The most easily identified assets, often found on a firm’s balance sheet, are called:
A. Intangible assets
B. Tangible assets
C. Capabilities
D. Competencies
A(n) ________ is one that identifies a set of business capabilities central to
high-profitability operations and then builds a virtual organization around those
capabilities.
A. Modular organization
B. Agile organization
C. Virtual structure
D. Ambidextrous organization
The statement which usually accompanies the mission statement and expresses the
firm’s basic beliefs, values and aspirations is known as:
A. Grand strategy
B. The company’s statement of philosophy
C. The company profile
D. Long-term objectives
When there is a high potential compatibility of changes with the existing culture and
few changes in key organizational factors that are necessary to implement the new
strategy:
A. Managers should focus on reinforcing the culture and achieving synergies
B. Managers should link changes to the basic mission and fundamental organizational
norms
C. Managers should manage around the culture
D. Managers should reformulate strategy or prepare carefully for long-term, difficult
cultural change
Which of these represent a solution to the agency problem?
A. Backloaded compensation for executives
B. Separate the interests of the owners and agents
C. Minimize executive risk-taking
D. Focus performance measures on personal goals of executives
__________ is acquiring an activity, service or product necessary to provide a
company’s products or services from “outside” the people or operations controlled by
that acquiring company.
A. Specialization
B. Fragmentation
C. Outsourcing
D. Acquisition or merging
The matrix structure increases the number of ______ who exercise general management
responsibilities, typically as project managers.
A. Corporate level managers
B. Functional level managers
C. Middle managers
D. Business unit managers
When a firm diversifies, top management may be:
A. Eliminated altogether
B. Burdened with too many tasks, including running the day-to-day business
C. Excluded from strategic decision making
D. Confronted with excessive coordination demands
Managers’ stature in the business community is commonly associated with company
A. type
B. age
C. size
D. growth
Specific options under the concentration grand strategy include which of the following?
A. Opening additional geographic markets
B. Increasing present customer’s rate of usage
C. Developing new products
D. Selling to a differentiated customer
Restricted stock plans offer:
A. Higher downside risk to executives
B. More limited downside risk to executives
C. No downside risk to executives
D. Limited upside risk to executives
In the parenting framework, the corporate office of a multibusiness company is the
A. “child”
B. “brother”
C. “parent”
D. ‘sister”
It is far easier to quantify the objectives of ______, like production, than of certain
______ areas like personnel.
A. Line units; function
B. Staff units; line
C. Outcomes; staff
D. Line units; staff
The rationale behind golden handcuffs is that the plan:
A. Promotes longer executive tenure than other forms of compensation
B. Offsets the limitations of focusing on market-based measures of performance
C. Offers an incentive for executives to remain with the firm
D. Provides incentive for the executive to create wealth for shareholders as measured
by increase in the firm’s share price
Enhanced bargaining power with distributors and retailers to gain shelf space, shelf
positioning, stronger push, more dealer attention and better profit margins represents
which of the following sources of value building in multi-business companies?
A. Market-related opportunities
B. Functional-related opportunities
C. Potential competitive advantage
D. Operating opportunities
A company with a ______ orientation adopts a global systems approach to strategic
decision making, thereby emphasizing global integration.
A. Ethnocentric
B. Polycentric
C. Regiocentric
D. Geocentric
Which of the following types of strategic control has a low degree of focusing?
A. Special alert control
B. Implementation control
C. Strategic surveillance
D. Premise control
In deriving a mission statement, which of the following should be included?
A. Tax advantages
B. Secondary markets to be served
C. Concern for survival through growth
D. Employee rules and policies
To a large extent, attitudes at the corporate level reflect the concerns of
A. Stockholders and society at large
B. Top managers
C. The CEO
D. The federal government
Which of these is NOT true about CSR and the bottom line?
A. Some CSR activities incur no dollar costs at all
B. Philanthropic activities of a corporation are undertaken at a discounted cost to the
firm
C. Socially responsible behavior comes at a prohibitive cost especially given the
regulations
D. Socially responsible practices may create savings and, as a result, increase profits
Selling present products to customers in related marketing areas by adding channels of
distribution is called
A. Market development
B. Vertical acquisition
C. Turnaround strategy
D. Conglomerate diversification
Entrenched companies may have cost advantages not available to potential rivals. This
is an example of:
A. Capital requirements
B. Cost disadvantage independent of size
C. Economies of scale
D. Government policy
Which of these conditions is also called ‘shirking?”
A. Moral hazard problems
B. Adverse selection
C. Self-concept
D. Concern for quality
As its industry becomes increasingly ______, a firm must begin to coordinate an
increasing number of functional activities to effectively compete across countries.
A. local
B. global
C. multidomestic
D. regional
Some company cultures foster an interest in innovation only when the ideas represent
major breakthroughs. In this type of culture:
A. Intrapreneurship is very efficient
B. Intrapreneurship is predicated on the tolerance of failure
C. Intrapreneurship is very restricted
D. Intrapreneurship cannot happen
What is the underlying premise of the resource-based view?
A. Firms generally have very similar capabilities stemming from almost identical
resources
B. Imitation of resources is the best way to achieve competitive advantages
C. Firms differ in fundamental ways because each firm possesses a unique bundle of
resources
D. Firms’ intangible resources can be very difficult to imitate
A firm’s external environment includes a remote sector, industry sector and an operating
sector. The remote sector includes which of the following categories?
A. Political, technological, economic and social
B. Political, supplier power, economic and labor
C. State government, production, social and economic
D. Mission, company profile and competition
Which of these is NOT true about the company mission?
A. It embodies the business philosophy of the firm’s strategic decision makers
B. It implies the image the firm seeks to project
C. It provides specific strategies for front-line managers
D. It reflects the firm’s self-concept
An organization’s ______ is similar to an individual’s personality.
A. strategy
B. leadership
C. culture
D. vision
__________ are directives designed to guide the thinking, decisions and actions of
managers and their subordinates in implementing a firm’s strategy.
A. Functional tactics
B. Action plans
C. Short-term objectives
D. Policies
Which one of the following is NOT an outcome designed to be accomplished by a
company mission?
A. To provide a unifying purpose for the organization
B. To provide a basis for strategic objective setting
C. To provide a basis for decision making
D. To reward stockholders
__________ is used in a simple structure.
A. A formalized arrangement of tasks
B. A high level of empowerment
C. Hierarchical supervision including several management levels
D. Direct supervision
Which two U.S. management experts fostered a worldwide emphasis on quality in
manufacturing?
A. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
B. Bill Hewlett and Gary Packard
C. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet
D. W. Edwards Demming and J. M. Juran
When a firm attempts to persuade its creditors to temporarily freeze their claims while
it undertakes to reorganize and rebuild its operations more profitably, this form of
bankruptcy is called:
A. Reorganization bankruptcy
B. Liquidation bankruptcy
C. Partial bankruptcy
D. Organizational bankruptcy