The resolute standard for judging whether individuals, teams, and organizational units
have done a good job must be measured by:
A. comparing industry performance standards against the company’s own internal
criteria.
B. the level of rapid growth in industry (buyer) demand.
C. whether they meet or beat performance targets that reflect good strategy execution.
D. the number of rivals existing in the marketplace and their growth results.
E. the relative competitive strengths of the industry leaders and how vulnerable they are
to mimicry.
Answer:
The generic types of competitive strategies include:
A. market share growth provider, sales revenue leader strategy, and market share
retention strategy.
B. offensive strategies, defensive strategies, and counter maneuvers strategies.
C. low-cost provider, broad differentiation, best-cost provider, focused low-cost, and
focused differentiation strategies.
D. low-cost/low-price strategies, high-quality/high-price strategies, and medium
quality/medium price strategies.
E. price leader strategies, price follower strategies, technology leader strategies, and
first-mover strategies.
Answer:
The customer value proposition lays out the company’s approach to:
A. meeting profitability guidelines without the risk of losing customers.
B. operating efficiently given the current level of customers.
C. embracing rival company approaches to gaining customers.
D. satisfying customer wants and needs at a price customers will consider a good value.
E. assuring that the company makes enough profits based on its per-unit cost.
Answer:
Functional-area strategies:
A. concern the actions, approaches, and practices to be employed in managing
particular functions within a business.
B. specify what actions a company should take to resolve specific strategic issues and
problems.
C. are normally crafted by operating-level managers.
D. are concerned with how to unify the firm’s several different operating strategies into
a cohesive whole.
E. are normally crafted by the company’s CEO and other senior executives.
Answer:
Providing top-down guidance can aid the task of implementing strategy:
A. provided they promote greater use of and commitment to best practices and total
quality management.
B. because really effective internal policies and procedures are not easily duplicated by
other firms.
C. because astutely conceived policies or procedures can result in competitive
advantage.
D. by helping align the actions and behavior of company personnel with the
requirements for good strategy execution, placing limits on independent action, and
helping overcome resistance to change.
E. by making it easier to impose tight budget controls and avoid wasting scarce
resources.
Answer:
Six Sigma quality control:
A. is a strategy implementer’s best, most reliable tool for simultaneously achieving
top-notch product quality and low manufacturing costs.
B. consists of a disciplined, statistics-based system aimed at producing not more than
2.5 defects per million iterations for a manufacturing or assembly process.
C. consists of a disciplined, statistics-based system aimed at producing not more than
3.4 defects per million iterations for any business process.
D. consists of a disciplined, statistics-based system aimed at fewer than 5.0 complaints
per million customer transactions.
E. is a powerful tool for companies whose customers are very picky about product
quality and product performance and who can’t afford for the product they use to break
down and require repairs.
Answer:
Which of the following are integral parts of the managerial process of crafting and
executing strategy?
A. Developing a strategic vision, setting objectives, and crafting a strategy
B. Developing a proven business model, deciding on the company’s strategic intent, and
crafting a strategy
C. Setting objectives, crafting a strategy, implementing and executing the chosen
strategy, and deciding how much of the company’s resources to employ in the pursuit of
sustainable competitive advantage
D. Coming up with a statement of the company’s mission and purpose, setting
objectives, choosing what business approaches to employ, selecting a business model,
and monitoring developments
E. Deciding on the company’s strategic intent, setting financial objectives, crafting a
strategy, and choosing what business approaches and operating practices to employ
Answer:
It is ideal for key management slots to be filled from outside:
A. in turnaround and rapid-growth situations.
B. when problems with the old strategy are obvious.
C. in a worst-case scenario.
D. when the managerial whole is greater than the sum of individual efforts.
E. in a centralized structure.
Answer:
What does the World Trade Organization (WTO) NOT do primarily?
A. Promotes fair trade practices
B. Actively polices dumping
C. Deals with the rules of trade between nations
D. Helps producers, exporters, and importers conduct business
E. Sets countries’ tariff rates
Answer:
To improve performance, there are many different avenues for outcompeting rivals such
as:
A. realizing a higher cost structure and lower operating profit margins than rivals in
order to drive sales growth.
B. creating products analogous with competitors so as to be competitive in the same
markets.
C. pursuing similar personalized customer service or quality dimensions as rivals.
D. confining operations to local or regional markets or developing product superiority
or concentrating on a narrow product lineup.
E. strengthening competitiveness by restricting strategic alliances and collaborative
partnerships when compared to rivals.
Answer:
A company’s mission statement does NOT:
A. identify the company’s services and products.
B. specify the buyer’s needs that the company seeks to satisfy.
C. identify the customer or market that the company intends to serve.
D. give the company its own identity.
E. explain “where we are headed.”
Answer:
An important consideration in designing a strategy-supportive reward system is to:
A. link the payment of all monetary rewards to the company’s bottom-line profitability.
B. employ incentives that will help motivate employees to put in long hours and
sacrifice personal ambitions and aspirations to pursue the priorities of management.
