MNGT 310 Chapter 3.

____ involves deciding who your competitors are, anticipating competitors' moves, and determining competitors' strengths and weaknesses.

A competitive analysis.

Which of the following is a component of a book publisher's general environment and will indirectly influence how it does business?

A trend toward less leisure time.

Which of the following is a type of company most likely to be facing a dynamic environment?

A video game manufacturer.

Which of the following is one of the steps in the process that managers use to make sense of their changing environments?

Acting on threats an opportunities.

One of the difficulties encountered in recent mergers has been the inability of employees in the two existing organizational cultures to operate harmoniously. In other words, merging organizational cultures often lack the ____ that would increase the likelihood of a merger's success.

Adaptability.

According to a book by a Harvard Business School professor, some organizational cultures simply cannot meet the challenges posed by innovation and must respond to threats from new technologies by building outside ventures. Digital Equipment is described as having one of those organizational cultures that did not have ____. The company squandered the opportunities presented by the PC revolution even though it was well equipped to build cheap PCs.

Adaptabilty.

Which of the following statements about a company's vision is true?

All of these statements about a company's vision are true.

The manager of a company that produces soy-based sausage wants to conduct a competitive analysis. During this competitive analysis, he should look at ____.

All of these.

Which of the following is a characteristic of successful organizational cultures?

All of these.

Which of the following is a viable strategy for changing organizational culture?

All of these.

Which of the following would be an example of a visible artifact for an organization that is being merged with a large international firm?

All of these.

Milsand Corp. used office cubicles for its employees. Each employee had a 6-foot square office with walls that do not go all the way to the ceiling. Employees were not allowed to personalize their cubicles. If Milsand wanted to change its organizational culture, it could begin by ____.

Allowing employees to personalize their cubicles.

Managers often prefer to use business confidence indices ____.

As predictors of future economic activity when making business decisions.

____ is the process of having managers and employees perform new behaviors that are central to and symbolic of the new organizational culture a company wants to create.

Behavioral addition.

When using ____ to change organizational culture, the key to success is to choose behaviors that are central to and symbolic of the old culture you're changing and the new culture you want to create.

Behavioral substitution and behavioral addition.

In order to change an organizational culture, top management can persuade other managers and employees to perform a new behavior in place of an older one. This technique is called ____.

Behavioral substitution.

An increase in ____ can lead to opportunistic behavior in which one party benefits at the expense of the other.

Buyer dependence.

Small manufacturers are successful often because Wal-Mart agrees to carry their products. If Wal-Mart does not like a price increase, it often will refuse to do business with the manufacturer. At this point, many small manufacturers will offer price reductions because they fear failure if they lose the Wal-Mart account. The relationship between these small manufacturers and Wal-Mart can be described as ____.

Buyer dependent.

Which of the following is NOT a dimension of the political/legal component of the general environment that governs and regulates business behavior?

Competitive products.

Refer to Dofasco. Kyoto Protocol is another steel producer in Canada. This company is part of Dofasco's ____ component of its ____environment.

Competitive; specific.

One of the problems with many of the dot-com companies that failed in the mid-1990s was a lower and middle management adherence to innovation and an expectation that work would be fun while top management envisioned the company being profitable and the elimination of unnecessary expenses. These companies lacked ____ in their organizational cultures.

Consistency.

Which of the following statements about corporate cultures is true?

Corporate cultures are very difficult to change.

Managers should NOT use environmental scanning to ____.

Develop and sustain their organizational culture.

Companies doing a competitive analysis typically err by___.

Doing an incomplete job of identifying competitors.

Imagine a Mexican car manufacturer wanted to export its automobiles to Guatemala. Knowledge that the distribution of income within Guatemala is highly unequal and about 75 percent of the population is below the poverty line would be a(n) ____ component in the manufacturer's general environment.

Economic.

Refer to Dofasco. What technique would Dofasco most likely have used to keep apprised of environmental changes that could impact how the company does business?

Environmental scanning.

The first step managers use to make sense of their changing environments is ____.

Environmental scanning.

All events outside a company that have the potential to influence or affect it occur in the ____ environment.

External.

Legislation concerning the disposal of biological wastes, the development of more sophisticated imaging machines, and longer patient life spans would all be part of the ____ for a public hospital.

General Environment.

What are the two types of external organizational environments?

General and the specific.

The ____ consists of the economy and the technological, sociocultural, and political/legal trends that indirectly affect all organizations.

