Information regarding the four components of the Framework for Competitor Analysis
can NOT be:
A. gleaned from company press releases.
B. gathered from a rival’s internal proprietary strategic information.
C. assembled from website data.
D. observed from public information.
E. garnered from competitive intelligence departments.
The strength of a “think local, act local” multidomestic strategy is that:
A. it matches a company’s competitive approach to prevailing market and competitive
conditions in each country market, country by country.
B. it employs strategies that are almost totally different from and also unrelated to its
strategies in other countries.
C. it operates independent plants, located in different countries, thus promoting greater
achievement of scale economies.
D. it avoids host country ownership requirements and import quotas.
E. it eliminates the costs and burdens of trying to coordinate the strategic moves
undertaken in one country with the moves undertaken in the other countries.
Management is obligated to monitor new external developments, evaluate the
company’s progress, and make corrective adjustments in order to:
A. determine whether the company has a balanced scorecard for judging its
performance.
B. stay on track in achieving the company’s mission and strategic vision.
C. keep the company’s board of directors well-informed about the company’s future
outlook.
D. determine whether the company’s business model is well-matched to changing
market and competitive circumstances.
E. decide whether to continue or change the company’s strategic vision, objectives,
strategy and/or strategy execution methods.
Vertical integration can lower costs by:
A. expanding supplier power.
B. facilitating the coordination of production flows and avoiding bottlenecks.
C. establishing the framework for operating.
D. creating control factors across the value chain.
E. accommodating shifting buyer preferences.
Identify and briefly explain what is meant by each of the following terms:
a. a first-mover advantage
b. a first-mover disadvantage (or late-mover advantage)
Companies that compete on an international basis have a competitive advantage over
their purely domestic rivals:
A. to achieve a larger domestic interest by developing sufficient resource strengths and
competitive capabilities for success.
B. to benefit from coordinating activities across different countries’ domains.
C. solely for the benefit of their shareholders.
D. that guarantees the generation of big profits, big returns on investment, and big cash
surpluses after dividends are paid.
E. to give full access to the proprietary technological expertise or other competitively
valuable capabilities.
The menu of actions management can take to change problem culture does NOT
include which of the following?
A. Making a compelling case for why the company’s new strategic direction and
culture-remodeling efforts are in the organization’s best interests and why company
personnel should wholeheartedly join the effort to doing things somewhat differently
B. Replacing senior executives who are strongly identified with the old culture and who
may be stonewalling needed organizational and cultural changes
C. Promoting individuals who are known to possess the desired cultural traits, who have
stepped forward to advocate the shift to a different culture, and who can serve as role
models for the desired cultural behavior
D. Revising policies and procedures in ways that will help drive cultural change
E. Shifting from decentralized to centralized decision-making so as to give senior
executives more authority and control in driving the cultural change
Visible costs that are incurred by companies and imposed for ethical wrongdoing
include all of the following EXCEPT:
A. government fines and penalties.
B. civil penalties arising from class-action lawsuits or other litigation.
C. lower dividends for shareholders.
D. lower stock prices.
E. legal and investigative costs.
The task of top executives when the company faces disruptive changes in its
environment is to not only raise questions about the appropriateness of its direction and
strategy but also to:
A. know when to continue with the present corporate culture and when to shift to a
different and better corporate culture.
B. ferret out the causes and decide when adjustments are needed and what adjustments
are needed for improved performance and operating excellence.
C. figure out whether to arrive at decisions quickly or slowly in choosing among the
various alternative adjustments.
D. decide whether to try to fix the problems of poor strategy execution or simply shift
to a strategy that is easier to execute correctly.
E. decide how to identify the problems that need fixing.
Which of the following is NOT a good example of a substitute product that triggers
stronger competitive pressures?
A. A salad as a substitute for French fries
B. Wireless phones as a substitute for wired telephones
C. Coca-Cola as a substitute for Pepsi
D. Snowboards as a substitute for snow skis
E. Video-on-demand services from a cable TV company as a substitute for going to the
movies
What is the best way to achieve the efficiency potential of a global strategy?
A. It demands managerial attention to be focused on objective-setting specifically
oriented toward production practices.
B. It requires that resources and best practices be shared, value chain activities be
integrated, and capabilities be transferred from one location to another as they are
developed.
C. It requires that the best identified resources and capabilities be centralized at
headquarters.
D. It requires value chain activities to be dispersed across many countries to elevate
cost control management as a primary focus in all countries.
E. It requires giving local managers considerable latitude for executing strategies for the
country markets they are responsible for.
For a diversified company to be a strong performer:
A. a substantial portion of its revenues and expenses must come from business units
with relatively low attractiveness scores.
B. its principal business must be in industries with a good outlook for growth and
above-average profitability.
C. its business units in high attractiveness score industries should be candidates for
divesture.
D. its business units must operate within the favorable aspects of their industry
environment.
E. its business units must have a popular image, even if the performance of their
products does not greatly satisfy buyer expectations.
SWOT analysis is a simple but powerful tool for:
A. gauging whether a company has a cost-competitive value chain.
B. sizing up a company’s resources and capabilities, strengths and deficiencies, its
market opportunities, and the external threats to its future well-being.
C. evaluating whether a company is in the most appropriate strategic group.
D. determining a company’s competitive strength vis–vis close rivals.
E. identifying the market segments in which a company is strongly positioned and
weakly positioned.
While listening or categorizing company resources, what matters is that:
A. all tangible resources are categorized correctly.
B. important resources are reported against strategically subjective activities.
C. resources are prioritized in terms of value propositions.
D. strategically placed resources are manageable.
E. all the different types of resources are included in the inventory.