C. choose those types of rewards and incentives that will focus employees’ attention on
total customer satisfaction.
D. make across-the-board wage and salary increases the cornerstone of monetary
rewards.
E. make nonmonetary rewards and recognition an integral part of the reward system.
Answer:
The best strategic alliances:
A. are highly selective, focusing on particular value chain activities and on obtaining a
particular competitive benefit.
B. are those whose purpose is to create an industry key success factor.
C. are those which help a company move quickly from one strategic group to another.
D. involve joining forces in R&D to develop new technologies, cheaper than a company
could develop the technology on its own.
E. aim at raising an industry’s barriers to entry.
Answer:
When a company performs a particular competitively important activity truly well in
comparison to its rivals, it is said to have:
A. a company competence.
B. a strategic resource.
C. a distinctive competence.
D. a core competence.
E. a key success factor.
Answer:
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
Answer:
The two best signs of good strategy execution are whether:
A. the company is challenging its current performance targets and whether value chain
activities are fully integrated within the strategic response criteria.
B. managers are personally leading the change process and whether they are meeting
deadlines set for budgetary requirements.
C. the company is meeting or beating its performance targets and whether it is
performing value chain activities in a manner that is conducive to companywide
operating excellence.
D. managers are fully behind the changes and whether the company’s value chain
managers are executing them diligently.
E. the company identifies what the organization must do and how to make the necessary
internal changes.
Answer:
The options for remedying a supplier-related cost disadvantage include:
A. pressuring suppliers for more favorable prices, switching to lower-priced substitute
inputs, and collaborating closely to identify mutual cost-saving opportunities.
B. instituting forward vertical integration.
C. shifting into the production of substitute products.
D. shifting from a low-cost leadership strategy to a differentiation or focus strategy.
E. cutting selling prices and trying to win a bigger market share.
Answer:
Which of the following is NOT a factor that makes a politicized internal environment so
unhealthy?
A. The political infighting that consumes a great deal of organizational energy
B. The continuous empire-building that is a common practice as managers pursue their
own agendas
C. The building of autonomous fiefdoms that pervades the work climate
D. The overabundance of political maneuvering that takes away from efforts to execute
strategy
E. The taking of positions on issues
Answer:
The external market opportunities which are MOST relevant to a company are the ones
that:
A. can increase market share.
B. are reinforced by the overall business strategy and reflect the business model.
C. match up well with the firm’s competitive assets, offer the best prospects for growth
and profitability, and present the most potential for competitive advantage.
D. qualify to correct its internal weaknesses and resource deficiencies.
E. are relevant for defending against the external threats to its well-being.
Answer:
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
Answer:
The production emphasis of a company pursuing a broad differentiation strategy usually
involves:
A. eliminating cost reduction and decreasing quality and essential features to boost
profitability.
B. strong efforts to be a leader in manufacturing process innovation.
C. emphasis on building differentiating features that buyers are willing to pay for and
includes wide selection and many product variations.
D. the aggressive pursuit of economies of scale and experience-curve effects.
E. developing a distinctive competence in zero-defect manufacturing techniques.
Answer:
A well-designed reward system:
A. ties rewards to performance outcomes directly linked to good strategy execution and
the achievement of financial and strategic objectives.
B. should be free of elements that induce stress, anxiety, tension, pressure to perform,
and job insecurity.
C. puts the primary emphasis on denying rewards to those who fail to perform tasks in
the prescribed fashion.
D. emphasizes weeding out employees who are average performers.
E. strives for a 50-50 balance between positive and negative rewards and a 50-50
balance between monetary and nonmonetary rewards.
Answer:
The strength of the beliefs underlying ethical universalism is that:
A. ethical universalism recognizes significant variation in basic moral standards
according to local cultural beliefs, local religious beliefs, and social mores.
B. ethical standards are objectively determined by religious and moral experts.
C. what is deemed right or wrong, fair or unfair, moral or immoral, ethical or unethical
is (or should be) grounded in religious doctrine and applied strictly to all business
situations.
D. it draws upon the collective views of multiple societies and cultures to put some
clear boundaries on what constitutes ethical business behavior and what constitutes
unethical business behavior no matter what country or culture a company is operating
in.
E. it leaves room for thinking that concepts of right and wrong can be varying shades of
gray.
Answer:
One of the most telling signs of whether a company’s market position is strong or
precarious is:
A. whether its product is strongly or weakly differentiated from rivals.
B. whether its prices and costs are competitive with those of key rivals.
C. whether it has a lower stock price than key rivals.
D. the opinions of buyers regarding which seller has the best product quality and
customer service.
E. whether it is in a bigger or smaller strategic group than its closest rivals.
Answer:
In which of the following circumstances is a strategy to be the industry’s overall
low-cost provider NOT particularly well-matched to the market situation?
