Chapter 10

Which of the following statements about business process reegineering and continuous improvement programs are true?

Both can be used to improve performance in value chain activities. If used in tandem, total quality programs are best suited to follow up the reengineering of a business process.

______ is a process by which strategy-critical activities are unified in a single division or work group.

Business process reengineering

______ is a company's internal work climate shaped by core values, beliefs, and business principles.

Corporate culture

How should performance payoffs be structured?

Employees who perform at higher levels than their peers should receive substantially higher payoffs.

True or false: One of the best ways to promote good strategy execution is to tie incentives and rewards to employees' satisfactory performance of job duties.

False

True or false: When leadership must make corrective adjustments in the company's strategy or strategy execution, it is a sure sign that the strategy is a complete failure and should be abandoned.

False

Which of the following is generally true regarding allocation of resources in a company that is executing a new strategy?

If a company does not have enough funds, it may need to borrow money or sell stocks.

Which of the following statements are true concerning decision-making authority in organization?

In a decentralized organization, decision-making authority is located at the lowest level. In a centralized organization, decision-making authority is located at the highest level.

______ systems provide organizations with helpful data regarding personnel, finances, partners, and customers.

Information

Which of the following is not one of the three most common approaches to building core competencies and competitive capabilities?

Restructuring and de-layering the organizational hierarchy

Which of the following are examples of substantive culture-changing actions that signal unmistakable support for a culture change?

Rewarding employees who participate in the new culture Requiring employees to participate in training programs about the new culture Hiring new employees who can adhere to the new culture

______ is a statistics-based method used to ensure that products are of the highest quality possible.

Six Sigma quality control

Which qualities suggest that managers will be successful in their job?

The results of their work are of high quality. They can determine the steps that need to be taken to get the job done. They can get the job done.

What is a downside of the Six Sigma DMADV and DMAIC quality control methods?

They can suppress creativity and experimentation.

What is a disadvantage of having too many policies and procedures in place?

They curtail the extent to which employees can make decisions on their own.

______ is a philosophy that emphasizes continuous improvement at all levels of strategy execution.

Total quality management

Which statements about changing corporate culture are accurate?

Workers may be hesitant to change. It is very difficult. Managers at all levels of the organization must be involved.

A travel company sells tours in Costa Rica on its website. Instead of designing the website themselves, the company hired an outside software development company to design, run, and manage the website for them. This is an example of

accessing capabilities through a collaborative partnership.

In a(n) ______ organizational culture, there is support for managers and employees at all levels who propose or help initiate useful change.

adaptive

In a high-performance culture, employees _____.

are result-oriented

Business process reengineering and continuous improvement efforts, such as TQM, both seek which of the following?

better product quality greater customer satisfaction improved efficiency

Which of the following are ways that managers can support strategy execution?

by creating a conducive corporate culture by developing policies and procedures that enable strategy execution by creating an organizational structure that promotes strategy execution

How do well-designed policies and procedures support successful strategy execution?

by imposing consistency by helping to create a conducive corporate climate by offering guidance

Putting constructive pressure on employees to achieve successful outcomes works in which of the following ways?

by supporting continuous improvement by motivating employees in numerous ways

What has the largest effect on changing corporate culture?

capable leadership at the top of the organization

Which of the following are practices that companies use to ensure that they have a creative workforce?

carefully choosing who to hire training workers routinely giving workers interesting and engaging assignments that challenge them

As an activity in leading the strategy execution process, management by walking around refers to

communicating and interacting with employees at different levels of the organization.

A company can attain capabilities through collaborative partnerships by:

contracting work to another company. entering into a relationship with another company and working together toward a shared goal. entering into a relationship with another company in order to learn its techniques.

Which of the following are part of the leadership challenge in taking corrective actions to improve strategy?

deciding what adjustments to strategy should be made deciding when adjustments to strategy are needed

Developing capabilities internally can be a slow process because it

depends in some degree on trial and error.

Information systems for companies need to provide accurate data in which of the following areas?

employee data financial data customer data supplier and partner data

What is the trouble with a highly decentralized organization?

ensuring that lower-level employees are making appropriate decisions

In adaptive cultures,

entrepreneurship is valued.

Which of the following are effective practices for using monetary incentives to promote good strategy execution?

extending incentives to all workers rewarding a weekly or monthly payment to employees who meet a goal tying incentives to outcomes directly linked to good strategy execution

The purpose of a relationship manager is to

facilitate collaboration and communication with strategic partners.

Which of the following are elements that help a manager achieve good results and operating excellence?

focusing attention on continuous improvement

A ______ organizational structure organizes strategy-critical activities into distinct functional, product, geographic, process, or customer groups.

functional (or departmental)

When building a management team, the most important goal to achieve is

gathering a group of high-functioning managers who can get things done well.

In a(n) ______ organizational culture, employees get things done well and work hard to achieve positive results.

high-performance

Which of these are traits of unhealthy corporate cultures?

incompatible multiple subcultures politicized change-resistant

In a company with ______, the presence of contradictory business values, beliefs, and philosophies can lead to uneven execution of strategy.

incompatible subcultures

Hero Rent-A-Car has been the market leader in auto rentals for many years. Its employees are confident that they understand everything it takes to be successful in the industry and they feel they have nothing to learn from other companies both inside and outside the auto rental industry. Hero likely has what type of corporate culture?

insular

An aspect of development is hiring good workers and training them well.

internal

Specifying lines of authority and reporting relationships

is an important part of building an organization capable of good strategy execution.

The actions that top executives should take to lead the strategy execution process include

knowing what's going on at all levels of the organization. helping employees execute strategy successfully. making sure results are strategy-oriented.

What is a disadvantage of mergers and acquisitions as a way of acquiring capabilities?

knowledge and knowhow are not easily transferred from an existing company

In an organization, ______ are responsible for ensuring that strategy execution occurs successfully.

managers

The most common approaches to capability building are internal development, acquiring capabilities through _____ and _____, and accessing capabilities through collaborative partnerships.

mergers acquisitions

Designer Furniture, Inc. organizes all the value chain activities involved with making each line of designer furniture into a common division and makes each division an independent profit center. This is an example of a(n) ______ organizational structure.

multidivisional (or divisional)

A ______ is the arrangement linking a number of independent organizations involved in some common undertaking.

network structure

The ______ of a workforce has a consequential impact on an organization's ability to successfully execute a strategy.

quality

To effectively use incentives and rewards to promote good strategy execution, managers should

reward employees for accomplishing results.

For a business to succeed, the organizational ________ should support the execution of organizational strategy.

structure

To carry out an organization's strategy proficiently, executives should

take the lead in the implementation process.

Which of the following are components of an organization's corporate culture?

the company's "personality" the company's standards and tenets the general way a company does business

It can be very effective for ______ to perform symbolic actions in order to signal the importance of the new culture to other employees.

top executives

True or false: A company's strategic priorities should drive capital allocations and the size of each organizational unit's operating budget.

true

An approach that executives use to keep abreast of strategy execution by employees is to regularly visit a variety of people at different levels in the organizational structure. This approach is commonly referred to as MBWA, or managing by around.

walking

When is an acquisition or merger essential to the functioning of a company?

when there is rapid change occurring in area of the market that is related to a product or service they offer when there is not enough time for internal development