MGMT Midterm

A reason teamwork can be more satisfying than traditional work?

All of these are reasons why teamwork can be more satisfying than traditional work

The achievement of stretch goals is made easier when the team members have ____.

Bureaucratic Immunity

With ____, teams no longer have to go through the frustratingly slow process of multilevel reviews and signoffs to get management approval before making changes

Bureaucratic immunity

How are organizations using teams to help increase customer satisfaction?

By creating problem-solving teams to study ways to improve customer satisfaction and make recommendations for improvements

Which of the following types of conflict is most strongly associated with improvements in team performance?

Cognitive conflict

The only type of responsibility given to traditional work groups

Execute the task

A group in Great Britain has been established to improve the employment, retention, and promotion prospects of black and other ethnic minorities as well as women in the Fire and Rescue Service, which at present has a largely white, male demographic. At its inception, this group was in the ____ stage of team development.

Forming

A method used for compensating employees for team participation and accomplishments?

Gainsharing

The city of College Station, Texas has implemented a program to reward employees for finding ways to save money for the city through improved operations and innovations. The city government is using ____

Gainsharing

Minority domination tends to be a particular problem in ___

Groups of ten or larger

Minority domination tends to be a particular problem in ____

Groups of ten or larger

A useful guideline for successful management of virtual teams?

Keep team interaction upbeat and action-oriented

According to the S.M.A.R.T. guidelines, goals should be ____

Measurable

Group cohesion tends to be relatively strong at the ____ stage of team development.

Norming

Which of the following is one of the stages that teams pass through as they develop and grow, rather than decline?

Performing

Many orthopedic parts are almost identical in size and shape. Stryker Howmedica Osteonics in New Jersey used a semi-autonomous work group to develop Product Recognition Technology that makes sure parts are identified correctly and orders are filled correctly. This group would be classified as a(n) ____.

Project Team

In an attempt to stop declining profitability, ICI, a British chemical company, deleted petrochemical products from its production and concentrated on specialty chemicals, a less capital-intensive, less cyclical business. If ICI is successful in making the needed changes, it will more than likely implement a ____ strategy.

Recovery

The highest level of team autonomy is found in ____

Self designing teams

An organization that rewards its team members through gainsharing is

Sharing the financial value of performance gains

Occurs when workers withhold their efforts and fail to perform their share of the work

Social Loafing

Top management is responsible for developing long-term ____ that make clear how the company will serve customers and position itself against competitors in the next two to five years.

Strategic Plans

A competitive advantage that other companies have tried unsuccessfully to duplicate an shave, for the moment, stopped trying to duplicate

Sustainable competitive advantage

An Australian manufacturer of surfboards wants to increase awareness of its brand in the U.S. market. A ____ plan to accomplish this objective might be to host a series of surfboard competitions in California

Tactical

____ describes the average level of ability, experience, personality, or any other factor on a team

Team Level

Team rewards that depend on ____ are the key to rewarding team behaviors and efforts.

Team performance rather than individual performance

The least amount of team autonomy is found in

Traditional Work Teams

grand strategy

a broad corporate level strategic plan used to achieve strategic goals and guide the strategic alternatives that mangers of individual businesses or subunits may use

Shadow strategy task force

a committee within a company that analyzes the company's own weaknesses to determine how competitors could exploit them for competitive advantage

firm level strategy

a corporate strategy that addresses the question, "how should we compete against a particular firm?"

industry level strategy

a corporate strategy that addresses the question, "how should we compete in this industry?"