A. When the offerings of rival firms are essentially identical and readily available from
many eager sellers
B. When there are few ways to achieve differentiation that have value to buyers
C. When price competition among rival sellers is especially vigorous
D. When buyers have widely varying needs and special requirements, and the prices of
substitute products are relatively high
E. When the majority of industry sales are made to a few, large-volume buyers
Answer:
A company’s culture is NOT manifested in which of the following?
A. Its approaches to people management and problem-solving and in the “chemistry”
and “personality” that permeates the work environment
B. Its revered traditions and the stories that get told over and over to illustrate the
importance of certain values
C. Its acceptance of the peer pressures that exist to do things in particular ways and
conform to expected norms
D. Its approach to people management and its official policies, procedures, and
operating practices that paint the white lines for the behavior of company personnel
E. Its strategic vision, strategic intent, and strategy
Answer:
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
Answer:
Organizational capabilities are virtually always:
A. knowledge-based, residing in people and in the company’s intellectual capital, or in
organizational processes and systems, which embody tacit knowledge.
B. more complex than resources and are exercised only through key personnel.
C. require constant evaluation to ensure cooperative support from management.
D. are easier and less challenging to categorize than resources because there are fewer
to be concerned about.
E. reflective of the industry’s driving forces.
Answer:
The top management at a new social media technology company would like to revamp
its incentive compensation system to attract ambitious employees. What would be their
best approach?
A. Make the performance bonus at least 3 to 4 percent of base salary to have some
impact.
B. Make the performance bonus at least 10 to 12 percent of base salary to have some
impact.
C. Make the performance payoff equal for average and below-average performers.
D. Set unrealistic performance standards, but with an equally high compensation.
E. Reward people who work very hard, even if they fall short of achieving performance
targets.
Answer:
A competitive strategy to be the low-cost provider in an industry works well when:
A. price competition among rival sellers is especially sluggish.
B. there are numerous ways to achieve product differentiation that have no value to
buyers.
C. buyers incur high costs in switching their purchases from one seller/brand to another.
D. industry newcomers use introductory low prices to attract buyers and build a
customer base.
E. industry newcomers use high introductory prices to let buyers know they have a
superior product to build a customer base.
Answer:
Profit sanctuaries are country markets or geographic regions where:
A. a company can rank the competitive advantage opportunities in each industry.
B. a company possesses good strategic fit with other businesses and identifies the value
chain where this fit occurs.
C. a company derives substantial profits because of its protected market position or
unassailable competitive advantage.
D. a company creates substantial investment strategies because it is losing competitive
advantage over competitors.
E. a company invests its dividends in expanding its foreign market presence.
Answer:
A regional electric scooter manufacturer sells its scooter at a lower price than other
two-wheeler manufacturers. What will make the product most attractive for customers?
A. low profit
B. high value
C. high cost
D. low value
E. low cost
Answer:
Discuss in some detail the difference between a multidomestic strategy and a global
strategy. Give the pros and cons of each.
Answer:
When is a global strategy “superior” to a multidomestic strategy?
Answer:
How can one tell whether a company has a strong or weak corporate culture?
Answer:
Identify and describe ways that policies and procedures facilitate strategy execution.
Answer:
A mobile manufacturer decides to reduce the price of its latest line of smart phones,
which are not the cheapest but have features that are popular among most users. Which
strategy is the manufacturer using?
Answer:
An established company in a market decides to donate a part of its profits to a children’s
charity to improve its market image. Soon after it launched a website that offers new
clothes, accessories, and books that could be donated to various children’s charities by
interested parties. The company gained positive publicity and its sales went up. What
would you say about this strategy?
Answer:
Identify at least five common driving forces and briefly explain how each one can
produce important changes in industry and competitive conditions.
Answer:
What is the essence of the moral case for why a company should engage in socially
responsible actions and environmentally sustainable business practices?
Answer:
Powerful execution of a powerful strategy is a proven recipe for winning in the
marketplace. True or false? Explain your answer.
Answer:
Discuss why a company desirous of competing in foreign country markets needs to pay
close attention to the advantages of the cross-border transfer of competencies and
capabilities. Are these transfers often a key to competitive advantage? Why or why not?
Answer:
A company’s corporate culture is grounded in and shaped by its core values and ethical
standards and drives a shared commitment to achieve the firm’s strategic and financial
objectives. True or false? Justify your answer.
Answer:
Can an industry be attractive to one company and unattractive to another company?
Why or why not?
Answer:
Identify five guidelines for creating an incentive compensation system that will help
drive successful strategy execution.
Answer:
What is the relevance of quantitatively measuring the competitive strength of each
business in a diversified company’s business portfolio and determining which business
units are strongest and weakest?
Answer:
In doing driving-forces analysis, is it sufficient to simply identify the driving forces that
are operating to alter industry and competitive conditions? Why or why not? If not, then
explain what else is required for a complete driving-forces assessment.
Answer:
Does a company have a duty to go beyond legal requirements and conform to the
ethical norms of the societies in which it operates?
Answer:
What are the duties of a company’s board of directors in the strategy-making,
strategy-executing process?
Answer: