ISM 4041 Midterm

It took how long to develop large flat screen panels for market?

20 years

It was found in the state of Washington that in technology-based industries each job in turn supports an average of _____ jobs while the state average is _____ jobs per employee in all other industries.

3.55; 2.86

T/F: In an innovative company, the external groups are most important because they allow interaction and idea exchange.

False

T/F: In mergers, the parties are not considered equal partners.

False

T/F: In recent years, the number and amounts of mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. and around the world have leveled off.

False

T/F: Increases in demand for a product increases rivalry in an industry.

False

T/F: Innovation is only the invention of a new product or process.

False

T/F: Innovation is usually the product of one person's effort and genius.

False

T/F: Innovation occurs when the firm is motivated with unrealistic expectations.

False

T/F: Linking of different disciplines to plan, develop, implement, monitor, and control technological capabilities to shape and accomplish the strategic objectives of an organization is the definition of technology.

False

T/F: Managers must be reactive and make technology a part of the overall strategic efforts of the firm if they want to be successful

False

T/F: Objective measures are always the best methods of judging the success of innovation.

False

T/F: Subcontracting has strong controls over quality.

False

T/F: Subcontracting is the easiest alliance that can occur.

False

T/F: Substitutes form the price floor for a product.

False

T/F: Success rates for franchisees are slightly lower than most other forms of start-up businesses.

False

T/F: The action that eventually led to Polaroid's bankruptcy was their major strategic shift into the digital camera market.

False

T/F: The myth about innovation is that firms need to seek a balance of behaviors among its employees to be successful.

False

T/F: With all that is involved in innovation, the direction of a new product is easy to forecast.

False

The four critical elements to implementing innovation as a strategy are leadership, engagement, extension, and sustainability.

False

What is the name given to a firm that is the first to the market for a given product?

First mover

Which one of these statements is a myth about innovation?

Ideas are the key to innovation

Which of these is not a factor that favors innovation?

Increased time for internal development

Which is not one of the five forces in Michael Porter's analysis?

Innovators

Delbecq's and Mills' characteristics of a firm that manages innovation well does NOT include which of the following?

Internal focus so boundary spanning does not distract from firm's focus

A major source of innovation in the appliance industry is:

Japan.

_____ refers to two or more firms combine equity and form a new third entity.

Joint venture

_____ is pivotal in determining engagement by employees in the innovation implementation process.

Organizational culture

Which one of these methods to encourage creativity involves stretching your skills

Portfolio of skill

Which of the following is not a primary way for innovative organizations to encourage creative thinking and perpetual challenging within the organization?

Referring

The task force on Management of Technology listed five specific reasons why individuals and organizations should be concerned about the management of technology. Which of these is NOT one of the five reasons provided?

The need for increasing production times.

In a licensing arrangement, a firm agrees to pay a firm for the right to do what?

To manufacture or sell the firm's product

Cultural controls refer to the ability to get individuals to act in the manner desired within the firm.

True

T/F: A negative element to embracing internal innovation as a strategy includes a greater risk of failure to develop the right product at the right time.

True

T/F: A strategic alliance is defined as a partnership of two or more corporations or business units to achieve strategically significant objectives that are mutually beneficial.

True

T/F: A unique structure that high technology firms occasionally follow is a matrix structure.

True

T/F: An example of a formal form of alliance is a franchise agreement.

True

T/F: Clarity on what to measure is critical in evaluating whether goals are being met.

True

T/F: Culture is the key element in determining the level of engagement within the organization.

True

T/F: Extension occurs when product and market competencies are understood sufficiently so that ideas lead to action.

True

T/F: Firms must constantly seek to actively manage and improve their technological potential.

True

T/F: Franchising is one of the most rapidly growing business arrangements in the global economy.

True

T/F: Gap analysis evaluates whether goals and objectives are being met by outcomes.

True

T/F: Generally speaking, the structure of an organization must be characterized by flexibility and openness if innovation is to take place.

True

T/F: In general, firms that pursue related mergers or acquisitions perform better than those that pursue unrelated mergers or acquisitions.

True

T/F: It is sometimes more beneficial to be a follower in an industry then a leader.

True

T/F: Management of technology includes the evaluation/control phase for examining innovations after they become an ongoing part of the organization.

True

T/F: Managing innovation is a cross-discipline activity.

