulties in dealing with change?
a. They overestimate the power of other stakeholders.
b. They assume that employees will easily understand the change and why it is
necessary.
c. They intentionally send conflicting messages to both staff and customers.
d. They overestimate the time and dedication needed to manage the people aspect of
change initiatives.
True/False
1. Organizations are exclusively a human phenomenon.
2. The reasons for change are usually clear and easily definable.
3. Middle managers and employees at all levels should work to change organizational
goals and objectives rather than relying on senior leadership.
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
4. There is no way for an organization to prepare for environmental change.
5. Re-creation happens in response to a major external event.
6. If an organization is in the process of tuning, it does not need to pay attention to
changes in the environment.
7. Organizations can only undergo one change at a time.
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
Short Answer
1. Why do we need organizations?
2. Describe the PESTEL factors and give an example of each one.
3. Give an example of a demographic change in the world and its economic impact.
4. Describe an emerging technology and how it affects organizations.
5. Give an example of a redirecting organizational change.