chapter 2 for test 1
GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Pfizer are all pharmaceutical companies, which makes them part of the _____ dimension within Pfizer's task environment.
competitors
A(n) _____ culture has an internal strategic focus and an environment that requires stability.
consistency
In rapidly changing environments, managers shift away from the _____ culture, which supports and rewards a methodical, rational, and orderly way of doing things, and move toward a(n) _____ culture.
consistency; adaptability
The key factor in creating an organizational climate that enables learning and innovative responses to threats from the external environment, challenging new opportunities, or organizational crises is the role played by:
corporate culture.
Companies are especially concerned about the _____ dimension of the general environment because it includes consumer purchasing power, the unemployment rate, and interest rates.
economic
Google's employees are highly committed and create a high-performance organization in part because the internal culture of the organization fits the needs of the:
external environment and company strategy.
An organization's internal environment includes corporate culture, production technology, organization structure, and physical facilities. Which of these is considered extremely important to competitive advantage?
Corporate culture
When considering the role of cultural leaders, which of the following statements is true?
Cultural leaders remain committed to values during challenging times or crises.
Which of the following dimensions is a part of an organization's general environment?
Economic
Bristol received an "Innovator of the Year" award at the manufacturing company where he works. He is part of the company's ____ environment.
internal
European automobile manufacturers welcome the markets in other parts of the world, including setting up factories in some of those countries. The automobile market is mostly stable, but the push for "greener" models continues to motivate companies to innovate. In which of the following corporate cultures would you place these companies?
In an achievement culture with some characteristics of an adaptability culture
Which of the following statements about corporate cultures is true?
Internal corporate cultures are deeply influenced by the external environment.
Which of the following would NOT be part of what defines corporate culture?
International sales agreements with customers
Which of the following is NOT among the qualities of a high-performing culture?
It focuses relentlessly on financial performance.
Which of the following dimensions is a part of an organization's task environment?
Labor market
are responsible for instilling the cultural values the organization needs to be successful in its environment.
Managers
In the matrix that illustrates four organizational outcomes based on the relative attention that managers pay to cultural values and business results, which of the following is true of the managers in Quadrant A?
Managers meet performance goals but fail to uphold cultural values
Physical symbols or visible artifacts are associated with the surface level of organizational culture, whereas the invisible part of the corporate culture includes several aspects. Which of the following would not be among the invisible aspects of corporate culture?
Organizational symbols
Which of the following would NOT be considered a visible artifact of a corporate culture?
Shared understandings
Because of changing technologies, the company for which Isabel works is experiencing a great deal of uncertainty. As a manager, what does that uncertainty mean for Isabel?
She does not have sufficient information about environmental factors to understand and predict environmental needs and changes.
Which of the following would NOT be critical for managers to consider when establishing the cultural values that are important for the organization?
The company's financial resources
Environmental shifts create turbulence for businesses. Which of the following statements about turbulence is true?
The level of turbulence determines the type of response that managers must make in order for an organization to survive.
The Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Company is an American global food processing and commodities trading corporation. Which of the following would NOT be part of ADM's task environment?
USDA, which provides oversight to the food-processing industry
In order to succeed in a turbulent environment, companies need to:
carefully monitor both cultural values and business performance.
The _____ of Disney and Pixar in 2006 resulted in Disney-Pixar, a highly successful and profitable company.
merger
For the first time in U.S. census history, _____ of all babies born in 2011 were members of minority groups.
more than half
As the fastest-growing segment of business intelligence, _____ refers to searching complex sets of data to uncover patterns in order to make better business decisions.
big data analytics
Organizations often join together to adapt to or influence the environment. The number of corporate alliances has been increasing at a rate of _____ annually.
25 percent
With which of the following corporate cultures would an achievement culture be the best fit?
A results-oriented culture that value competitiveness, aggressiveness, personal initiative, and willingness to work long and hard to achieve results
Which of the following indicates partnering organizations are moving from an adversarial orientation to a partnership orientation?
