Questions for Review
18-1. What is the difference between the forces for change and planned change?
Answer: Planned changes are the activities that are proactive and purposeful: an
intentional, goal-oriented activity. The goals of planned change are improving the
Learning Objective: Contrast the forces for change and planned change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress
management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
18-2. How can resistance to change be overcome?
Answer: Resistance to change can take the form of overt and immediate response
like voicing complaints and engaging in job actions. Other forms can be implicit
Learning Objective: Describe ways to overcome resistance to change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress
management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
18-3. What are the four main approaches to managing organizational change?
Answer:
1. Lewin’s Three Step Model of unfreezing the status quo, movement to a
2. Kotter’s eight step plan for implementing change:
a. Establish a sense of urgency
b. Form a coalition
c. Create a new vision
3. Action Research – a change process based on systematic collection of data
and then selection of a change action based on what the analyzed data
indicates. Process steps:
a. Diagnosis
b. Analysis
4. Organizational Development – a collection of planned interventions, built on
humanistic democratic values, that seeks to improve organizational
effectiveness and employee well-being. OD Values:
a. Respect for people
Learning Objective: Compare the four main approaches to managing organizational change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress
management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
18-4. How can managers create a culture for change?
Answer: A manager can stimulate a culture for change by stimulating a culture of
innovation. Innovation itself can be a new idea applied to initiating or improving a
Learning Objective: Demonstrate three ways of creating a culture for change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress
management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
18-5. What are the potential environmental, organizational, and personal sources of
stress at work and the role of individual and cultural differences?
Answer: Stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with
many potential sources of stress:
Environmental Factors. Economic uncertainties of the business cycle;
Organizational Factors. Task demands related to the job; role demands of
Personal Factors. Family and personal relationships; economic problems
Some people thrive on stressful situations, while others are overwhelmed by
them.
Perception will moderate the relationship between a potential stress
condition and an employee’s reaction to it. So stress potential doesn’t lie in
Experience on the job tends to be negatively related to work stress.
Social support—collegial relationships with coworkers or supervisors—
Personality traits – stress symptoms expressed on the job may originate in
Research suggests that the job conditions that cause stress show some differences
across cultures. Evidence suggests that stressors are associated with perceived
Learning Objective: Identify potential environmental, organizational, and personal sources of
stress at work and the role of individual and cultural differences
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress
management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
18-6. What are the physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms of stress at
work?
Answer: The symptoms of stress can be very serious and even fatal. There are
three major areas: physiological, such as blood pressure, headaches, and stroke;
Learning Objective: Identify the physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms of stress
at work.
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress
management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
18-7. What are the individual and organizational approaches to managing stress?
Answer:
Individual Approaches
a. Implementing time management
b. Increasing physical exercise
Organizational Approaches
a. Improved personnel selection and job placement
b. Training
c. Use of realistic goal-setting
Learning Objective: Describe individual and organizational approaches to managing stress at
work
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress
management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
Experiential Exercise
Mindfulness at Work
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe ways to overcome resistance to change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
The concept of mindfulness emphasizes trying to focus your mind in the present moment,
immersing yourself in what’s going on around you. Core principles include suspending
immediate judgment of the environment and your own thoughts, and keeping yourself
open to what is around you. The benefits of mindfulness can reach beyond reducing
stress to include increased creativity, longer spans of attention, reductions in
procrastination, and improved performance.
The Procedure
Start this exercise individually, and then come together into groups of three to four
individuals to discuss what you have found. Although full workplace mindfulness
interventions can take several weeks, some basic starting exercises can be done in a
relatively short period of time and give you a feeling for what a full course of
mindfulness would be like. Here are three simple exercises to try. For all these, everyone
needs to put everything away (especially phones, tablets, and computers!) and focus on
what is going on in the immediate environment.
• Mindful breathing: Clear your head of everything except thoughts of your own breaths.
Concentrate on how you are inhaling and exhaling. It is sometimes helpful to count how
long each breath takes. Try to maintain this mindful breathing for 3 minutes. The group
will then take 3 minutes to discuss how this made them feel.
• Mindful listening: Now clear your head of everything except what is going on in the
immediate environment. Try to hear as many sounds around you as you can, without
judging or evaluating them. Try to maintain this mindful listening for 3 minutes. The
group will then take 3 minutes to discuss some of the things they noticed.
• Mindful thinking: As with listening, clear your head of everything, but now focus just
on your ideas about mindfulness and stress. Do not talk about or write down what you’re
thinking (yet); just focus your whole quiet attention on this exercise and what it means.
Try to maintain this mindful thinking for 3 minutes. The group will then take 3 minutes
to talk about what this experience was like.
As noted earlier, this is just a brief example of what mindfulness exercises are like. In a
full mindfulness program, you would go through several sessions of up to an hour each.
