Mgmt 425 Ch. 10

The paramount aim in building a mgmt team should be to:

B. assemble a criticalmass of talented managers who can function as agents of change, work well together as a team, and produce organizational results that are dramatically better than what one or two star managers acting individually can achieve

Outsourcing critics contend that shifting responsibility for performing value chain activities to outside specialists:

B. 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

Management's handling of the strategy implementation/execution process can be considered successful:

B. if and when the company meets or beats its performance targets and shows good progress in achieving its strategic vision for the company.

Implementing and executing a company's strategy:

B. is a task for every manager and the whole management team, but ultimate responsibility for success or failure falls upon the top senior executives, especially the chief executive officer of the company

Which one of the following is NOT a reason why companies might use outsourcing to improve performance of strategy-critical activities?

B. promoting quick establishment of a total quality culture

What makes the managerial task of executing strategy so challenging and demanding is:

B. the demanding people-mgmt skills required, the resistance to change that has to be overcome, and the perseverance necessary to get a variety of initiatives launched and kept moving along.

A firm's organizational structure is comprised of

B. the formal and informal arrangement of tasks, responsibilities, lines of authority, and reporting relationships by which the firm is administered

The two best signs of good strategy execution are:

C. Whether the company is meeting or beating its performance targets and whether they are performing value chain activities in a manner that is conducive to companywide operating excellence.

Core competencies and competitive capabilities:

C. are usually bundles of skills and know-how that must often grow out of the collaborative efforts of cross-functional work groups and departments performing complementary activities at different locations in a firm's value chain

Sometimes a company can short-circuit the task of building an organizational capability in-house by:

C. either acquiring a company that has already developed the capability or else acquiring the desired capability through collaborative efforts with outsiders having the requisite skills, know-how, and expertise

Which of the following is generally NOT among the common practices that companies use to staff jobs with talented people, particularly if intellectual capital greatly aids good strategy execution?

C. eliminating the bottom 10 percent of the lowest-performing employees each year to increase the overall quality performance metrics to above-average industry standards

When it is difficult or impossible to out-strategize rivals (beat them with a superior strategy), the other main avenue to competitive advantage is to:

C. out execute them (beat them by performing certain value chain activities in superior fashion)

In a highly centralized organizational structure:

E. All of these (top-level managers retain decision authority, strict control and enforcement of procedures is most reliable, tight control from the top is more effective, one of the basic tenets is that most company personnel have neither the time nor inclination to properly control the work they are doing)

Which one of the following must a company do to match structure to strategy?

E. All of these [choose a basic organizational design, supplement the design structure with coordinating mechanisms, institute networking and communication arrangements, set up "ideal" organizational arrangements]

A disadvantage of the centralized organization is:

E. All of these [lengthens response times, does not encourage responsibility, discourages low-level managers, diverts authority away from those closest]

The organizational characteristics of a network structure include:

E. All of these [linking independent organizations involved in common undertaking, one firm with a more central role charged with coordination of cross-network activities, organizations working effectively through collab and cooperation, extensive collab efforts among people in different specialities and locations]

A well-managed network structure typically includes one firm in a more central role, with:

E. All of these [the responsibility of ensuring that the right partners are included, more effective collab among partners, a hand-picked network of suppliers, and arrangement of independent organizations]

In which one of the following instances is the training and retraining of employees likely to make the LEAST important contribution to good strategy execution?

E. When the strategy execution effort is based on tried-and-true operating practices that vary little from year to year.

Which of the following FALSELY characterizes a centralized organizational structure?

E. a company that draws on the combined intellectual capital of its people can outperform a company that relies on command-and-control hierarchal structure.

In formulating an action agenda to implement and execute a new or different strategy, the place for managers to begin is with:

E. a probing assessment of what the organization must do differently and better to carry out the strategy successfully

Good strategy execution requires:

A) a team effort with all managers having strategy executing responsibility in their areas of authority, and making all employees active participants in the strategy execution process

Once company managers have decided on a strategy, the emphasis turns to:

A) converting the strategy into specific actions and behaviors and delivering good results

When an organization is referred to as a line and staff structure or a flat structure, it is normally considered:

A. a simple structure

The most important leadership trait in the strategy execution process is:

A. a strong, confident sense of what to do and how to do it

Building organizational bridges with external allies is aided by:

A. appointing "relationship managers" and giving them responsibility for making particular strategic partnerships or alliances that generate the intended benefits.