A shift from minimal involvement and up-front investment to involvement in partner's product design and production
With which of the following corporate cultures would an involvement culture be the best fit?
An internal- and employee-need-focused environment where the organization is seen as having a caring, family-like atmosphere
_____ is an example of part of the legal-political dimension of the general environment.
A change in the regulations regarding the provision of health insurance to employees
Fuhua from China and Raissa from Argentina are their organizations' managerial counterparts. To deal with the increasing uncertainty in their industry and its international markets, their organizations' relationship is:
shifting toward a greater partnership orientation.
For California Milk Producers, "Got Milk" has been a highly successful:
slogan.
Because each successive generation is more technologically savvy than their parents, companies are wise to consider the ways in which advances in technology will change their demands in other areas of their lives, such as entertainment, home décor, clothing, and spending patterns in general. These considerations are part of the _____domain of businesses' external environment.
sociocultural
Many new retail facilities include family or nongender-specific restrooms for customers and employees as a response to changes in the _____ environment.
sociocultural
The CEO of Kerplunk Toys often tells how he was fishing with his young son one day and they were talking about "Dad's new job," which was in fact the beginning stages of a start-up toy company. The CEO was still trying to decide on the venture's name when a huge frog jumped into the water in front of them and splashed them both. They laughed and laughed and the son said, "That was some kerplunk!" His comment inspired the company name. The CEO affirms his company's value of family through this:
story.
At Home Healthcare has advertised for 10 positions. The human resources department is worried about being able to fill those positions because of a lack of qualified applicants. Which dimension of the external environment is involved here?
Labor market
Which of the following statements regarding strategic issues is NOT true?
Strategic issues only occur inside an organization and are likely to alter its ability to achieve its objectives.
The right fit between culture, strategy, and the environment is associated with four categories or types of culture. On what two dimensions are these categories based?
The amount of flexibility required by the external environment and whether a company's strategic focus is internal or external
Which of the following would NOT be among the characteristics of an effective cultural leader?
When the culture needs to change, cultural leaders wait for employees to reinforce the new values.
In an environment that requires fast response and high-risk decision making, what type of culture is most likely to emerge?
Adaptability culture
Which of the following statements about the elements of the external organizational environment is true?
An organization's external environment includes elements that exist outside the boundary of an organization and have the potential to affect the organization.
Winnington Capital promotes a "family at work" atmosphere through measures such as family health insurance, opportunity for flex hours, and an emphasis on work-family life balance. Winnington strives to operate as a profitable business at the same time it encourages better relationships among families and work colleagues. Winnington would fall within Quadrant:
B
When considering an organization's cultural values and business performance, which of the following statements is true?
Cultural values that are not connected to business performance are not likely to benefit an organization during challenging times.
Which of the following dimensions is a part of an organization's internal environment?
Culture
Which of the following statements best explains why managers need to pay attention to culture?
Culture guides how people within the organization interact with one another and how the organization interacts with the external environment, which means it plays a significant role in organizational success.
Jess works as a department manager in her organization. She has excellent role models in the upper management, and she tries to extend the same type of mentoring and support to the front-line managers she supervises. By doing so, she is reinforcing the organization's:
culture dimension of the internal environment.
What are the two dimensions used to measure the level of uncertainty in an organization's external environment?
The number of factors in the environment and the rate of change of those factors
In a discussion of the attributes of strong corporate cultures, which of the following statements is true?
They sometimes promote negative values and behaviors.
Companies in the high-tech industry face rapid changes as technology evolves. They need cultures that support the company's ability to rapidly detect, interpret, and translate signals from the environment into new behaviors. These companies have a(n) _____ culture.
adaptability
When a customer needs a special order, Noreen, who manages the production line, has the authority to alter the production line to fulfill that order. Her company has a(n) _____ culture.
adaptability
As a manager at a company in the financial industry, Rick continuously scans the business horizon for _____, which are also called strategic issues.
both subtle and dramatic environmental changes
As a manager, Carmen frequently uses a(n) _____ role as a strategy for her organization to link to and coordinate with key elements in the external environment.
boundary spanning
Managers often use business intelligence software to link to and coordinate the organization with key elements in the external environment through:
boundary spanning.
Many managers use sophisticated software to search through large amounts of internal and external data to spot patterns, trends, and relationships that might be significant, which reveals:
business intelligence.
Maxwell Accounting Services has been in operation for more than 70 years. It takes pride in providing thorough and professional accounting services to its business clients, many of whom have been with Maxwell for their entire company's life. Based on this description, Maxwell has a(n) _____ corporate culture.
consistency
Social, economic, legal-political, international, natural, and technological factors that influence all organizations about equally and primarily in indirect ways are part of the:
general environment.
Julie Aigner-Clark is the founder of Baby Einstein. She began with a love of the arts and humanities and wanted to share that passion with her baby. Through persistence and hard work, she developed videos designed to enrich children's minds and experiences. To many at Baby Einstein, she is a:
hero
With its entrance into new markets in South America, Athletics Clothing Inc. has hired a Brazilian marketing company. The relationship with this company is part of the _____ dimension of Athletics Clothing's general environment.
international
Bouquet Floral is known for its caring, family-like atmosphere. Its corporate culture emphasizes the involvement and participation of employees, and it attaches great importance to meeting the needs of its employees. Bouquet Floral has a(n) _____ culture.
involvement
At K&P Production and Manufacturing, customers often meet with a production team to confirm specifications for a product. The production team is encouraged to offer suggestions for improving the product's design or quality. K&P's culture could be described as a(n):
involvement culture.
Organizations continue to look for ways to keep up with technological advancements and compete in the global economy. A way that is becoming more and more popular that involves strategic alliances is:
joint ventures.
The federal government influences organizations through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), consumer protection and privacy legislation, product safety requirements, and labeling requirements, which makes them part of the _____ dimension of organization's external environment.
legal-political
Within the task and general environments, the interaction among a community of organizations in the environment forms an:
organizational ecosystem
Research by Kotter and Heskett showed that companies that intentionally managed cultural values:
outperformed similar companies that did not.
Monte Package Company manufactures packing trays that hold fruit. Sodaltech makes pulp-molding machinery. In this scenario, Sodaltech is Monte Packaging's:
supplier.
On every Apple computer, iPhone, and other product is the familiar outline of an apple with a bite out of it. In fact, it is one of the most highly recognizable brand _____ in the world.
symbols
The sectors that conduct day-to-day transactions with the organization and directly influence its basic operations and performance are part of the:
task environment.
The highest levels of uncertainty for a firm occur when:
the number of factors in the organization environment is high and the rate of change in factors in the environment is high.
Organizations within the same industry often reveal similar cultural characteristics because:
they are operating in similar environments.
The company 3M, headquartered in Minnesota, has always been known for encouraging employee innovation by providing centers and forums for creating practical ideas that become opportunities and are nurtured through resources for developing successful products. These _____ are the essence of culture and subconsciously guide behavior and decisions.
underlying assumptions and beliefs
At the Principal Lake Company, each new employee is greeted, either by the CEO or the vice president of human resources at that employee's first department-wide meeting with a framed copy of the company's motto and a coffee mug with the employee's name and the company logo on it. This long-standing tradition is one of the company culture's:
visible artifacts.
Cedar Memorial Chapel and Funeral Home conveys a sense of reverence and compassion. Its chapel and rooms are tastefully decorated in subdued calming colors. Its employees dress formally in suits. These aspects of the atmosphere at Cedar Memorial are part of its:
visible artifacts.
The cultural leader articulates a _____ for the organizational culture that employees can believe in and will rally around.
vision
