TQM is an operational philosophy committed to customer satisfaction and continuous
improvement.
Answer:
Performance is the end result of activity.
Answer:
According to Schilit, unusually high goodwill gains related to recent acquisitions is a
red flag, suggesting an underlying problem.
Answer:
Asking “What would Walt do” at Disney years after his death could present blocks to
needed change.
Answer:
Many of the people in the organization who are crucial to successful strategy
implementation probably have little to do with the development of the corporate and
business strategy.
Answer:
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, uses the S team to engage in continuous strategic
planning.
Answer:
The two characteristics that determine the sustainability of a firm’s distinctive
competency are durability and imitability.
Answer:
To increase flexibility, avoid layoffs, and reduce labor costs, corporations are using
more contingent workers.
Answer:
Research indicates that a multinational corporation performs at a higher level when its
CEO has international experience.
Answer:
A merger is a transaction involving two or more corporations in which stock is
exchanged, but from which only one corporation survives.
Answer:
According to the 80/20 rule, companies should monitor the 20% of the factors that
determine 80% of the results.
Answer:
The real-options approach is used by Chevron for bidding on petroleum reserves.
Answer:
In the externally oriented planning phase, plans are developed by heavily involving the
input of managers from lower levels.
Answer:
Research indicates that the use of work teams leads to decreased quality and
productivity as well as lower employee satisfaction and commitment as a result of less
accountability.
Answer:
eBay and Amazon.com have successfully used the efficiency model by acting as an
intermediary to connect multiple sellers to multiple buyers.
Answer:
The greatest weakness of a Stage II corporation is that all its eggs are in one basket.
Answer:
Codetermination has been used in Germany since the 1950s, but has not been used in
the United States.
Answer:
Horizontal growth can be achieved by expanding the firm’s products into other
geographic locations and/or by increasing the range of products and services offered to
current markets.
Answer:
There is a very strong connection between strategy and training at successful
organizations.
Answer:
Executive succession is the process of replacing a key top manager.
Answer:
The evaluation and control process ensures that the company is achieving what it set
out to accomplish.
Answer:
Forming a joint venture between a foreign corporation and a domestic company is the
most popular strategy used to enter a new country.
Answer:
A Z-value below 10 indicates significant credit problems.
Answer:
Some executives show a self-serving tendency to attribute the firm’s problems not to
their own poor decisions, but to environmental events out of their control such as
government policies or a poor economic climate.
Answer:
The growing health consciousness is an example of a political-legal force.
Answer:
One risk of a cost leadership strategy is that the technology for production or of
products may change.
Answer:
Concentric diversification is growth into unrelated businesses.
Answer:
One of the demographic variables in the societal environment is the changing
household composition.
Answer:
Too much partnering experience with the same strategic partners generates diminishing
returns over time and leads to reduced performance.
Answer:
ERP software provides instant access to critical information to everyone in the
organization from the CEO to the factory floor worker.
Answer:
An entry barrier is an obstruction that makes it difficult for a company to enter an
industry.
Answer:
Staffing requirements are likely to follow a change in strategy.
Answer:
Today’s organizations must scan the natural environment for factors that might
previously have been taken for granted.
Answer:
Globalization is the integrated internationalization of markets and corporations.
Answer:
Each business unit has its own set of departments, each with its own functional strategy.
Answer:
McDonald’s and Olive Garden are in the same strategic group.
Answer:
The follow-the-moon management philosophy allows project team members living in
one country to pass their work to team members in another country in which the
workday is just beginning.
Answer:
When Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever take a successful product that they marketed in
one part of the world and market it elsewhere, they are following a market development
strategy.
Answer:
Archie Carroll contends that the primary goal of business is profit maximization.
Answer:
The two basic growth strategies are concentration and strategic alliances.
Answer:
The most widely used forecasting technique used after trend extrapolation is
A) statistical modeling.
B) simulations.
C) scenario-writing.
D) expert opinion.
E) brainstorming.
