Management
In the _____ stage of organizational decline, cutbacks and layoffs will have reduced the level of talent among employees.
Crisis
The manager of a car manufacturing company in the U.S wants to set up factories in three other countries by the end of the year. After he has set this goal, which of the following is then next step he should take in order to achieve this goal?
Develop commitment toward the goal
______ is 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.
Diversification
______ are companies that have a small share of a slow-growing market.
Dogs
There are eight general steps for organizational development intervention. The first step is ________.
Entry
Developing a purpose statement is the sole responsibility of middle management
False
Milestones are formal review points that tend to lengthen the innovation process.
False
Prkline is a popular brand of formal wear. The company decided on a new marketing strategy that actually involved its target audience participating in the campaign. This included an online virtual reality game that was highly popular among the audience, bringing the brand mass attention. Following this, their sales skyrocketed. This is an example of ______.
Organizational innovation
______ are companies that have a small share of a fast-growing market
Question marks
_________ are the assets, capabilities, processes, information, and knowledge that an organization uses to improve its effectiveness and efficiency, to create and sustain competitive advantage, and to fulfill a need or solve a problem
Resources
Both proximal and distal goals are used to provide additional motivation and rewards for employees
True
Corporate-level strategy is the overall organizational strategy that addresses the question "What business or businesses are we in or should we be in?"
True
Declaring victory too soon is one of the mistakes managers often make in the refreezing stage of change
True
Even though education and communication, participation, negotiation, top management support, and coercion can all be used to manage resistance to change, coercion should be used only in a crisis or as a last resort.
True
Groupthink is more likely to occur in a highly cohesive group that is insulated from others and has no established procedure for systematically defining problems and exploring alternatives
True
Strategic dissonance is a discrepancy between management's intended strategy and the strategy actually implemented by the managers.
True
There are four conditions that must be met if a firm's resources are to be used to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. The resources must be valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and nonsubsitutable
True
Groupthink
a barrier to good decision making caused by pressure within the group for members to agree with each other
Grand strategy
a broad corporate-level strategic plan used to achieve strategic goals and guide the strategic alternatives that managers 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
Star
a company with a large share of a fast-growing market
Cash cow
a company with a large share of a slow-growing market
Question mark
a company with a small share of a fast-growing market
Dog
a company with a small share of a slow-growing market
Sustainable competitive advantage
a competitive advantage that other companies have tried unsuccessfully to duplicate and have, for the moment, stopped trying to duplicate
Portfolio strategy
a corporate-level strategy that minimizes risk by diversifying investment among various businesses or product lines
Slack resources
a cushion of extra resources that can be used with options-based planning to adapt to unanticipated changes, problems, or opportunities
Design iteration
a cycle of repetition in which a company tests a prototype of a new product of service, improves on that design, and then builds and tests the improved prototype
Technology cycle
a cycle that begins with the birth of a new technology and ends when that technology reaches its limits and is replaced by a newer, substantially better technology
Devil's advocacy
a decision-making method in which an individual or a subgroup is assigned the role of critic
Dialectical inquiry
a decision-making method in which decision makers state the assumptions of a proposed solution (a thesis) and generate a solution that is the opposite (antithesis) of that solution
Brainstorming
a decision-making method in which group members build on each others ideas to generate as many alternative solutions as possible
Electronic brainstorming
a decision-making method in which group members use computers to build on each others' ideas and generate as many alternative solutions as possible
Delphi technique
a decision-making method in which members of a panel of experts respond to questions and to each other until reaching agreement on issue
Nominal group technique
a decision-making method that begins and ends by having group members quietly write down and evaluate ideas to be shared with the group
Production blocking
a disadvantage of face-to-face brainstorming in which a group member must wait to share an idea because another member is presenting an idea
Strategic dissonance
a discrepancy between a company's intended strategy and the strategic actions managers take when implementing that strategy
Management by objectives
a four-step process in which managers and employees discuss and select goals, develop tactical plans, and meet regularly to review progress toward goal accomplishment
Product prototype
a full-scale, working model that is being tested for design, function, and reliability
Problem
a gap between a desired state and an existing state
Strategic group
a group of companies within an industry against which top managers compare, evaluate, and benchmark strategic threats and opportunities
Organizational decline
a large decrease in organizational performance that occurs when companies don't anticipate, recognize, neutralize, or adapt to the internal or external pressures that threaten their survival
Strategic objective
a more specific goal that unifies company-wide efforts, stretches and challenges the organization, and possesses a finish line and a time frame
Dominant design
a new technological design or process that becomes the accepted market standard
S-curve pattern of innovation
a pattern of technological innovation characterized by slow initial progress then rapid progress, and then slow progress again as a technology matures and reaches its limits
Organizational development
a philosophy and collection of planned change interventions designed to improve an organization's long-term health and performance
Action plan
a plan that lists the specific steps, people, resources, and time period needed to attain a goal
BCG matrix
a portfolio strategy developed by the Boston Consulting Group that categorizes a corporation's businesses by growth rate and relative market share and helps managers decide how to invest corporate funds
Relative comparisons
a process in which each decision criterion is compared directly with every other criterion
Absolute comparisons
a process in which each decision criterion is compared to a standard or ranked on its own merits
Flow
a psychological state of effortlessness, in which you become completely absorbed in what you're doing, and time seems to pass quickly
Competitive inertia
a reluctance to change strategies or competitive practices that have been successful in the past
Valuable resource
a resource that allows companies to improve efficiency and effectiveness
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
Non-substitutable resource
a resource that produces value or competitive advantage and has no equivalent substitutes or replacements
Purpose statement
a statement of a company's purpose or reason for existing
Diversification
a strategy for reducing risk by buying a variety of items (stocks or, in the case of a corporation, types of businesses) 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 customers
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
Rational decision making
a systematic process of defining problems, evaluating alternatives, and choosing optimal solutions
General Electric workout
a three-day meeting in which managers and employees from different levels and parts of an organization quickly generate and act on solutions to specific business problems
Which of the following is NOT one of the characteristics of S.M.A.R.T goals. a) Synergistic b) Measurable c) Timely d) Attainable e) Realistic
a) Synergistic
Which of the following is one of the sources of resistance to change? a) self-interest b) multifunctional teams c) a dynamic organizational culture d) discontinuous innovation e) change forces
a) self-interest
Experiential approach to innovation
an approach to innovation that assumes a highly uncertain environment and uses intuition, flexible options, and hands-on experience to reduce uncertainty and accelerate learning and understanding
Compression approach to innovation
an approach to innovation that assumes that incremental innovation can be planned using a series of steps and that compressing those steps can speed innovation
Situational (SWOT) analysis
an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in an organization's internal environment and the opportunities and threats in its external environment
The use of ________ in planning produces a false sense of certainty and is often cited as one of the major pitfalls of planning.
assumptions
Which of the following is a characteristic of discontinuous change? a) synergy b) design competition c) incremental change d) entropy e) innovative reciprocity
b) design competition
Which of the following is a component of a creative work environment? a) homogeneity b) job specialization c) centralization d) freedom e) micromanagement
b) design competition
Which of the following is true about planning? a) it reduces effort from employees and managers b) It helps managers create task strategies c) it decreases persistence toward goals d) it quickens needed adaptation
b) it helps managers create task strategies
Which of the following is NOT one of the components of creative work environments? a) challenging work b) organizational impediments c) freedom d) supervisory encouragement e) organizational encouragement
b) organizational impediments
Generational change
change based on incremental improvements to a dominant technological design such that the improved technology is fully backward compatible with the older technology
Results-driven change
change created quickly by focusing on the measurement and improvement of results
Satisficing
choosing a "good-enough" alternative
Planning
choosing a goal and developing a strategy to achieve that goal
Maximize
choosing the best alternative
Design competition
competition between old and new technologies to establish a new technological standard or dominant design
Unrelated diversification
creating or acquiring companies in completely unrelated businesses
Related diversification
creating or acquiring companies that share similar products, manufacturing, marketing, technology, or cultures
Operational plans
day-to-day plans, developed and implemented by lower-level managers, for producing or delivering the organization's products and services over a thirty-day to six-month period
A-type conflict (affective conflict)
disagreement that focuses on individuals or personal issues
C-type conflict (cognitive conflict)
disagreement that focuses on problem- and issue- related differences of opinion
Evalutation apprehension
fear of what others will think of your ideas
Change forces
forces that produce differences in the form, quality, or condition of an organization over time
Resistance forces
forces that support the existing conditions in organizations
Milestones
formal project review points used to assess progress and performance
Unfreezing
getting the people affected by change to believe that change is needed
S.M.A.R.T goals
goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely
Groupthink occurs in ______.