Strategic dissonance

a discrepancy between a company's intended strategy and the strategic actions managers take when implementing that strategy

According to the text, which of the following is a pitfall of planning?

a false sense of certainty based on faulty assumptions

traditional work group

a group composed of two or more people who work together to achieve a shared goal

Strategic group

a group of companies within an industry against which top managers compare, evaluate, and benchmark strategic threats and opportunities

semi-autonomous work group

a group that has the authority to make decisions and solve problems related to the major tasks of producing a product or service

threat of new entrants

a measure of the degree to which barriers to entry make it easy or difficult for new companies to get started in an industry

threat of substitute products or services

a measure of the ease with which customers can find substitutes for an industry's products or services

bargaining power of buyers

a measure of the influence that customers have on a firm's prices

bargaining power of suppliers

a measure of the influence that suppliers of parts, materials, and services to firms in an industry have on the prices of these inputs

character of the rivalry

a measure of the intensity of competitive behavior between companies in an industry

Imperfectly imitable resource

a resource that is impossible or extremely costly or difficult for other firms to duplicate

Rare resource

a resource that is not controlled or possessed by many competing firms

Nonsubstitutable resource

a resource that produces value or competitive advantage and has no equivalent substitutes or replacements

Diversification

a strategy for reducing risk by buying a variety of items so that the failure of one stock or one business does not doom the entire portfolio

stability strategy

a strategy that focuses on improving the way in which the company sells the same products or services to the same costumer

growth strategy

a strategy that focuses on increasing profits, revenues, market share, or the number of places in which the company does business

retrenchment strategy

a strategy that focuses on turning around very poor company performance by shrinking the size or scope of the business

cross functional team

a team composed of employees from different functional areas of the organization

virtual team

a team composed of geographically and or organizationally dispersed coworkers who use telecommunication and information technologies to accomplish an organizational task

project team

a team created to complete a specific, one time projects or tasks within a limited time

self designing team

a team that has the characteristics of self managing teams, but also controls team design, work tasks, and team membership

self managing teams

a team that manages and controls all of the major tasks or producing a product or service

structural accomodation

ability to change organizational structures, polocies, and practices in order to meet stretch goals

bureaucratic immunity

ability to make changes without first getting approval from managers or other parts of an organization

Situational (SWOT) analysis

an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in an organizations internal environment and the opportunities and threats in its external environment

____ is the measure of the intensity of competitive behavior between companies in an industry.

character of rivalry

Clorox Corporation controls 60 percent of the bleach market. Imagine you are an entrepreneur who was considering developing and marketing a new brand of bleach. Which of Michael Porter's industry forces should you be most concerned about?

character of the rivalry

reactors

companies that do not follow a consistent adaptive strategy, but instead react to changes in the external environment after they occur

defenders

companies using an adaptive strategy aimed at defending strategic positions by seeking moderate, steady growth and by offering a limited range of high-quality product and services

Prospectors

companies using an adaptive strategy that seeks fast growth by searching for new market opportunities, encouraging risk taking, and being the first to bring innovative new products to market

analyzers

companies using an adaptive strategy that seeks to minimize risk and maximize profits by following or imitating the proven successes of prospectors

gainsharing

compensation system in which companies share the financial value of performance gains, such as increased productivity, cost savings, or quality, with their workers

skill based pay

compensation system that pays employees for learning additional skills or knowledge

An organization is experiencing ____ when it is reluctant to change strategies or competitive practices that have been successful in the past.

competitive inertia

NTL is the largest cable company in the United Kingdom. The company has recently declared bankruptcy and needs to engage in restructuring in order to give it more flexibility and allow it to raise capital. Since it has identified the need for strategic change, what would be the organization's next step in this strategy-making process?

conducting a situation analysis

Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc. introduced the first major production mountain bike in 1980. Since then, the company has maintained a technological leadership in the production of bike and bike accessories and an organizational culture that encourages innovation. Technological leadership, as well as its organizational culture, are the company's ____.

core capabilities

When The Home Depot opened stores in Canada, it ran a series of ads featuring an animated hammer that showed that the U.S.-based home improvement store had the lowest prices. According to Michael Porter, which of the following positioning strategies did The Home Depot adopt to deal with existing Canadian stores that sold similar products?

cost leadership

related diversification

creating or acquiring coma pies that share similar products, manufacturing, marketing, technology, or cultures

unrelated diversification

creating or acquiring companies in completely unrelated businesses

Hohner is a company that manufactures and markets harmonicas, a product with a steady demand rate. It is so successful at what it does that the company controls 85 percent of the world's harmonica industry. In terms of the adaptive strategies, Hohner would most likely be categorized as a(n) ____.