True

T/F: One of the methods that helps establish the view by employees that they are part of the organization is building a knowledge-based culture.

True

T/F: Performance requires multiple measures to accurately evaluate.

True

T/F: The development and maintenance of alliances have monitoring costs

True

T/F: The environment plays a critical role in the evaluation and control phase.

True

T/F: The first question a firm considering an innovation strategy should ask is "should we innovate, or not"?

True

T/F: The management of innovation requires firms to encourage risk-taking.

True

T/F: The management of technology involves a much broader scope of continuation and nurturing of existing technology than does innovation.

True

T/F: The purpose of an innovative strategy is to create and effectively utilize new products and processes.

True

T/F: The root of Porter's Five Forces model is industrial organization economics.

True

T/F: The tools of management must change as technology changes, but the process of determining what those new tools should be is in its infancy.

True

T/F: The ultimate outcome from the leader's efforts at implementation is to put into place systems, structures, people, and processes that will help the organization move in the direction it desires and towards long-term sustainability.

True

T/F: Two principle ways a company can acquire new technology are internal innovation and/or some type of alliance or purchase.

True

T/F: When evaluating a firm's innovation strategy, managers should ask "Where will we end up if we change nothing and continue on our current path?"

True

T/F: When fostering the correct environment for innovation, one thing a manager should do is separate funds for innovation

True

T/F: While an organization can be innovative and build a new product or develop a new process, the market will determine if the product or process will have a useful life.

True

T/F: Without the tools of management, the benefits of technology and innovation cannot be fully realized.

True

T/F:In the implementation process of the strategy, if the right people or supports are not in place at any one place in the flow, the entire process can be stopped.

True

T/F:Process activities are related to how the firm reacts to trying new ideas.

True

True or False: A firm uses technology in an offensive manner, when it employs a technology in a manner the same as competitors in order to gain a competitive advantage.

True

Successful skills development programs are characterized by all of the following except:

a consistent view of the firm so that the firm is not distracted from its mission.

Strategy can be defined as:

a coordinated set of actions that fulfill the firm's objectives, purposes, and goals.

The most important controls for a technology-focused company to implement are:

cultural.

Each of the following are stages in the technology life cycle according to the S-curve except:

death.

Firms that use technology in a similar manner as other firms in its industry are using it in a(n) _____ manner.

defensive

Confronting as a means to encourage creative thinking involves:

deliberate debates.

Evaluation can be defined as:

determining how well the organization is meeting its goals

Control can be defined as:

determining what actions to take to change the firm's results.

All of the following are points in Deming's 14 points about quality except:

ensure management by objective is implemented consistently.

Evaluation and control is employed to _____.

ensure the firm is reaching the goals and objectives established

When Louis Gerstner took over IBM, he determined that planning should have all of the following activities except:

ensuring allocation decisions were not impacted by short term shifts in strategy.

One of the key reasons for evaluation and control is that:

environments change.

Reengineering's goals include all of the following except:

expanding functions.

The three areas where evaluation of gaps typically occurs are:

financial, planning, or cultural.

Strategic groups are:

firms from the same industry and compete in similar manners.

Alignment within the organization is concerned with:

fit between the systems in the firm.

Joint ventures and franchise agreements are both examples of:

formal alliances.

The party that sells the concept of the franchise to the entrepreneur is the:

franchisor.

Asking the where we are now compared to where we want to be, what lies ahead that can affect us either positively or negatively, and where we will end up if we continue on this path is used to conduct:

gap analysis.

International alliances are:

harder to successfully implement.

Business-level strategy establishes:

how individual businesses will operate.

Richard D'Aveni is associated with:

hyper-competition.

Diffusion is concerned with:

information sharing in an organization

Alliances that are _____ in their formality have agreements that include clear documentation but where less interaction and agreement is required of each party in the alliance.

intermediate

A firm that builds social capital by being socially responsible:

is creating indirect value.

Franchising:

is one of the most rapidly growing business arrangements in the global economy.

Technology's impact:

is ongoing.

Technology is defined to include _____ employed in producing a good or service.

knowledge products processes methods all of these choices

All of the following are characteristics that enhance the initiative that sparks innovation except:

managing innovation.

Technology's impact is:

organization-wide

All of the following are part of the three broad categories that Kogut summarized as the reasons for alliances except:

profit maximization.