Which of the following is NOT one of the traits of the capability building process?

A. core competencies or capabilities are usually the product of astute company efforts to hire and train talented employees

Delegating greater authority to subordinate managers and employees:

A. creates a more horizontal or flatter organizational structure with fewer mgmt layers and usually acts to shorten organizational response times.

A decentralized organizational structure is predicated on the belief that:

A. decision-making authority should be put in the hands of the people closest to and most familiar with the situation, and these people should be trained to exercise good judgment.

Managerial actions to develop core competencies and competitive capabilities internally generally take one or two forms. What are they?

A. either strengthening the company's base of skills, knowledge, and experience or coordinating and integrating the efforts of various work groups and departments

The most common approaches to capability building include:

A. internal development

A dynamic capability:

A. is the ongoing capacity to modify existing resources and capabilities to create new ones.

The disadvantages of a centralized organizational structure include:

A. lengthening response times and discouraging lower-level managers and rank-and-file employees from exercising initiative

Outsourcing value chain activities has such strategy executing advantages as:

A. less internal bureaucracy, speedier decision making, quicker responses to changing market conditions, and heightened focus on performing a select few value chain activities (which can improve the performance of those activities)

Which one of the following statements about outsourcing the performance of value chain activities to outside specialists is false?

A. outsourcing support services often has cost-saving benefits but outsourcing primary value chain activities has the disadvantages of raising fixed costs, reducing variable costs, and making it harder to develop distinctive competencies

When strategies fail, it is often because of:

A. poor execution of the strategy

The chief advantages of a decentralized organizational structure include:

A. reducing the layers of mgmt and encouraging lower-level managers and rank-and-file employees to exercise initiative and act responsibly.

The capability building process:

A. requires two things: 1) developing the ability to do something, however imperfectly or inefficiently, and 2) molding these efforts in an organizational ability and as experience grows and personnel perform the activity consistently well and at an acceptable cost, it is transformed into a tried-and-true competence as they continue to polish and refine their know-how into further improvements, they then create a real competitive capability.

Building an organization capable of good strategy execution entails:

A. staffing the organization, acquiring, developing, and strengthening key resources and competitive capabilities, and structuring the organization and work effort.

While ultimate responsibility for implementing and executing strategy falls upon the shoulders of senior executives:

A. top-level managers still have to rely on the active support and cooperation of middle and lower-level managers in pushing needed changes in functional areas and operating units.

Superior strategy execution capabilities are the only source of sustainable competitive advantage:

A: All of these [when strategies are easy to copy, because capabilities are socially complex, because there is no substitute, when the only way to achieve success is to ensure the firm out-executes its competitors]

The primary building blocks within a company's organizational structure:

B. Can include process departments, traditional functional departments, geographic organizational units, and divisional units performing one or more processing steps along the value chain (components manufacture, assembly, distribution), and individual businesses (in the case of a diversified company)

What is the name of a structure that combines two or more organizational forms with multiple reporting relationships and that is used to foster cross-unite collaboration?

B. Composite structure

The classic way to coordinate the work efforts of internal organization units is to:

B. Have closely related activities report to a single executive who has the authority and organizational clout to coordinate, integrate, and arrange for the cooperation of units under their supervision.

The strategic importance of deliberately trying to develop organizational competences and capabilities is

B. Improved strategy execution and a potential for competitive advantage

The principal managerial components of the strategy execution process include which of the following?

B. Instituting policies and procedures that facilitate strategy execution and tying rewards and incentives to the achievement of strategic and financial targets.

Which of the following is NOT one of the chief advantages of a decentralized organizational structure?

B. It makes it easy to fix accountability when company performance targets are not met and cross-business strategic fits are loosely applied

A multidivisional structure consists of

B. a decentralized structure consisting of a set of operating divisions organized along business, product, customer groups or geographic lines and a central corporate headquarters that allocates resources, provides support functions, and monitors divisional activities

Recruiting and retaining capable employees

B. is important because the quality of an organization's people is always an essential ingredient of successful strategy execution. Knowledgeable, engaged employees are a company's best source of creative ideas for the nuts-and-bolts improvements that lead to operating excellence

In companies where intellectual capital is crucial to good strategy execution, which of the following is generally NOT among the practices companies use to establish a talented knowledge base?

C. Coaching average performers to improve their skills and capabilities, while weeding out underperformers and benchwarmers

Which of the following is unlikely to be a primary building block in a company's organizational structure?