defender

While ____ are tangible, ____ are not

distinctive competencies; core capabilities

Competitive inertia

A reluctance to change strategies or competitive practices that have been successful in the past

A(n) ____ lists the specific steps, people, resources, and time period for accomplishing a goal

Action plan

One of the benefits of planning is how it ____

encourages people to work harder for extended periods

Which of the following is a commonly used method for increasing goal commitment?

encouraging worker participation in goal setting

When Coca-Cola acquired a water-treatment and bottling plant so it could produce and market Dasani brand bottled water, it was an example of ____.

external growth

When the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers is high, companies in the industry will ____.

find it more difficult to be profitable

Glassmaker AFG Industries positions itself as the primary supplier of glass used in microwave doors, shower doors, and patio tables. What type of a positioning strategy does the glass manufacturer use?

focus

The positioning strategy that is always paired with one of the other two positioning strategies to produce a specialized product or service is ____.

focus

The positioning strategies identified by Michael Porter are ____.

focus, cost leadership, and differentiation

Teams can be broadly classified as either__

functional or cross functional

The goal of a company was to reduce the expenses incurred by the sales force. A manager examining weekly expense sheets would be using which of the accepted methods for tracking progress toward goal achievement?

gathering and providing performance feedback

Companies can achieve growth mainly by ____.

growing internally through direct expansion or creating new businesses

A(n) ____ strategy is a corporate strategy that addresses the question "How should we compete in this industry?"

industry level

Companies in the chemical industry are struggling to attract the most talented college graduates. One of the biggest challenges facing these companies is attracting new talent to organizations with an "old economy" image. A situational analysis would term this challenge a(n) ____.

internal weakness

Which of the following is NOT a step in the management by objectives (MBO) process?

jointly develop operational plans

The purpose of a ____ strategy is to turn around very poor company performance by shrinking the size or scope of the business.

retrenchment

The ____ strategy is analogous to pruning flowers.

retrenchment/recovery

Marie-Helene de Taillac is a well-known European designer of understated, very delicate jewelry. Once she determined that further growth was impossible without changing how she distributed her product, she decided to open her own retail outlet to sell her products rather than letting department stores sell it. Since she made the decision without really examining how much the costs involved in implementing her decision, she has engaged in ____ behavior

satisficing

When doing an analysis of strategic groups to assess external environmental threats and opportunities, ____ firms are firms that use related but somewhat different strategies than ____ firms.

secondary; core

What type of planning would be used to create the festivities necessary to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of a furniture manufacturer?

single use plan

Which of the following is a mechanism used to examine external threats and opportunities facing a firm as well as its internal strengths and weaknesses?

situational analysis

Companies that are following a ____ strategy would be most likely to try to improve the way in which they sell the same goods or services to the same customers.

stability

For companies whose main products will not be seen by consumers and whose skills lie in productivity anonymity, a ____ could be to create a brand image to create a distinctive competence.

strategic reference point

____ are the targets that managers use to measure whether their firm has developed the core competencies that it needs to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

strategic reference points

____ plans are plans that specify how a company will use resources, budgets, and people to accomplish specific goals within its mission.

tactical

employee involvement teams

team that provides advice or makes suggestions to management concerning specific issues

team level

the average level of ability, experience, personality, or any other factor on a team

Core firms

the central companies in a strategic group

individualism collectivism

the degree to which a person believes that people should be self sufficient and that loyalty to one's self is more important than loyalty to team or company

market commonality

the degree to which two companies have lapping products, services, or customers in multiple markets

resource similarity

the extent to which a competitor has similar amounts and kinds of resources

Secondary firms

the firms in a strategic group that follow strategies related to but somewhat different from those of the core firms

Forming

the first stage of team development, in which team members meet each other, form initial impressions, and begin to establish team norms

performing

the fourth and final stage of team development, in which performance improves b/c the team has matured into an effective, fully functioning team

