The implementation process is likely to be hampered by missed deadlines, misdirected
efforts, and managerial ineptness, if:
A. a capable results-oriented management team is not in place.
B. the personnel have different management styles.
C. top managers start asking tough, incisive questions.
D. important details require attention.
E. an additional investment in capital projects is required.
Executing strategy is a make-things-happen task that tests a manager’s ability to
perform all of the following EXCEPT:
A. manage the people, talents, and business processes of an operations-driven activities
company.
B. direct organizational change and achieve continuous improvement in operations and
business processes.
C. create and nurture a strategy-supportive culture.
D. meet or beat performance targets consistently.
E. focus on market conditions and the company’s resources and capabilities.
FaberRoad, a respected courier brand, is fast losing its market share to competitors who
do overnight deliveries of packages or offer lower prices. The company’s research
department has found that many customers care more about knowing exactly when a
package will arrive than getting it the next day. Which strategy would best address the
current state of FaberRoad and help it regain its market?
A. Employing night delivery drivers at a high cost and maintenance charges
B. Developing radio tags that could be attached to packages to allow for real-time
tracking by customers’ PCs and mobile phones
C. Diversifying the different types of packages that can be transported and enabling
booking through calls
D. Acquiring small transportation companies with cheaper trucks and tempos,
rebranding, and using them for deliveries
E. Engaging in expensive advertising with new tag lines and famous celebrities to
enhance its brand image in the market
Although exposing children to hazardous work and long work hours is unquestionably
deplorable, which of the following, if true, leads to a moral dilemma?
A. Use of adults leads to higher labor costs.
B. Children are not as efficient as adults in doing physically demanding work.
C. Many child laborers come from poverty-stricken families.
D. Banning child labor increases school attendance.
E. Working children learn independence.
A winning strategy must pass which three tests?
A. The Dominant Market Test, the Sustainable Advantage Test, and the Profit Test
B. The Fit Test, the Competitive Advantage Test, and the Performance Test
C. The Sustainable Performance Test, the Fit Test, and the Profit Test
D. The Performance Test, the Dominant Market Test, and the Fit Test
E. The Fit Test, the Sustainable Advantage Test, and the Dominant Market Test
With the aid of a strategic group map, one can:
A. identify easily the entry and exit barriers for each strategic group.
B. pinpoint precisely which firms are in profitable strategic groups and which are not.
C. identify which competitive forces are strong and which are weak.
D. measure accurately whether across-group rivalry is stronger than within-group
rivalry, and vice versa.
E. reveal which companies are close competitors and which are distant rivals, and that
not all positions on the map are equally attractive.
The essential requirement for different businesses to be “related” is that:
A. their value chains exhibit competitively valuable cross-business commonalities.
B. the products of the different businesses are bought by many of the same types of
buyers.
C. the products of the different businesses are sold in the same types of retail stores.
D. the businesses have several key suppliers in common.
E. the production methods they employ both entail economies of scale.
The options for allocating a diversified company’s financial resources include all of the
following EXCEPT:
A. making acquisitions to establish positions in new businesses or to complement
existing businesses.
B. investing in ways to strengthen or grow existing businesses.
C. funding long-range R&D ventures aimed at opening market opportunities in new or
existing businesses.
D. paying off existing debt and building cash reserves,.
E. .decreasing dividend payments and/or selling shares of stock.
Backward vertical integration can produce a:
A. full integration when activities remain the domain of key suppliers.
B. tapered integration if the firm consolidates all activities in-house.
C. differentiation-based competitive advantage when activities enhance the
performance of the final product.
D. focused differentiation strategy when the market is broad and the product is a
commodity.
E. lower degree of flexibility in accommodating shifting buyer preferences.
The strength of competitive pressures that suppliers can exert on industry members is
MAINLY a function of:
A. whether needed inputs are in short supply and whether suppliers provide
differentiated input that enhances performance of the product.
B. whether suppliers self-manufacture what they supply or source their items from other
manufacturers.
C. whether the industry’s position in the growth cycle is favorable.
D. whether technological change in the businesses of suppliers is rapid or slow.
E. whether the needs and expectations of supplier-seller relationships are changing
slowly or rapidly.
From the standpoint of promoting successful strategy execution, it is important that the
firm’s motivation and reward system:
A. be completely free of such elements as tension, pressure, anxiety, job insecurity, and
tight deadlines-a no-pressure/no-adverse-consequences work environment is essential.
B. emphasize only positive types of rewards.
C. accentuate positive rewards but also carry out the “up-or-out” policy for performance
that does not meet expectations.
D. not deny rewards to employees who put forth good effort and try hard, though
performance is subpar.
E. reduce job insecurity and give employees an incentive to stay busy and work hard.
A broad differentiation strategy works best in situations where:
A. technological change is slow-paced and new or improved products are infrequent.
B. buyer needs and uses of the product are very similar.
C. buyers incur low costs in switching their purchases to rival brands.
D. buyers have a low degree of bargaining power and purchase the product frequently.
E. technological change is fast-paced and competition revolves around rapidly evolving
product features.
Which of the following is NOT one of the factors that affects whether a strategic
alliance will be successful and realize its intended benefits?
A. Picking a good partner
B. Recognizing that the alliance must benefit both sides
C. Minimizing the amount of resources that the partners commit to the alliance
D. Ensuring that both parties live up to their commitments
E. Structuring the decision-making process so actions can be taken swiftly when needed
Winning a sustainable competitive edge over competitors does NOT hinge on which of
the following?
A. Having a distinctive competitive product offering
B. Building competitively valuable expertise and capabilities not readily matched, and
offering distinctive products
C. Building experience, know-how, and specialized capabilities that have been
perfected over a long period of time
D. Having “hard-to-beat” capabilities and impressive product innovation
E. Building products and distributing them at low prices to a broad customer base
irrespective of manufacturing cost
Which of the following statements about a company’s culture is NOT true?
A. The more new employees a company is hiring the more important it becomes to
screen job applicants every bit as much for how well their values, beliefs, and
personalities match up with the culture as for their technical skills and experience.
B. The longer people stay at an organization, the more that they come to embrace and
mirror the corporate culture-their values and beliefs tend to be molded by mentors,
fellow workers, company training programs, and the reward structure.
C. A company’s culture, once established, tends to remain stable and entrenched over
time.
D. Typically, key elements of the culture originate with a founder or certain strong
leaders who articulated them as a set of business principles, company policies,
operating approaches, and ways of dealing with employees, customers, vendors,
shareholders, and local communities where the company has operations.
E. Company cultures can be perpetuated by the telling and retelling of company
legends, by regular ceremonies honoring members who display desired cultural
behaviors, and by visibly rewarding those who display cultural norms and penalizing
those who don’t.
Retrenching to a narrower diversification base is:
A. usually the most attractive long-run strategy for a broadly diversified company
confronted with recession, high interest rates, mounting competitive pressures in
several of its businesses, and sluggish growth.
B. a strategy that allows a diversified firm’s energies to be concentrated on building
strong positions in a smaller number of businesses rather the stretching its resources and
managerial attention too thinly across many businesses.
C. an attractive strategy option for revamping a diverse business lineup that lacks strong
cross-business financial fit.
D. sometimes an attractive option for deepening a diversified company’s technological
expertise and supporting a faster rate of product innovation.
E. a strategy best reserved for companies in poor financial shape.