Now that you have an idea of what it feels like to do mindfulness work, consider the
following questions in your groups:
18-8. Were there any aspects of the mindfulness practice sessions that you found
especially pleasant or useful? Were there any aspects of the sessions that you
found unpleasant or uncomfortable?
18-9. What concerns might you have about implementing a mindfulness intervention in
the workplace? What are some of the obstacles you might face in trying to have
employees engage in a mindfulness stress reduction program?
18-10. Bring the class together and discuss your responses.
Sources: E. Langer, “Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity,” Harvard Business Review, March 2014, 68–73; H. J. E. M. Alberts and
U. R. Hülsheger, “Applying Mindfulness in the Context of Work: Mindfulness-Based Interventions,” in J. Reb and P. W. B. Atkins,
Mindfulness in Organizations (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 17–41; K. A. Aikens, J. Astin, K. R. Pelletier, K.
Levanovich, C. M. Baase, Y. Y. Park, and C. M. Bodnar, “Mindfulness Goes to Work: Impact of an Online Workplace Intervention,”
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 56 (2014): 721–31.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, Breeze, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information.
Ethical Dilemma
All Present and Accounted For
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Compare the four main approaches to managing organizational change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AACSB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Reflective thinking
Diya looked at the records of Jose’s workstation logins, and she wasn’t pleased. Day after
day, week after week, the record showed that Jose had consistently been at his computer,
writing code and compiling data on user experiences. In the tech industry, long hours
without a break are expected, but Diya knew that her friend Jose was pushing himself
past the point of exhaustion. He had been suffering for weeks from an unidentified upper
respiratory ailment, and she worried that without rest, he’d never get better. But pressure
for rapid progress from their supervisor left Jose feeling like he had little choice but to
keep grinding out the long hours, sick or not.
The problem of absenteeism, not showing up for work when expected, is a classic
struggle for managers. Recent attention has suggested, however, that absenteeism has an
opposite with its own negative consequences—presenteeism. Presenteeism occurs when
an employee continues to go to work despite illness. Unlike absenteeism, presenteeism
may arise specifically because management is pushing for it. An employee can engage in
presenteeism for a variety of reasons, but as the story of Jose describes, sometimes it’s a
response to work pressure. Companies that put extensive resources into monitoring
employee attendance also tend to experience higher levels of presenteeism. In other
words, empirical evidence suggests companies are sending signals to employees that
attendance is required—even when they are too ill to work.
Some companies have started to buck the trend. Microsoft, for example, has pushed its
contractors to provide employees with greater access to sick-leave benefits. Pressure to
come to work when sick is obviously a significant source of stress. And stress weakens
the immune response. This means a culture of presenteeism will eventually lead to
long-term illness. It therefore seems Diya’s concerns for Jose’s long-term health are
well-founded. When sick employees come into work, it also increases the odds that
others will be infected. Over time, this can result in systemic work delays.
A large, stable organization like Microsoft may have a comparatively easy time seeing
the big-picture positive consequences of discouraging presenteeism. In a small firm that
has short-term contracts with larger organizations, like the one Jose and Diya work for, it
can be very tempting to push employees to come into work no matter what. A few days
off the job could mean the loss of a significant business opportunity. And so employees
give in to pressure and struggle through their work days, as long as they can.
Sources: D. Engber, “Quit Whining about Your Sick Colleague,” New York Times, December 29, 2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/30/opinion/quit-whining-about-your-sick-colleague.html; C. C. Miller, “From
Microsoft, a Novel Way to Mandate Sick Leave,” New York Times, March 26, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/upshot/26up-leave.html?abt=0002&abg=0; and S. Deery,J. Walsh, and C. D. Zatzick, “A
Moderated Mediation Analysis of Job Demands, Presenteeism, and Absenteeism,” Journal of Occupational and Organizational
Psychology, June 2014, 352–69._
Questions
18-11. How might presenteeism be an adaptive response to perceived performance
pressure? How is it a response to work demand pressures?
Answer: Organizations that stress minimizing absenteeism may be setting
themselves up for a different type of problem – presenteeism, or coming to work
18-12. Do employers have an ethical responsibility to discourage presenteeism? Why or
why not?
Answer: Responses to this question will vary by student depending on each
18-13. How might a company work to change employee attitudes and behaviors about
presenteeism? In other words, what would an effective presenteeism prevention
program look like?
Answer: Responses to this question will vary by student. Some will probably
suggest that if a culture of presenteeism has developed in an organization, change
Case Incident 1
Sprucing up Walmart
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Compare the four main approaches to managing organizational change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
For more than half a century, Walmart has prided itself on providing value to customers
by being a low-price leader. But the consumer mindset is changing. Now “value” also
means convenience, ease of finding what you want, and the ability to get exactly what
you want when you want it. Nationwide dollar-store chains often have lower prices than
Walmart, so that point of competitive advantage is fading. And thanks to Amazon.com
and other online retailers, consumers can shop from home whenever they like, compare
prices, and know immediately what is available.
