Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
Test Bank
CHAPTER 9: ACTION PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION
Multiple Choice
1. One of the first steps for a change agent at the beginning of a change project is to
______.
a. seek senior-level support
b. develop a detailed plan of how the change will go
c. try and brainstorm all possible roadblocks and compile mitigation plans
d. have full confidence that their change idea will work for the organization
2. Change agents should approach change with which of the following attitudes?
a. work to acquire necessary authority before attempting change
b. continue with a change project only when management’s approval has been obtained
c. understanding the concrete lines of systems boundaries
d. test the limits of their empowerment
3. What are Mintzberg and Westly’s generic approaches to change?
a. stop first, look first, listen first
b. plan first, ask first, do first
c. think first, see first, do first
d. try first, fail first, try again
4. When does a “doing first strategy” work best?
a. when creativity, commitment, and communication are most essential
b. when the situation is novel and confusing
c. when data are clear and reliable
d. when discipline can be established in routine processes
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
5. Which of the following is a risk of implementing programmatic change?
a. lack of sufficient control to enforce the change
b. confusion over direction
c. overreliance on a one-size-fits-all solution
d. progress may be too slow
6. Which is true of discontinuous change?
a. it’s initiated from the top
b. it’s incremental
c. it’s ambiguous
d. it’s the easy type
7. Which of the following is an example of emergent change?
a. organizational downsizing due to rapid growth
b. a change initiative to improve the culture piloted by customer and staff feedback
c. a situation when the magnitude of the change is incremental in nature
d. top-down structural changes to respond to changes in the market
8. What are the benefits of using employee engagement and feedback?
a. employees will feel as though they’ve been heard and will be pacified
b. it provides more flexibility in the timeline
c. ambiguity will be reduced and it may build support by communicating why the change
was undertaken
d. it may lessen the chances of revolt
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
9. What is the difference between a participative approach and a unilateral approach?
a. A participative approach assumes that employees will have the right ideas on their
own.
b. A unilateral approach focuses on behavioral changes.
c. A unilateral approach expects crowd sourcing of information.
d. A unilateral approach changes system first; a participative approach changes
behavior first.
10. What is the danger of a unilateral approach?
a. Things may not get done.
b. Stakeholders may feel their concerns are not heard or valued and resist the change.
c. Employees may be given too much power and overtake the change process.
d. It is likely to be ineffective because employees will just ignore it.
11. According to Waldersee and Griffiths, which is a more effective approach?
a. unilateral
b. trial-and-error
c. participative
d. planning
12. Beer, Eisenstat, and Spector’s prescriptive steps to change rely on which of the
following assumptions?
a. a fundamental cooperative orientation and commonality of goals
b. change is most effective when initiated by top management
c. change plans create reliable and effective roadmaps
d. lack of employee engagement
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
13. What challenges often derail techno-structural changes?
a. excessive employee participation
b. acceptance and implementation issues
c. lack of coherent communication
d. alignment issues
14. According to the book, in what situations should others be excluded from action
planning?
a. when employees may not agree with the plan
b. when there is little respect for the senior leadership
c. when there are too many opinions to consider
d. when there is too much competitive risk and plans should be kept secret
15. Which of the following is a suggested tool for action planning?
a. a pro/con list
b. an org chart
c. a balance sheet
d. a responsibility chart
16. What is the purpose of responsibility charting?
a. to add to the annual report as a change-action document
b. to keep the projects at the forefront of employees’ minds, even if the responsibilities
are irrelevant
c. to keep projects on track and provide accountability
d. to use guilt and public shame to get people to finish their assigned tasks
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
17. Which of the following questions should managers ask regarding a scenario they
had developed in a scenario-planning exercise?
a. Who can cause this to happen?
b. What are the prerequisites for this scenario?
c. How much money would it take to eliminate this possibility entirely?
d. Is this scenario better than the status quo?
18. What do critical path methods require of planners?
a. for planners to only focus on the critical tasks
b. to estimate based on past experience how long the project will take
c. to identify when the project should be completed and plan backward from that point
d. to critically assess the plans of others against the reality of time and resources
19. Which of the following is true of parallel initiatives?
a. It addresses each task and project separately.
b. It can shrink the time required to complete a change.
c. It requires very basic and straightforward planning.
d. It carries very little risk or chances for failure.
20. What is the benefit of creating a commitment analysis chart?
a. It can exhibit to others that you are prepared for the change.
b. It is a useful project management tool since it divides responsibilities.
c. It relies on the emotional response of stakeholders.
d. It analyzes engagement and is instrumental in planning tactics to alter those
predispositions.
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
21. Which of the following is a challenge of leverage analysis?
a. It does little to move people on the adoption continuum.
b. To build sufficient support to bridge the gap between early adopters and the early
majority.
c. It can only be done with an outsider’s objective view of the organization.
d. Any employee’s support can be used to leverage support, so it is often difficult to
choose who to focus on.
22. Why are good communication plans essential?
a. It encourages people to conquer their fear of public speaking.
b. It is easy to convince employees that they’ve been heard, so it’s a big return on an
investment.
c. Mostly everyone in the organization has the same general idea of the change but
needs additional details.
d. It minimizes rumors and helps mobilize support.
23. Which of the following is one of the four major goals of a communication plan?
a. To brand the change project so people will like it
b. To communicate the need for change
c. To garner feedback
d. To allow employees to find a new job if needed
24. What makes a message “sticky”?
a. It’s thorough.
b. It’s unexpected.
c. It comes from the president/CEO.
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
d. It is heavily marketed internally.
25. What is the most effective way to communicate a change?
a. primarily use social media
b. messages should come from senior leadership rather than middle managers
c. to ensure consistency, the message should be general
d. face-to-face communication is best
26. Which of the following would be classified as a pull tactic?
a. presentation of financial motivations and anticipated market growth
b. messages that lack of compliance may endanger one’s position
c. inviting middle managers to review and give feedback on the change plan
d. detailing logistically why other approaches to the issues will not work
27. What are Nutt’s four influence tactics?
a. pull tactics, push tactics, shared vision, and financial incentives
b. inform, reinforce, embed, and demand
c. ask, beg, threaten, and edict
d. intervene, participate, persuade, and edict
28. Which implementation tactic takes the longest to adopt?
a. pull tactics
b. persuasion
c. edict
d. influence
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
29. Transition management balances which two things?
a. early adopters and laggards
b. the change project and continuing operations
c. short-term and long-term
d. resistance and acceptance
30. What might a leader use to manage a transition?
a. midcourse goals
b. sticks and carrots
c. high degree of discretion on what should be communicated
True/False
1. Employees don’t need to take explicit action to incite change. Organizations are
constantly changing, and change opportunities will present themselves regularly.
2. Forecasting and scenario planning are basically the same exercise.
3. The AIDA continuum outlines how the stakeholders will be affected by the change.
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
4. Survey feedback allows survey responders to rate the quality of the survey.
5. When things are complex and ambiguous, the richness of the communication
channel needs to increase.
Short answer
1. What are the benefits and downsides of using surveys?
2. What does “working the plan” entail?
3. Describe the four phases of a communication plan.
Deszca, Organizational Change 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
4. Identify one of the strategies for influencing others that you have had experience with.
Detail how it effective was in that change situation.
5. What questions should a transition manager ask when preparing for a transition?