Penn Foster - Principles of Management - Chapter 3

intermediate consumer

A consumer who purchases raw materials or wholesale products before selling them to final customers

What are the three categories that must be considered for a business to respond to an environment?

Adapting to the environment, influencing the environment, and selecting a new environment.

External Environment

All relevant forces outside a firm's boundaries, such as competitors, customers, the government, and the economy.

Explain the difference between an independent strategy and a cooperative strategy.

An independent strategy means a business acts on its own. A cooperative strategy means the organization partners with at least one other organization.

strategic maneuvering

An organization's conscious efforts to change the boundaries of its task environment

What are the four types of organizational culture?

Clan culture, hierarchical culture, market culture, and adhocracy

List the four ways you can learn about the culture of a business.

Corporate mission statement and official goals, observable business practices, symbols, rites, and ceremonies, the stories people tell.

Explain three ways culture may be managed.

Crafting an inspirational version of "what can be," "walk the talk," and celebrate and reward members who display the desired culture.

List the four types of strategic maneuvers.

Domain selection, diversification, merger/acquisition, divestiture.

What are the four ways a business may choose to adapt to a dynamic and complex environment?

Empowerment, buffering, smoothing, and flexible processes.

domain selection

Entering a new market or industry with an existing expertise

List the three criteria used to help managers choose the best approach to respond to the environment.

Managers need to change what can be changed. Managers should use the appropriate response. Managers should choose responses that offer the most benefit at the lowest cost.

Hierachical Culture

The U.S. armed forces are based on a hierarchical culture that is internally oriented by more focus page 65on control and stability. It has the values and norms associated with a bureaucracy. It values stability and assumes that individuals will comply with organizational mandates when roles are stated formally and enforced through rules and procedures.

Macroenvironment

The general environment; includes governments, economic conditions, and other fundamental factors that generally affect all organizations.

competitive environment

The immediate environment surrounding a firm; includes suppliers, customers, rivals, and the like.

Define the makeup of an internal environment.

The internal environment is all relevant forces inside a business.

What are the three levels of organizational culture?

Visible artifacts, values, and unconscious assumptions.

final consumers

a customer who purchases products in their finished form

divestiture

a firm selling one or more businesses

Diversification

a firm's investment in a different product, business, or geographic area

internal environment

all relevant forces inside a firm's boundaries, such as its managers, employees, resources, and organizational culture

adhocracy culture

attempts to create innovative products by being adaptable, creative, and quick to respond to changes in the marketplace

Prospectors are

companies that continually change the boundaries for their task environments by seeking new products and markets, diversifying and merging, or acquiring new enterprises

Defenders

companies that stay within a stable product domain as a strategic maneuver

barriers to entry

conditions that prevent new companies from entering an industry

Buffering

creating supplies of excess resources in case of unpredictable needs

Demographics

demographics

market culture

has a strong external focus and values stability and control

The type of culture used in the military is called a/an ______ culture.

hierarchical

competitive intelligence

information that helps managers determine how to compete better

clan culture

internal focus and values flexibility rather than stability and control

environmental uncertainty

lack of information needed to understand or predict the future

smoothing

leveling normal fluctuations at the boundaries of the environment

flexible processes

methods for adapting the technical core to changes in the environment

Acquistion

one firm buying another

open systems

organizations that are affected by, and that affect, their environments (and other systems)

enviromental scanning

searching for and sorting through information about the environment

The cost of changing from one supplier to another is called a/an ______ cost.

switching

visible artifacts

the components of an organization that can be seen and heard, such as office layout, dress, orientation, stories, and written material

Supply Chain Management (SCM)

the managing of the network of facilities and people that obtain materials from outside the organization, transform them into products, and distribute them to customers

organizational culture

the set of values, ideas, attitudes, and norms of behavior that is learned and shared among the members of an organization

unconscious assumptions

the strongly held and taken-for-granted beliefs that guide behavior in the firm

Values

the underlying qualities and desirable behaviors that are important to the organization

merger

when two or more companies join to form a single firm