Core capabilities

the internal decision making routines, problem solving processes, and organizational cultures that determine how efficiently inputs can be turned into outputs

Corporate level strategy

the overall organizational strategy that addresses the question "what businesses are we in or should we be in?"

cost leadership

the positioning strategy of producing a product or service of acceptable quality at consistently lower production costs than competitors can, so that the firm can offer the product or service at the lowest price in the industry

Differentiation

the positioning strategy of providing a product or service that is sufficiently different form competitors' offerings that customers are willing to pay a premium price for it

Focus strategy

the positioning strategy of using cost leadership or differentiation to produce a specialized product or service for a limited, specially targeted group of customers in a particular geographic region or market segment

Acquisition

the purchase of a company by another company

storming

the second stage of development characterized by conflict and disagreement, in which team members disagree over what the team should do and how it should do it

recovery

the strategic actions taken after retrenchment to return to a growth strategy

Strategic reference points

the strategic targets managers use to measure whether a firm has developed the core competencies it needs to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage

norming

the thirst stage of development, team members begin to settle into their roles, group cohesion grows, and positive team norms develop

A sustainable competitive advantage exists for an organization when other companies have tried unsuccessfully to duplicate the advantage and ____.

those companies have, for the moment, stopped trying to duplicate the advantage

In the autonomy continuum (which shows how five kinds of teams differ in terms of autonomy), the correct sequence, from low team autonomy to high team autonomy, is ____

traditional work groups, employee involvement teams, semi-autonomous work groups, self-managing teams, and self-designing teams

Affective conflict ____

typically decreases team cohesiveness

Starbucks, the operator of Starbucks coffeehouses, also markets a line of compilation CDs and other non-coffee items. The making and marketing of the CDs and other non-coffee products would be an example of ____.

unrelated diversification

Distinctive competence

what a company can make, do, or perform better than its competitors

Neither Chile nor Peru has a mass-market café culture, but that fact has not stopped Starbucks from trying to determine what can be done to make its coffee houses successful in those markets. By recognizing that people in these two South American countries do not drink coffee like people in the United States and that they should change this habit, Starbucks has begun a ____ process with problem identification

rational decision making

Deutsche Bank became the world's largest bank through mergers with Bankers Trust, a transatlantic banking operation. Since both banking companies had similar core capabilities, this would be classified as an example of ____.

related diversification

The research on diversification in portfolio management indicates that the best approach is probably ____.

related diversification

NOT necessary for stretch goals to effectively motivate teams?

Conflict management training

Purposefully composed of employees from different functional areas of the organization

Cross Functional Team

Which of the following statements about team training is true?

Cross-training is less appropriate for teams of highly skilled workers.

Neither Chile nor Peru have a mass-market café culture, but that fact has not stopped Starbucks from engaging in ____ to determine how best to expand into those markets

Decision Making

The ____ approach to decision-making is a method in which an individual or a subgroup is assigned the role of a critic

Devil's advocacy

Under conditions of ____, a competitive attack by the stronger rival is more likely to produce sustained competitive advantage.

low resource similarity

The last step in effective planning is to ____

maintain flexibility in planning

Resource similarity and ____ are factors that determine the extent to which firms will be in direct competition with each other.

market commonality

According to the text, valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable resources can produce sustainable competitive advantage only if they are ____ resources.

nonsubstitutable

There are three kinds of ____ plans. They are single-use plans, standing plans, and budgets

operational

The basic purpose of ____ planning is to leave commitments open by maintaining slack resources

options based planning

Cost leadership, differentiation, and focus are the three types of ____ strategies discussed in the text.

positioning

A ____ exists when there is a gap between a desired state (what managers want) and an existing state (the situation that the managers are facing)

problem

Because of slowing sales, Arm & Hammer started promoting innovative uses for its baking soda. By searching for new market opportunities, the manufacturer of Arm & Hammer is using which type of adaptive strategy?

prospecting