C. Empowered employee departments

One of the big weaknesses of organization structures that do not have cross-business collaboration is:

C. that pieces of strategically relevant activities and capabilities often end up scattered across many departments, with each pursuing its own priorities, projects, and agendas

Executing strategy is a make-things-happen task that tests a manager's ability to:

CE. All of these [manage the people, talents, and business processes of an operations-driven activities company, direct organizational change and achieve continuous improvement in operations and business processes, create and nurture a strategy-supportive culture, meet or beat performance targets consistently]

The rationale for making strategy-critical value chain activities the primary building blocks in a company's organizational scheme is based on:

D, the thesis that if activities crucial to strategic success are to have the resources, decision-making influence, and organizational impact they need, they have to be centerpieces in the organizational scheme.

Which of the following is NOT one of the traits of core competencies and/or competitive capabilities?

D. Core competencies generally grow out of company efforts to master a strategy-critical technology or to invent and patent a valuable technology.

Which one of the following is NOT part of organizing the work effort in ways that promote successful strategy execution?

D. Determining which functions and organizational units require superior intellectual capital.

Which of the following statements are right about matching the type of organizational structure to strategy execution requirements?

E) All of these: A) The type of organizational structure that is most suitable for a given firm will depend on the firm's size and complexity as well as strategy. B) As firms grow and their needs for organizational structure evolve, their structural form is likely to evolve. C) The four basic types are the simple structure, the functional structure, the multidivisional structure, and the matrix structure. D) Organizational structures can be classified into a limited number of standard types.

Which of the following details the standard type of structural form of organization?

E. All of these (functional structure where function is a major step, simple structure where all major decisions are a duty of the central executive, a multidivisional structure where each division is an indie profit center, a matrix structure where there are two or more divisions)

Which of the following is NOT accurate as concerns a company's competencies and capabilities?

E. When a company succeeds in hiring talented employees and training them properly, competencies and capabilities tend to develop quickly, and once put in place, can last for a decade or more

Which one of the following is not part of organizing the work effort in ways that promote successful strategy execution?

Forming a special department or work unit to lead the company's effort to capture strategic and resource fits

Which one of the following falsely describes a centralized approach to decision-making?

Hierarchical command-and-control structures speed an organization's responses to changing conditions because top-level managers are in a position to quickly review the situation and make a final decision.

Which of the following is not one of the principal managerial components associated with implementing and executing strategy?

Reducing the layers of management to a bare minimum and making sure employees are empowered

The basic tenets of a decentralized organizational structure include the thesis that

a company that draws on the combined intellectual capital of all its people can outperform a command-and-control company and decision-making authority should be put in the hands of the people closest to and most familiar with the situation, and these people should be trained to exercise good judgment.

The overriding aim in building a management team should be to

assemble a critical mass of talented managers who can function as agents of change, work well together as a team, and produce organizational results that are dramatically better than what a few star managers acting individually can achieve.

Which of the following is NOT among the principal managerial components of the strategy execution process?

c) deciding which core competencies and value chain activities to leave as is and which ones to overhaul and improve

The approach to identifying the items needed to be placed on managements action agenda of the strategy execution plan always involves:

d) senior management's judgment about how to proceed in light of prevailing circumstances

Outsourcing value chain activities to strategic partners can yield such advantages as:

lower costs, less internal bureaucracy, speedier decision making, more flexibility, and higher strategic focus

What is the advantage of acquiring capabilities through merger and acquisition?

A. Speed, since developing new capabilities internally can take many years of effort

Accessing capabilities through an external source can be accomplished through:

E. all of these [outsourcing, joint ventures, strategic alliances, learning-based collaborative partnerships]

The three components of building a capable organization are:

D. staffing the organization, acquiring, developing, and strengthening key resources and competitive capabilities, and structuring the organization and work effort

One of the big challenges of organizing and managing a work environment where employees are empowered to make decisions in their area of responsibility is

how to exercise control over the actions and decisions of empowered employees so that the business is not put at risk while trying to capture the benefits of employee empowerment.

employee training and retraining:

merit high-priority on management's strategy-implementing agenda when a firm revises its strategy in ways that call for new skills or different know-how, operating methods, and competitive capabilities and also become a key activity in businesses where technical know-how is changing so rapidly that a company loses its ability to compete unless its skilled people have cutting-edge knowledge and expertise.

The three organization-building actions paramount in the task of trying to execute a company's strategy are

staffing the organization, building and strengthening core competitive and competitive capabilities, and structuring the organization and work effort.

Ultimate responsibility for seeing that strategy is executed successfully primarily falls upon the shoulders of:

A. a company's chief executive officer, its chief operating officer, and the heads of major units (business divisions, functional departments, and key operating units)

A decentralized organizational structure is predicated on the belief that:

C. decision-making authority should be pushed down to the lowest organizational level capable of making timely, informed, and competent decisions.

Organizing a company's work effort to promote successful strategy execution involves:

B. deciding which value chain activities to perform in-house and which to outsource, and making internally performed strategy-critical value chain activities the main building blocks in the organization structure

Diversified companies striving to capture the benefits of synergy between separate businesses have to be aware of many challenges, EXCEPT:

E. forming cross-business strategic fit by enforcing close collaboration

The traits of the capability building process involve which of the following?

E. all of these [evolving changes in customers needs, concentrating more effort and talent than rivals on deepening and strengthening a competence or capability, core competencies or capabilities that are most often bundles of skills and know-how that grow out of combined efforts of cross-functional work groups, bolster skills that contribute to earlier successes or to respond to customer problems, new tech and market opportunities, and the competitive maneuvering of rivals

Good strategy execution requires which of the following?

A. Putting those resources and capabilities into place, strengthening them as needed and then modifying them as market conditions evolve.

When are capabilities-motivated acquisitions essential?

A. When industry conditions, like technology advances, and central to growth and rivalry is intense

What is the rule for organizing the work effort to support good strategy execution?

A. a firm's organizational structure should be matched to its unique strategy

Which of the following is one of the first steps to take in launching the strategy execution process?

D. Put together a talented mgmt team with the right mix of experiences, skills, and abilities to get things done

When a company uses outsourcing to zero in on even better performance of those truly strategy-critical activities where its expertise is most needed, then it may also be able to:

B. decrease internal bureaucracies, flatten its organizational structure, shorten the time it takes to respond to changing market conditions, and capitalize on its partnerships with outsiders to enhance its arsenal of capabilities and thus contribute to better strategy execution

Larger firms with more complex organizational structures are:

B. more decentralized in their decision making than smaller firms

In order to coordinate and control the complex set of activities, managers must ensure:

B. the various parts of the organizational structure are aligned with one another and also matched to the requirements of the strategy

Which of the following statements about implementing and executing a new strategy is true?

C. Executing strategy is a job for a company's whole management team, not just a few senior managers. Moreover, all company personnel are actively involved in the strategy execution process.

Which one of the following statements falsely characterizes the managerial task of executing strategy?

C. Implementing new strategic initiatives principally involves employing managerial techniques to overcome resistance to change.

Which one of the following statements about recruiting and retaining capable employees is false?

C. Recruiting and retaining capable employees are usually much more important to good strategy execution and the achievement of true operating excellence than is assembling a capable top mgmt team.

Which of the following is NOT among the principal managerial components of the strategy execution process?

C. Selecting and retaining capable employees, thereby enhancing the company's intellectual capital resources

To organize the work effort around the needs of good strategy execution, management needs to:

E. all of these [make strategy-critical activities the main building blocks, determine whether some value chain activities can be outsourced more efficiently, decide how much authority to centralize at the top, provide for coordination across the various organizational units]

The organizing challenge of a decentralized structure which stresses employee empowerment is:

D. How to exercise control over the actions and decisions of empowered employees so that the business is not put at risk while trying to capture the benefits of empowerment

Which of the following statements about developing organizational competencies and capabilities is false?

D. building organizational capabilities is best and most cost-effectively accomplished by hiring a cadre of people with the right talent and expertise, putting them together in a single work group, and then teaming the work group with key strategic allies/partners to mesh the skills expertise and competencies needed

Putting together a capable top management team with the right mix of experiences, skills, and abilities:

D. entails filling key managerial slots with smart people who are clear thinkers, good at figuring out what needs to be done, and who are skilled in "making it happen" and delivering good results

How do firms leverage the expertise of their talent pool in building capabilities?

D. generally by augmenting or recombining well-established capabilities with existing resources

A functional structure or unitary structure (or U-forms as they are sometimes called) are organized:

D. into functional departments, with departmental managers who report to the CEO and small corporate staff

The chief disadvantages of a decentralized organizational structure include:

D. putting the organization at risk if empowered employees happen to make many "bad" decisions, especially if higher-level mgmt is unaware of their actions