highly cohesive groups where there is a great deal of pressure to agree with each other
Distal goals
long-term or primary goals
Options-based planning
maintaining planning flexibility by making small, simultaneous investments in many alternative plans
Valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable resources can produce sustainable competitive advantage only if they are _______ resources.
nonsubstitutable
Resistance to change
opposition to change resulting from self-interest, misunderstanding and distrust, and a general intolerance for change
Strategic plans
overall company plans that clarify how the company will serve customers and position itself against competitors over the next two to five years
Innovation streams
patterns of innovation over time that can create sustainable competitive advantage
Tactical plans
plans created and implemented by middle managers that direct behavior, efforts, and attention over the next six months to two years
Single-use plans
plans that cover unique, one-time-only events
Standing plans
plans used repeatedly to handle frequently recurring events
Competitive advantage
providing greater value for customers than competitors can
The manager of a packaging and shipping company has set a short-term goal of increasing the customer base by 5% in the next two months. In this context, the manager has set a _______.
proximal goal
Budgeting
quantitative planning through which managers decide how to allocate available money to best accomplish company goals
Proximal goals
short-term goals or subgoals
An earthquake, the servers of an online shopping company were affected and the internet was down. The managers of the company had to formulate and carry out a procedure so that businesses could run normally while the servers were being fixed. To overcome this unexpected problem, the managers devised a(n) _____.
single-use plan
A ______ is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in an organization's internal environment and the opprortunities and threats in its external environment.
situational analysis
Expatriate
someone who lives and works outside his or her native country
Rules and regulations
standing plans that describe how a particular action should be performed or what must happen or not happen in response to a particular event
Policies
standing plans that indicate the general course of action that should be taken in response to a particular event or situation
Procedures
standing plans that indicate the specific steps that should be taken in response to a particular event
Refreezing
supporting and reinforcing new changes so that they stick
Resources
the assets, capabilities, processes, employee time, information, and knowledge that an organization uses to improve its effectiveness and efficiency and create and sustain competitive advantage
Core firms
the central companies in a strategic group
Goal commitment
the determination to achieve a goal
Secondary firms
the firms in a strategic group that follow strategies related to but somewhat different from those of the core firms
Technological lockout
the inability of a company to competitively sell its products because it relies on old technology or a nondominant design
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 business or businesses are we in or should we be in?"
Change agent
the person formally in charge of guiding a change effort
Discontinuous change
the phase of a technology cycle characterized by technological substitution and design competition
Incremental change
the phase of a technology cycle in which companies innovate by lowering costs and improving the functioning and performance of the dominant technological design
Technological discontinuity
the phase of an innovation stream in which a scientific advance or unique combination of existing technologies creates a significant breakthrough in performance or function
Decision making
the process of choosing a solution from available alternatives
Change intervention
the process used to get workers and managers to change their behaviors and work practices
Acquisition
the purchase of a company by another company
Technological substitution
the purchase of new technologies to replace older ones
National culture
the set of shared values and beliefs that affects the perceptions, decisions, and behavior of the people from a particular country
Decision criteria
the standards used to guide judgments and decisions
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
Organization innovation
the successful implementation of creative ideas in organizations
Testing
the systematic comparison of different product designs or design iterations
Coercion
the use of formal power and authority to force others to change
When Klonorox Corporation, a manufacturer of bleach and bleach-based cleaning products, acquired Masterssauce brand steak sauce; it was an example of ______.
unrelated diversification
Distinctive competence
what a company can make, do, or perform better than its competitors
Multifunctional teams
work teams composed of people from different departments
Creative work environments
workplace cultures in which workers perceive that new ideas are welcomed, valued, and encouraged