Contrast this with the experience many Walmart shoppers previously had when they
entered a store—low inventory, disorganized aisles, unhelpful staff, and an overall
depressing atmosphere. The company’s online presence was about the same. The site was
difficult to navigate and attempts to search for products were frustrating at best and more
often fruitless.
Named Walmart’s CEO in 2014, Doug McMillon set out to change this. “What people
think about the company is important,” he noted. And at the moment, people weren’t
thinking about value and low prices when they thought about Walmart. McMillon
enacted a number of changes. First, since the company had earned a reputation of
treating its store employees poorly—low wages, few benefits—while profits were in the
billions of dollars, Walmart announced it would increase its minimum wage.
Second, the company asked for and paid more attention to employee feedback. Recurring
issues included the dress code, store music, and even store temperatures. So clothing
rules were relaxed, more variety in music was introduced, and thermostats were adjusted.
The company hopes improving employee morale will translate into a better experience
for customers, thereby changing some of the negative images.
Walmart’s Web presence was another target for big changes. With Amazon as the store’s
biggest competitor, McMillon wanted to offer customers more items, pick-up options,
and ways to meet their needs and demands—like an online grocery ordering service. This
means a new way of thinking about marketing and inventory across the board. McMillon
was able to see how consumers have changed not only what they want, but also the way
they want it—whether from the hands of happy employees or with the simple click of a
button. The question remains: Will his actions be enough to change the way consumers
see Walmart?
Sources: S. Halzack, “Why Walmart is Ditching Its Celine Dion Soundtrack and Getting a DJ,” Washington
Post, June 3, 2015,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/06/03/why-Walmart-is-ditching-its-celine-dion-sou
ndtrack-and-getting-a-deejay/; B. Ritholtz, “Walmart Learns to Live without Everyday Poverty Wages,”
Bloomberg View, June 11, 2015,
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-11/Walmart-lives-without-everyday-poverty-wages; and B.
O’Keefe, “The Man Who’s Reinventing Walmart,” Fortune, June 4, 2015,
http://fortune.com/2015/06/04/walmartceo-doug-mcmillon/.
Questions
18-14. What key factors do you think prompted Walmart to change? Do they exemplify
the change pressures discussed in the chapter? Why or why not?
Answer: Responses to this question will vary by student.
18-15. What effects from Walmart’s changes do you predict?
Answer: Again, responses to this question will vary by student. Many will
18-16. Describe how McMillon acted as a change agent in this situation.
Answer: This item can be assigned as a Discussion Question in
Case Incident 2
When Companies Fail to Change
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Compare the four main approaches to managing organizational change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
The Triniton TV, transistor radio, Walkman, and VCR are the stuff of time capsules
nowadays, but not long ago they were cutting-edge technology. Japan was at the pinnacle
of the home consumer electronics industry from the 1970s to the 1990s, introducing new
innovations to the world each year. Now those same Japanese firms are at the back of the
pack and struggling to stay in the game. Japanese electronics production has fallen by
more than 41 percent, and Japan’s global market share of electronics goods and services
has decreased by more than half since 2000. Sony, for example, hasn’t earned a profit
since 2008. What happened?
The simple answer is failure to innovate. While firms outside Japan pioneered digitalized
technology and conquered the Internet, Japanese firms stuck to semiconductors and
hardware. But the deeper issue is the refusal of Japanese managers to adapt to the
changing global environment and to change their organizations accordingly. For instance,
Sony mastered the technology needed for a digital music player years before Apple
introduced the iPod in 2001, but its engineers resisted the change. Sony’s divisions would
not cooperate with one another fast enough to compete in this market, or in the new
market for flat-screen TVs. Even now, Sony has not managed to change its organization
to reflect current global thinking in the industry. For instance, they and other Japanese
firms make a larger number of products than most of their global competitors. Former
Sony executive Yoshiaki Sakito said, “Sony makes too many models, and for none of
them can they say, ‘This contains our best, most cutting-edge technology.’ Apple, on the
other hand, makes one amazing phone in just two colors and says, ‘This is the one.’”
For Japanese electronics companies to survive, they must change. They were once able to
structure their organizations around abundant, inexpensive labor to keep costs down and
prices competitive, but that’s no longer the case. One complicating factor is that Japan is
an ancient country of many traditions, with a low birth rate and an aging population. The
country’s culture will make it even more difficult to realign to globalization. It now must
change to foster innovation, which may involve a cultural as much as an organizational
transformation.
Sources: H. Hiyama, “Sony Break-Up Call Shines Light on Electronics Industry Problems,” Japan Today (June 7, 2013),
http://www.japantoday.com/category/opinions/view/sony-break-up-call-shines-light-on-electronic-industry-problems; R. Katz, “How
Japan Blew Its Lead in Electronics,” The Wall Street Journal (March 23, 2012), p. A15; and H. Tabuchi, “How the Parade Passed Sony
By,” The New York Times (April 15, 2012), pp. B1, B7.
Questions
18-17. What made the Japanese electronics industry initially successful?
Answer: Most students will focus on the labor and innovation. In the 1970s,
Japan led the world in electronics innovations introducing one cutting edge
18-18. Why is the Japanese electronics industry no longer a success story?
Answer: Japan’s lead in the electronics industry began to erode in the 1990s as
other countries including the United States caught up and began introducing
18-19. What types of organizational changes would you advise Japanese electronics
managers to consider?
Answer: This item can be assigned as a Discussion Question in
My Management Lab
Go to mymanagementlab.com for Auto-graded writing questions as well as the
following Assisted-graded writing questions:
18-20. In considering Case Incident 1, have you ever felt pressured to work when you
were ill? How did you respond? How might you respond now?
18-21. In regard to Case Incident 2, only 13 of the top 21 U.S. electronics manufacturers
today were in existence in 1970 (and six were smaller than Fortune 500 firms),
while there have been no new top Japanese electronics manufacturers for more
than 50 years. How do you think their age issues affect the ability of Japanese
firms to bring about the changes they need to be competitive?
18-22. MyManagementLab Only – comprehensive writing assignment for this chapter.
Instructor’s Choice
Applying the Concepts
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Compare the four main approaches to managing organizational change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
At present, the number two carmaker in the world is Toyota. Of all the carmakers that
could challenge Toyota and its position, few would have predicted that a very serious
challenge may come from Korea’s Hyundai. At one time, Hyundai was the joke of the
auto world. Today, Hyundai excels at quality (it now matches Toyota and Honda), R&D
(it has opened design shops in the United States, Europe, and Asia and spends $5.4 billion
on R&D), globalization (exports are now 60% of its business and it plans to produce at
least 5 million cars annually by the end of the decade), and scale (Hyundai purchased
rival Kia and is now able to offer better prices to distributors and customers). Under the
leadership of its management and design team, Hyundai’s changes in structure and
strategy have propelled it into the limelight. All in the industry predict that Hyundai’s
new car (the new Sonata) will be a serious Camry fighter and real winner internationally,
where quality and styling are very important. If Hyundai can prove itself in industry sales
tests, it will mark the first time that a serious threat to Japan’s dominance in the mid-car
family car line will be challenged.
Using a search engine of your own choosing, go to the Hyundai website
(www.hyundai.com) and review the information on this rising automobile
manufacturing superstar. List five facts you find that support the contention that the
company has adopted a change management attitude.
Using a search engine of your own choosing, find secondary information that
analyzes Hyundai. After reading the information, characterize the company, indicate
change processes that you see at work, and make a prediction as to the company’s
success in the future.
Instructor’s Discussion
To familiarize yourself with Hyundai, review “Building a ‘Camry Fighter’” in
BusinessWeek, September 6, 2004, pp. 62–63. The students will also find a great deal of
information on the company’s website. Students should also review the websites of
competitors Toyota and Honda. An interesting way to discuss this exercise is to divide the
class into car groups and have each competitive group outline a change strategy to beat
the other competitors. Teams can gain enough information to complete their task by
reviewing industry websites.
Exploring OB Topics on the Web
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Compare the four main approaches to managing organizational change
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
1. What would be your strategy if you were called upon to be a “change agent” for your
organization? How would you begin, gather information, and create buy-in for your ideas? Go to
FastCompany’s website, where they feature an article on this topic
(http://www.fastcompany.com/online/05/changetips.html). Even more interesting, read several of the reader
responses linked at the bottom of the webpage. Write a short reaction paper on why you think there is such
a difference from the article’s perspective versus the readers’ comments. What OB strategies would you use
as change agent to address some of those readers’ concerns?
2. Resistance to change is a concern when making organizational changes. But as we read in the text,
it is to be expected. Read about the Theory of Constraints (TOC) model used by some organizations to
better know where resistance is and how to develop a strategy for addressing it. Visit
http://www.focusedperformance.com/articles/resistance.html to find an article on TOC and how to take
advantage of resistance. Print and bring to class for further discussion.
3. Write a two-page paper on Knowledge Management. It can be a general paper, or you can choose
to focus on different aspects of KM, such as the challenges of such a system or how KM enhances
organizational effectiveness or innovation. For an overview on Knowledge Management, go to
http://www.km-forum.org/what_is.html. Don’t hesitate to do your own search—there are many,
many interesting websites on this topic.