Organisational Change

What statements are true of planned change?

• The activities that are proactive and purposeful; they are intentional, goal-oriented activities.

• The goals of planned change are improving the ability of the organisation to adapt to changes in another environment and changing employee behaviour.

• The change agents are people who react to and assume the responsibility for managing change activities.

• Is accidental in nature.

Which statements are true of resistance to change?

• Resistance to change can result in loss of employee loyalty and motivation, increased errors or mistakes and increased absenteeism.

• Group reasons to resist change are: habit, security, economic factors, fear of the unknown and selective information processing.

• Resistance to change can take the form of a covert and immediate response, such as voicing complaints and engaging in job actions.

• Individual sources of change include: structural inertia, limited focus of change, group inertia, threat to expertise, threat to power relationships and threat to resource allocations.

Lewin’s three-step model of change management, consisting of:

• Unfreezing the status quo, through movement to a desired end state, and refreezing the new change to make it permanent.

• Establish a sense of urgency, form a coalition, and create a new vision.

• Communicate the vision, empower others by removing barriers, create and reward short-term ‘wins'.

• Create a new vision, consolidate, reassess and adjust, and Reinforce the changes.

Organisational development:

• Is a strategy of redesigning the organisational structure to be flatter and increasing cross-functional activities and reshaping the culture to accept admitted failures and mistakes.

• Is a change process based on systematic collection of data and then the selection of a change action based on what the analysed data indicates

• Is a culture for change that stimulate a culture of innovation.

• Is a collection of planned interventions, built on humanistic democratic values that seeks to improve organisational effectiveness and employee well-being.

Phase One, unfreezing of Lewins model for change includes

• creating a felt need for change, minimising resistance to change

• reinforcing outcomes and evaluating results

• changing people, tasks, structure and technology

• making constructive modifications

Improper refreezing results in

• long-term internalisation

• change that is abandoned

• change that is completely implemented

• temporary complete compliance

Managers at a mid-sized department store decided to change to an automated inventory system that would require sales clerks to enter a nine-digit code for each article of clothing sold. Once in place, managers designed an evaluation process. The clerks, however, were highly resentful of the new system and frequently ‘forgot’ to enter the code. What is wrong?

• the managers failed to unfreeze the situation

• the managers failed to change the situation

• the managers failed to refreeze the situation

• the managers failed to unfreeze and refreeze the situation

A new tracking system was implemented at Roadworks. Workers, however, avoided using it because it looked so complicated, though in actuality, the new system was easier than the former.

As a manager of these workers, what would you do to best minimise this source of resistance at this stage?

• clarify intentions and methods

• delay change and await a better time

• offer information and encouragement

• make sure that everyone is using the new system

April believes that people’s actions are guided by reason. Hence, she objectively presents facts and figures when approaching change.

The type of change strategy April most likely employs is:

• incremental

• radical

• rational persuasion

• shared power

Which of the following is an external force that would cause a company to make an organizational change?

• A booming economy

• The naming of a new CEO

• An organization-wide restructuring

• A widening span of control for managers