All of the following are what a firm needs to consider as it seeks to build fit except:

recognize that the importance of external concerns will depend on the nature of the firm's industry.

The strength of cultural controls comes from the:

relationships among people in the firm.

Relatedness is decided by whether the firms:

require similar skills to operate key functions.

The higher the _____, the more likely firms are to cut prices and in turn their profits.

rivalry

The franchisor typically provides all of the following except the:

royalty fee.

To understand what lies ahead for a firm as part of the innovation evaluation and control effort, the firm:

scans the environment.

T/F: Ideas are the key to innovation.

False

The pitfalls for innovation to avoid include all of the following except:

applying the process too narrowly.

It is better to have supportive systems and policies in firms that:

are consistent with the effort to encourage innovation.

The duration of a subcontract is:

as long as a contract is in force.

The structure of any organization has two basic purposes which are:

communication and coordination.

Benchmarking involves:

comparing the "best" firms in any domain to a given firm's performance and processes in that domain.

T/F: Complacency disappears when there is a satisfaction with the status quo.

False

T/F: Control is the determination of how well the organization is meeting its goals

False

The impact of a strategy comes from the firm setting a clear direction and taking actions that are consistent with that strategy. The common areas that the firm needs to focus on include:

-incentives. -structure and decision making. -communication and employee relations. -culture. -all of these choices.

T/F: Economies of scale lowers the ability to enter and lowers the power of new entrants.

False

What is a substitute product?

A product that performs a similar function but is not exactly the same as another

The strategic process DOES NOT include which of the following steps?

Approval

Who is elected to supervise a publicly traded firm's managers for the shareholders?

Board of Directors

Which one of these is an example of process innovation?

Both "just-in-time inventory (JIT)" and "firewalls"

Which of the following does 3M do to encourage innovation?

Compensation system rewards employees for innovations.

What emerges when there is a satisfaction with the status quo?

Complacency

What was the common mistake of Polaroid, Swiss Watch, and the United States steel industry?

Failing to improve their technology

T/F: A new organization typically employs a complex structure.

False

T/F: Basic research takes knowledge new to the firm and allows the firm to change its strategic position in the industry, or at least, change its potential position in the industry.

False

T/F: Buyers gain power when the costs of switching to competing brands or substitutes are high.

False

Technology can be broadly defined as:

all the knowledge, products, processes, tools, methods, and systems employed in the creation of goods or in providing services.

It can be expected that the theory and methods of managing technology and innovation learned from the text are:

applicable around the world.

The creation of new knowledge involves _____.

basic research

The type of research Einstein used to develop his work with laser physics is:

basic.

The effect of technology is typically seen as _____.

cascading

A(n) _____ is defined as a partnership of two more corporations to achieve strategically significant objectives that are mutually beneficial.

strategic alliance

The Board of Directors should focus on:

strategic issues.

Rivalry increases when:

switching costs are high.

Engagement focuses on:

team building.

Technology pushes society when:

technology is not demanded by society, but once available it is quickly adopted by society.

Subcontracting of a firm's activities should focus on those:

that concern things which do not concern the firm's competitive advantage.

An emergent strategy is one:

that occurs when a firm sees an unexpected opportunity and takes advantage of it.

Linux is an example of continuous technology because:

the changes in the logic of the system happen over a relatively short period of time.

Informal power comes from:

the expertise and knowledge of the individual.

One of the primary reasons firms have difficulty being innovative is:

the firm's structure.

The law of diminishing returns is discussed in Chapter 4 in terms of:

the need to avoid analysis by paralysis.

Normative institutions are concerned with:

the norms of professions and industries.

Innovation can be defined as:

the process whereby new and improved products, processes, materials, and services are developed and transferred to a new plant or market where they are appropriate.

Sticky notes are a good example of _____.

the role of teamwork in innovation

As organizations grow:

their structure becomes more complex.

It is beneficial to be a follower when _____.

there are high customer educational costs

All of the following should influence the decision on the organizational structure that is employed except:

top management preferences.

In a strategic alliance, the firm must evaluate whether the strategic benefits outweigh the _____.

transaction costs

A firm that is a supplier to a firm that is acquired would be a(n):

vertical acquisition.

Buyers are strong if all of the following are present except:

when there are high capital requirements.

A mission statement:

​​increases the efficiencies or the effectiveness of an organization.