In order to coordinate and control the complex set of activities, managers must ensure:
A. the organizational structure enables bureaucratic waste and strives for eliminating
imposed capacity limitations of the strategy.
B. the various parts of the organizational structure are aligned with one another and also
matched to the requirements of the strategy.
C. they have enough employees dedicated to the various functions to attain economies
of scale benefits.
D. they can orchestrate the process with forceful administration and political
maneuvering.
E. they accommodate situational idiosyncrasies to build a competitively capable
organization.
Which of the following is a disadvantage of a decentralized organizational structure?
A. Increasing the size of the corporate bureaucracy
B. Reducing a company’s response times to changing external events
C. Discouraging lower-level managers and rank-and-file employees from exercising
initiative
D. Putting the organization at risk if higher-level management is unaware of their
actions
E. Creating more layers of management
Unrelated businesses:
A. sell products from the different businesses to much the same types of buyers and
retail outlets.
B. have dissimilar value chains and resource requirements with no competitively
important cross-business commonalities at the value chain level.
C. perform better than just the sum of the individual businesses.
D. will always have several key suppliers in common.
E. employ production methods that create economies of scale.
A key approach for a company to grow sales and profits in several country markets is
to:
A. transfer its valuable competencies and resource strengths among these markets to aid
in the development of broader competencies and capabilities.
B. employ a multidomestic strategy rather than a global strategy.
C. locate technical after-sale services close to buyers.
D. minimize transportation costs among these markets.
E. take advantage of less restrictive restrictions and requirements of host governments.
The two culture-building roles of a company’s stated values and ethical standards are to:
A. communicate the company’s good intentions and establish a corporate conscience.
B. confirm the integrity of company personnel and signal the above-board nature of the
company’s business principles and operating methods.
C. steer company personnel toward doing the right thing and convince outsiders that the
company is socially responsible.
D. foster a work climate where company personnel share common and strongly held
convictions about how the company’s business is to be conducted and to provide them
with guidance about how to do their jobs, steering them toward both doing things right
and doing the right things.
E. provide a basis for designing culture-supportive incentive compensation plans and
reinforcing the appropriateness of particular ethical and moral actions.
Which of the following is defined as a formal agreement between two or more separate
companies in which they agree to work cooperatively toward some common objective?
A. Joint venture
B. Vertical integration
C. Strategic alliance
D. Forward integration
E. Outsourcing
Which of the following exemplifies cross-country differences in demographic, cultural,
and market conditions?
A. Nike produces its own line of skate shoes.
B. Starbucks acquires a large coffee farm in Costa Rica.
C. Ireland provides low-costs loans to foreign entrants to stimulate capital investment.
D. Intel’s silicon chips are identical across the world.
E. McDonald’s offers 100% beef-free products in its outlets in India.
Best-cost provider strategies are those that:
A. are a hybrid of low-cost provider and differentiation strategies that aim at providing
desired attributes while beating rivals on price.
B. are rewarded by providing buyers with the best attributes at a premium.
C. have strategy elements related to the lowest-cost provider in the largest and fastest
growing (or best) market segment.
D. look for a low-cost advantage rather than a differentiation advantage.E. look for a
differentiation advantage rather than a low-cost advantage.
Merely fine-tuning the execution of a company’s existing strategy normally requires :
A. big shifts of resources from one area to another.
B. a larger allocation of resources to the effort.
C. trimming costs and shifting resources to activities that have a higher priority.
D. creativity in finding ways for cost reductions, i.e. ways to do less with less .E.
cost-cutting in key value chain activities.
The diamond framework can be used to reveal the answers to all of the following that
are important for competing on an international basis EXCEPT:
A. where foreign entrants into an industry are most likely to come from.
B. how to formulate an exit strategy to push foreign competitors out of the market.
C. which countries’ foreign rivals are likely to be the weakest.
D. how managers can decide which foreign markets to enter first.
E. where to locate different value chain activities so they are the most beneficial.
Which of the following is NOT part of the task of checking a diversified company’s
business lineup for adequate resource fit?
A. Determining whether the excess cash flows generated by cash cow businesses are
sufficient to cover the negative cash flows of its cash hog businesses
B. Determining whether recently acquired businesses are acting to strengthen a
company’s resource base and competitive capabilities or whether they are causing its
competitive and managerial resources to be stretched too thinly across its businesses
C. Determining whether opportunity exists for achieving 1 + 1 = 2 outcomes
D. Determining whether the company has adequate financial strength to fund its
different businesses and maintain a healthy credit rating
E. Determining whether the corporate parent has or can develop sufficient resource
strengths and competitive capabilities to be successful in each of the businesses it has
diversified into
A no-pressure/no-adverse-consequences work environment does not necessarily lead to:
A. superior strategy execution or operating excellence.
B. satisfactory outcomes because there is always a cadre of ambitious people who relish
the challenge.
C. workforce morale issues.
D. establishing more positive than negative motivational reward elements.
E. excessive shortfall in performance.
What is the essence of the business case for why a company should engage in socially
responsible actions and environmentally sustainable business practices?
A data storage company realizes that its facilities are used most by financial institutions.
It capitalizes on the opportunity and starts storing specific financial information only
and is now one of the most sought-after financial databases. What strategy has the
company employed?
Which is the better approach to diversification-a strategy of related diversification or a
strategy of unrelated diversification? Explain and support your answer.
A company’s strategy represents a managerial commitment to an integrated array of
considered choices about how to compete. This includes the choice about how to
capitalize on attractive opportunities to grow the business. Why is opportunity
recognition a vital component of the company’s strategy?
Describe the two basic cost-reducing approaches a company can take to become a
low-cost provider in its industry.