General environment.

Refer to Dofasco. The slump in the automobile industry would be part of Dofasco's ____ environment.

General.

In terms of external organizational environments, the ____ environment affects all organizations while the ____ environment is unique to each company.

General; specific.

White Castle is a fast-food restaurant chain that is famous for its small, square hamburgers. The chain began prior to World War II. Which of the following would have been part of its specific environment during the war in particular?

Government-mandated beef rationing as a result of World War II.

The purpose of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) is to promote the production of safe, high quality food in a manner that does not harm the environment and that preserves or improves soil fertility, soil structure, and farm sustainability. This is the organization's vision, and it ____.

Guides the decisions and behaviors of the people who are members of the organization.

Refer to Dofasco. Dofasco operates according to the punctuated equilibrium theory. This means the company ____.

Has periods of long stability punctuated by short periods dynamic change.

A company facing a simple environment would ____.

Have few external factors in the environment that affect it.

At one time it was very difficult for independent booksellers to carry all the books from the different publishers. Book ordering was time-consuming and frustrating when orders did not arrive in a timely fashion. Returning unsold books was an equally miserable experience. The creation of Ingram Distribution allowed the booksellers to streamline the ordering and return procedures. Ingram made all the books bookstore owners wanted to carry available in one centralized warehouse. Many new bookstore owners would be unwilling and/or unable to return to the method of ordering books from the individual publishers. This is an example of the creation of ____.

High buyer dependence on a supplier.

Typically the most important factor in the relationship between companies and their suppliers is ____.

How dependent they are on each other.

In setting up his new office, an attorney wanted furnishings that were elegant and that would make him look successful. He wanted thick, plush carpeting in his office, but federal regulations state that his office must be wheelchair accessible because ite is a public area. Wheelchairs do not maneuver well in thick carpeting. The building inspector had him remove the expensive carpeting and replace it with a carpet that did allow wheelchair maneuverability. This is an example of how the ____ component of a company's specific environment influences it.

Industry regulation.

White Castle is a fast-food restaurant chain that is famous for its small, square hamburgers. Which of the following would be a component of its general environment?

Inflation.

The term ____ refers to the events and trends inside an organization that affect management, employees, and the organizational culture.

Internal environment.

Which of the following is a component of the specific environment that would directly influence a restaurant's day-to-day operation?

Its regular customers.

White Castle is a fast-food restaurant chain that is famous for its small, square hamburgers. Which of the following would be an industry regulation component of its specific environment?

Local health inspectors.

Managers can use behavioral addition and behavioral substitution to ____.

Modify corporate culture.

Which of the following approaches will guarantee the successful change of an organizational culture?

None of these.

A high degree of buyer or seller dependence can lead to ____ in which one party benefits at the expense of the other.

Opportunistic behavior.

Refer to Dofasco. The company's commitment to the triple bottom line and to keeping its employees happy is indicative of Dofasco's ____.

Organizational culture.

The ____ is the set of key values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by members of an organization.

Organizational culture.

When Ivory started work at Henderson Textile Co., she was amazed at its employees who would take 30-minute restroom breaks, leave for the day at 2 p.m., and generally belittle the company's management. Such employees' actions most likely developed as a result of a faulty ____.

Organizational culture.

After an organization's founders are gone, the organization can use ____ to sustain its organizational culture.

Organizational heroes.

The Edmonton Oilers ice hockey team develops a sense of history for its current players by raising banners showing successful seasons (five Stanley Cups!) and the retired numbers of great players from the past in its stadium and locker room. What tactics for maintaining organizational culture are the Edmonton Oilers using?

Organizational stories and organizational heroes.

Which of the following is a component of Coca-Cola's specific environment and will directly influence how it does business?

Pepsi-Cola.

Fear of a lawsuit prevents many employers from giving totally honest recommendations to former employees. This reflects a change in the ____ component of the general environment.

Political/legal.

Two homebuilders are building homes in nearby subdivisions. One is offering 2,500-square-foot homes with two-acre yards. The other is offering a similar size of house with quarter-acre yards. The builder offering the smaller lots cannot keep up with demand. The builder offering the larger lots has several unsold houses. The builder with the smaller lots most likely used ____ to determine what home buyers desired.

Proactive customer monitoring.

____ is a tactic in which an advocacy group actively tries to convince consumers not to purchase a company's product or service.

Product boycott.

Advocacy groups use a variety of tactics to convince businesses to comply with the group's stand on issues. Which of the following advocacy group tactics would be most likely to cause a business to fail?

Product boycotts.

Which of the following is NOT a potential legal risk associated with traditional managerial decisions like recruiting, hiring, and firing employees?

Product liability.

Which of the following is the LEAST aggressive approach likely to be used by an advocacy group?

Public Communications.

According to the ____, companies go through long, simple periods of environmental stability, followed by short, complex periods of dynamic, fundamental environmental change, finishing with a return toenvironmental stability.

Punctuated equilibrium theory.

Two homebuilders are building homes in nearby subdivisions. One is offering 2,500-square-foot homes with two-acre yards. The other is offering a similar size of house with quarter-acre yards. The builder offering the smaller lots cannot keep up with demand. The builder offering the larger lots has several unsold houses. The builder with the larger lots could use ____ to determine why his homes are not selling.

Reactive customer monitoring.

____ is used to refer to a company's practice of identifying and addressing customer trends and problems after they occur.

Reactive customer monitoring.

An emphasis on ____ is likely to decrease opportunistic behavior but will never completely eliminate it.

Relationship behavior.

In a very strong economy, where the demand for qualified job applicants exceeds the supply, the environmental characteristic of ____ is likely to be particularly salient for many companies.

Resource scarcity.

____ is the degree to whic an organization's external environment has an abundance or scarcity of critical organizational resources.

Resource scarcity.

In terms of environmental complexity, ____ environments have few environmental factors, whereas ____ environments have many environmental factors.

Simple; complex.

Tourism was not the only travel-associated industry that has been visibly hurt by what happened on 9/11. People decided to vacation at home and sales of luggage and similar travel gear decreased significantly. Sales of home swimming pools increased. This decision to stay at home reflects a change in attitudes toward the perceived safety of long-distance traveling. This is an example of a change in the ____ component of the general environment.

Sociocultural.

Refer to Dofasco. The fact Ford that purchased less steel from Dofasco during the auto industry's slump would be part of Dofasco's ____ environment because Ford Motor Company is one of its customers.

Specific.

More premature babies than ever before are surviving due to improvements in medical knowledge and care. This improved survival rate has been influenced by the ____ component of hospitals.

Technological.

Over the past 20 years, which of the following is an industry that has experienced both the stable and dynamic environments predicted by punctuated equilibrium theory?

The airline industry.

____ is a primary source of organizational culture.

The company's founder.

White Castle is a fast-food restaurant chain that is famous for its small, square hamburgers. Which of the following would be a component of its sociocultural environment?

The fact most consumers prefer eating out rather than at home.

Kodak makes both camera equipment and paper for printing pictures. Kodak would view the growing popularity of digital cameras as a(n) ____ in its external environment if it considered how digital cameras affect sales of cameras that use film. On the other hand, Kodak would view the growing popularity of digital cameras as a(n) ____ in its external environment if it considered the amount of Kodak processing paper used in printing pictures made by digital cameras.

Threat; opportunity.

Environmental ____ is affected by environmental complexity, change, and resources.

Uncertainty.

A mace is commonly used at a university or college convocation ceremony. The mace was originally a weapon, then became the symbol of government, and now has become the symbol of authority of the institution to grant diplomas or degrees. In terms of organizational culture, the mace is an example of a(n) ____.

Visible artifact.

Organizations use behavioral addition, behavioral substitution, and ____ to change their organizational culture.

Visible artifacts.

When Samsonite purchased American Tourister, one of the first things the new management did was to eliminate the gorilla (which had appeared in all American Tourister ads for years and which represented the quality construction of American Tourister luggage). The gorilla had been a symbol of quality and commitment for American Tourister employees. The executive order to remove the gorilla posters from the walls of offices and factories was one of the means Samsonite used to change the organizational culture at American Tourister. The gorilla posters were an example of ____.

Visible artifacts.

Hooters is a chain of more than 2,000 restaurants. Its employees cheerfully admit that the restaurants are "delightfully tacky, yet unrefined." The reason the company exists is apparent to all of its employees: its purpose is fun. The concept of making eating out consistently fun for men is an example of its ____.

Vision.

Changes in any sector of the general environment ____.

Will eventually affect most organizations.

Technology is the ____ used to transform inputs (raw materials, information, etc.) into outputs (products or services).

knowledge, tools, and techniques.