Which of the following is a typical characteristic of a weak company culture?
A. Enthusiastic support for the company’s strategic vision and strategy
B. No code of ethics and deep hostility to change and to people who champion new
ways of doing things
C. A complicated value chain that acts to create multiple subcultures
D. A lack of values and principles that are consistently preached or widely shared
E. A dedicated sense of teamwork
Discuss the meaning of each of the following levels of strategy and indicate what level
of management tends to take the lead responsibility for crafting the strategy at each of
the four levels.
a. corporate strategy
b. business strategy
c. functional-area strategy
d. operating strategy
The principal managerial components of the strategy execution process include:
A. deciding how much to spend on employee training.
B. instituting policies and procedures that facilitate strategy execution and tying
rewards and incentives to the achievement of strategic and financial targets.
C. doing an effective job of empowering employees.
D. revamping the value chain in a manner calculated to maximize operating efficiency.
E. selecting a capable top management team.
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.
A related diversification strategy involves building the company around businesses:
A. with strategic fit with respect to key value chain activities and competitive assets.
B. that are highly independent, proficient, and efficient operating firms.
C. with strategic fit across separate value chain activities that drive each business.
D. that can also include unrelated businesses with dissimilar resource requirements.
E. that have dissimilar value chain activities with no cross-business commonalities.
A competitive strategy of striving to be the low-cost provider is particularly attractive
when:
A. buyers are not very price-conscious.
B. most rivals are trying to be best-cost providers.
C. there are many ways to achieve product differentiation that have value to buyers.
D. most buyers use the product in much the same ways, with user requirements calling
for a standardized product.
E. most rivals are pursuing focused low-cost or focused differentiation strategies.
When calculating the weighted industry attractiveness scores, we find the more
intensely competitive an industry is:
A. the lower the attractiveness weighting for that industry.
B. the higher the attractiveness weighting for that industry.
C. suggests the resources are beyond the parent company’s reach.
D. suggests the industry attractiveness measures have been incorrectly weighted.
E. the more likely the company’s profit and revenues will be intensive.
Calculating competitive strength ratings for a company and its rivals using the
industry’s most telling measures of competitive strength or weakness:
A. is a way of determining which competitor has the highest overall competitive
advantage in the marketplace and which competitor is faced with the lowest overall
competitive disadvantage.
B. is the most reliable indicator of which industry member has the highest overall
product quality.
C. is a powerful way of revealing which competitors are in the best and worst strategic
groups.
D. is the most reliable indicator of which industry member has the lowest overall costs
and is the low-cost leader.
E. pinpoints which industry rivals are most insulated from the industry’s driving forces.
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
A company racing to seize opportunities on the frontiers of advancing technology often
utilizes strategic alliances and collaborative partnerships to:
A. discourage rival companies from merging with or acquiring the very companies that
it is partnering with.
B. reduce overall business risk and raise entry barriers into the newly emerging
industry.
C. help master new technologies and build new expertise and competencies, establish a
stronger beachhead for participating in the target industry, and open up broader
opportunities in the target industry.
D. help defeat competitors that are employing broad differentiation strategies.
E. enhance its chances of achieving global low-cost leadership.
Which of the following is the most unlikely element of a localized multidomestic
strategy?
A. Granting country managers fairly wide strategy-making latitude
B. Scattering plants across many host countries, each producing product versions for
local area markets
C. Adapting marketing and distribution to the buying habits, customs, and culture of
each host country
D. Considering the preference for local suppliers (use of some local suppliers may be
mandated by host governments)
E. Selling directly to buyers (perhaps via the company’s website) to avoid having to
establish networks of wholesale/retail dealers in each country market
Which of the following statements about outsourcing the performance of value chain
activities to outside specialists is FALSE?
A. Outsourcing support services often has the disadvantage of raising fixed and variable
costs.
B. Outsourcing critics contend that shifting responsibility for performing value chain
activities to outside specialists can hollow out a company’s knowledge base and
capabilities, leaving it at the mercy of outsider suppliers, and short of the resource
strengths to be a master of its own destiny.
C. Outsourcing the performance of certain value chain activities to able supplierscan
add to a company’s arsenal of capabilities and contribute to better strategy execution.
D. The real debate surrounding outsourcing is not about whether too much outsourcing
risks loss of control but about how to use outsourcing in a manner that produces greater
competitiveness.
E. Outsourcing can enable a company to heighten its strategic focus and concentrate its
full energies and resources on even more competently performing those value chain
activities that are at the core of its strategy and for which it can create unique value.
Which of the following statements about a weak company culture is true?
A. In a weak-culture company, there is virtually no employee support for the company’s
strategic vision and strategy.
B. Weak-culture companies do not usually have a code of ethics and have little regard
for high ethical standards.
C. Weak cultures provide little assistance in executing strategy because there are no
traditions, values, or behavioral norms that management can use as levers to mobilize
commitment to executing the chosen strategy.
D. Weak-culture companies are fairly receptive to change and to people who champion
new ways of doing things.
E. In a weak-culture company, there is usually a dearth of intellectual capital and
inattention to building core competencies.
The managerial approach to implementing and executing a strategy should always:
A. be customized to fit the particulars of a company’s situation.
B. involve only minor changes to the existing strategy.
C. require radical strategy changes for successful execution.
D. rely on the active support of frontline employees.
E. focus on market conditions and the company’s resources and capabilities.
Consider the following three companies and their strategies.
– Company A is an established database management company that acquires a
well-reputed but small publishing house to enter the booming publishing industry.
– Company B, a sports management house, declared bankruptcy during a recent
recession but now has created a television network that airs regional sports events.
– Company C, a package delivery business, is a startup based on delivery efficiency
models created by a few students, and delivers almost all kinds of packages.
Which of the following describes the use of strategies by these companies accurately?
A. Company B employs an emergent strategy, whereas Companies A and C employ
deliberate strategies.
B. All three companies employ deliberate strategies.
C. All three companies employ emergent strategies.
D. Company C employs a deliberate strategy, Companies A and B employ emergent
strategy.
E. Companies A and C employ emergent strategies, Company B employs a deliberate
strategy.
A company’s overall strategy:
A. determines whether its strategic intent is proactive or reactive.
B. is subject to being changed much less frequently than either its objectives or its
mission statement and thus serves as the base of its strategy-making pyramid.
C. should be based on a flexible strategic vision and strategic intent.
D. is customarily reviewed and approved level-by-level by the company board of
directors.
E. is really a collection of strategic initiatives and actions devised by managers and key
employees up and down the whole organizational hierarchy.
Which of the following is NOT a reliable measure of how well a company’s current
strategy is working?
A. Whether the company’s sales are growing faster, slower, or about the same pace as
the industry as a whole, thus resulting in a rising, falling, or stable market share
B. Whether it has a larger number of competitive assets than competitive liabilities and
whether it has a superior quality product
C. The firm’s image and reputation with its customers
D. Whether its profit margins are rising or falling and how large its margins are relative
to those of its rivals
E. Evidence of improvement in internal processes such as defect rate, order fulfillment,
delivery times, days of inventory, and employee productivity