Answer:
In order to move more quickly through a product’s development stage and have people
from each discipline get involved in projects early on, companies are using
A) virtual work teams.
B) cross-functional work teams.
C) advisory committees.
D) task forces.
E) continuous engineering.
Answer:
The strength of each of the six driving forces of industry competition varies according
to the
A) effectiveness of the strategic planning.
B) stage of industry evolution.
C) capital requirements.
D) changes in the political environment.
E) amount of government regulation.
Answer:
The type of strategy used to influence a corporation’s key stakeholders in order to
increase their support of corporate activities is
A) cooperative strategy.
B) political strategy.
C) competitive strategy.
D) marketing strategy.
E) profit strategy.
Answer:
According to Hofstede, which cultural dimension describes the extent to which a
society values individual freedom and independence of action compared with a tight
social framework and loyalty to the group?
A) uncertainty avoidance
B) masculinity-femininity
C) individualism-collectivism
D) power distance
E) long-term orientation
Answer:
Which method of managing disparate cultures is characterized by a separation of the
two companies’ cultures because of their differences?
A) separation
B) deculturation
C) integration
D) assimilation
E) segmentation
Answer:
The average board member of a U.S. Fortune 500 firm serves on ________ board(s).
A) 3
B) 6
C) 9
D) 12
E) only 1
Answer:
What is a set of business units or firms that “pursue similar strategies with similar
resources”?
A) strategic group
B) collective collaboration
C) cooperative
D) integral association
E) strategic assembly
Answer:
Which method of matching rewards to the accomplishment of strategic objectives
encourages executives to look at developmental expenses as being different from those
expenses required for current operations?
A) strategic-funds method
B) segmentation method
C) long-term evaluation method
D) individual evaluation method
E) weighted-factor method
Answer:
A multi-domestic MNC should use what type of controls on its foreign units?
A) Management should be given considerable latitude, but be required to meet some
predetermined performance targets.
B) Management should use a matrix structure allowing some limited autonomy of the
foreign unit.
C) Management needs to exert tight controls over its many units using a centralized
strategic operational decision-making format.
D) Management should use a functional approach assigning distinct and separate
responsibilities to each department throughout the MNC.
E) Management should use a divisional approach assigning goals and targets for each
product-group throughout the MNC.
Answer:
Which method of matching rewards to the accomplishment of strategic objectives
compensates managers for achieving objectives set over a multi-year period?
A) strategic-funds method
B) segmentation method
C) long-term evaluation method
D) individual evaluation method
E) weighted-factor method
Answer:
If a company wishes to be a technological leader and also maintain a cost advantage,
the appropriate R&D strategy would be to
A) increase the cost of the product.
B) lower the cost of the product or value activities by learning from the leader’s
experience.
C) avoid R&D costs through imitation.
D) create low-cost ways of performing value activities.
E) innovate in other activities to increase buyer value.
Answer:
Rule-based governance
A) is generally found in developing nations.
B) relies on publicly verifiable information.
C) relies on implicit agreement.
D) is inherently nontransparent.
E) requires an investment in time and money to build relationships.
Answer:
Which type of chief executive officer with a great deal of experience in that particular
industry would be appropriate for a corporation following a concentration strategy
emphasizing vertical or horizontal growth?
A) professional liquidator
B) dynamic industry expert
C) turnaround specialist
D) analytical portfolio manager
E) cautious profit planner
Answer:
Collusion
A) may be explicit.
B) may be tacit.
C) is illegal when explicit.
D) can be illegal even when tacit.
E) all of the above
Answer:
In which strategy does management hope that another company will have the necessary
resources and determination to return the company to profitability?
A) sell out
B) captive company
C) liquidation
D) bankruptcy
E) profit
Answer:
Which of the following is NOT one of the risks of a cost leadership strategy?
A) The technology that the organization has been using changes.
B) Achieving excessive success causes jealousy amongst competitors.
C) Competitors can achieve viable imitations.
D) Other bases for cost leadership erode.
E) Proximity in differentiation is lost.
Answer:
The book Hypercompetition was written by
A) Porter.
B) D’Aveni.
C) Mintzberg.
D) Maslow.
E) Drucker.
Answer:
Fixed asset turnover is what type of financial ratio?
A) liquidity ratio
B) profitability ratio
C) leverage ratio
D) activity ratio
E) revenue ratio
Answer:
According to the text, the primary task of the operations manager is to
A) make sure all the products or services are producing maximum revenue.
B) develop and operate a system that will produce the required number of products or
services with a certain quality, at a given cost, within an allotted time.
C) make sure the process has a high quality control.
D) ensure that the process is manufactured or delivered as efficiently as possible.
E) interface with the other functional departments to coordinate their operations in
avoiding duplication of effort.
Answer:
The term that describes putting once isolated specialists together to work and compare
notes in a collective product design effort is called
A) simultaneous strategy.
B) participatory planning.
C) jointly designed objectives.
D) concurrent engineering.
E) cooperative design.
Answer:
Which barrier to entry uses cost advantages associated with large size?
A) rivalry among existing firms
B) switching costs
C) cost disadvantages independent of size
D) capital requirements
E) economies of scale
Answer:
A car’s cruise control, known as a “bell and whistle,” is an example of which of the
eight dimensions of quality?
A) performance
B) features
C) reliability
D) durability
E) aesthetics
Answer:
Which financial ratio measures the rate of return on the book value of shareholders’
total investment in the company?
A) return on investment
B) return on equity
C) gross profit margin
D) net profit margin
E) earnings per share
Answer:
The sum total of the activities and choices required for the execution of a strategic plan
is known as
A) strategic formulation.
B) environmental scanning.
C) strategy implementation.
D) evaluation and control.
E) strategic development.
Answer:
A responsibility center which measures performance in terms of the difference between
revenues (which measure production) and expenditures (which measure resources) is
a(n)
A) investment center.
B) revenue center.
C) expense center.
D) profit center.
E) standard cost center.
Answer:
The focus strategies will likely predominate when many small and medium sized local
companies compete for relatively small shares of the total market in a(n)
A) united industry.
B) fragmented industry.
C) consolidated industry.
D) isolated industry.
E) integrated industry.
Answer:
Continuous improvement is an operations concept developed by Deming and perfected
by firms in
A) the United States.
B) Sweden.
C) Japan.
D) Germany.
E) Canada.
Answer:
An MNC uses which international strategy for entering a foreign market by simply
shipping goods produced in the company’s home country to other countries for
marketing to minimize risk and to experiment with a specific product?
A) licensing
B) joint ventures
C) exporting
D) production sharing
E) acquisitions
Answer:
The rate at which a firm’s underlying resources and capabilities depreciate or become
obsolete is called
A) replicability.
B) transparency.
C) imitability.
D) durability.
E) transferability.
Answer:
A sugar company that is worried that consumers may buy artificial sweetener instead of
sugar is concerned about the
A) threat of new entrants.
B) rivalry among existing firms.
C) threat of substitute products.
D) bargaining power of suppliers.
E) bargaining power of buyers.
Answer:
According to the text, which of the following is NOT a typical standing committee of
boards of directors?
A) audit committee
B) compensation committee
C) executive committee
D) nominating committee
E) public relations committee
Answer:
Which barrier to entry do corporations such as P&G use to force new entrants to spend
heavily to overcome existing customer loyalty?
A) rivalry among existing firms
B) switching costs
C) capital requirements
D) product differentiation
E) access to distribution channels
Answer:
The principle which proposes that punishment should be determined on a proportional
basis to the “crime” is called
A) compensatory justice.
B) retributive justice.
C) relevant justice.
D) distributive justice.
E) punitive justice.
Answer:
When Intel opened four small-scale research facilities adjacent to universities to
promote the cross-pollination of ideas, they were using which approach to R&D?
A) open innovation
B) differentiation
C) technology scouts
D) continuous improvement
E) technological leadership
Answer: