IST 202 Chapter 2 (KU)

___________ is the corporate culture that has evolved in a firms home country.

Administrative Heritage

Architectural value is derived from ______________.

An investment's ability to extend the infrastructure's capabilities to meet business needs.

Interoperabilty, portability, scalability, recoverability, and compatibility can be taken to measure ______________ value.

Architectural

With respect to general approaches for applying freeconomics to various industries, sale price of one item being reduced in order to sell something else of value is called ________ approach.

Cross subsidies

What is an implication for firms that have a threat of new entrants in their market?

Decreased market share

________ are new technologies, products, or services that eventually surpass the existing dominant technology or product in a market.

Disruptive innovations.

____________ value is the contribution an investment makes toward improving the infrastructures ability to enhance the profitability of the business.

Economic

At the _______ level, information systems provide KPI's focused on balancing performance.

Executive

At the _______ level, managers focus on long-term questions facing the organization.

Executive

Jane Estroisch works as a manger in a multi-domestic firm. She focuses on long-term questions, and is in the _______ level of the organization.

Executive

Managers at the _______ level include the President, VP, CEO, and BOD.

Executive

To assist _______ decision making, Information Systems are used to obtain summaries of trends and projections.

Executive-level

_______ decisions are referred to as unstructured decisions.

Executive-level

________ decisions deal with complex problems with broad and long-term ramifications.

Executive-level

Home-replication strategy is also called the ___________ strategy.

Export

At the executive level, information systems are typically used to optimize processes and to better understand the underlying causes of any performance problems.

False

In contrast to global organizations where most of the resources are centralized in different countries, different resources in a transnational company need to be centralized in the company's home country.

False

Increased costs and reduced quality are implications for firms that face an increasing threat of new entrants in its markets.

False

Operational, managerial, and executive decision-making levels are all supported by a single type of information system.

False

Risk tolerance for people within the organization should be low for the deployment of innovative information systems.

False

Tactical-level decision making is more structured and routine than operational-level decision making.

False

The concept of freeconomics cannot be applied to industries other than Web e-mail or online searches.

False

The e-business innovation cycle puts strategy ahead of technology.

False

The inability to react to local market conditions is a major disadvantage of firms pursuing a multidomestic business strategy.

False

Unstructured decisions can be programmed directly into operational information systems so that they can be made with little or no human intervention.

False

With respect to the organizational decision making levels, top level managers typically focus on problems within a specific business function, such as marketing or finance.

False

Wikipedia is pursuing a(n) ________ approach to applying freeconomics.

Gift economy

With respect to general approaches for applying freeconomics to various industries, the ________ approach means creating an environment that allows people to participate and collaborate to create something of value for everyone.

Gift economy

Companies pursuing a ___________ strategy attempt to achieve economies of scale.

Global

Example of best-cost provider strategy:

Global furniture retailer IKEA.

Reduced prices, need for increased quality, and demand for more services for a firm would result due to ___________.

High customers' bargaining power

What strategy is the most basic form of going global?

Home-replication strategy.

What is a disadvantage of firms that pursue a global strategy?

Inability to react quickly to local changes and opportunities.

Which of the following defines marginal cost?

It is the cost of producing an additional unit of output.

What is a disadvantage of a business pursuing a multi-domestic business strategy?

Limited knowledge transfer between individual subsidiaries.

Walmart pursues a _______ strategy.

Low-cost leadership

Which of the following actions can be included as a part of operational planning?

Making day-to-day decisions that are highly structured and recurring.

At the _______ level of an organization, functional managers focus on monitoring and controlling operational-level activities and providing information to higher levels of the organization.

Managerial

_______ decision making in an organization is referred to as semistructured decision making.

Managerial-level

According to basic economics within a competitive marketplace, the price of a product is set by its ________.

Marginal cost.

According to ________, the number of transistors that could be squeezed onto a silicon chip would double every 18 months.

Moore's Law

Which action would an organization take to pursue a best-cost provider strategy?

Offering products or services of reasonably good quality at competitive prices.

At the _______ level of a firm, information systems are typically used to optimize processes and better understand the causes of performance problems.

Operational

At the _______ level of a firm, the routine, day-to-day business processes and interactions with customers occur.

Operational

Ben White is what level of manager?

Operational

If measuring the impact of NOT investing in a project, we are deriving the ______________ value.

Operational

Information systems at the _______ level are designed to automate repetitive activities.

Operational

Information systems at the _______ level help in automating repetitive activities.

Operational

Using information systems to optimize processes at the _______ level of an organization can offer quick returns on the IS investment.

Operational

_______________ value is derived from assessing an investment's impact on enabling the infrastructure to better meet business requirements.

Operational

The willingness to bypass and eliminate internal bureaucracy and set aside political squabbles are requirements categorized as ___________ requirements.

Process

______________ value is derived from assessing control, security, and integrity.

Regulatory & Compliance

Organizations deploying innovative information systems must have the human capital necessary to deploy the new systems. These requirements can be categorized as ________ requirements.

Resource

Procedures to follow for a given situation can be specified in advance, but not to the extent where a specific recommendation can be made.

Semistructured

Manager in the _______ level are referred to as "executives".

Strategic

The executive level of an organization is also known as the _______ level.

Strategic

What action distinguishes firms pursuing a transitional business strategy from firms using other business strategies?

Striking a balance between centralization and decentralization.

With respect to decision making in organizations, _______ decisions are those in which the procedures to follow for a given situation can be specified in advance.

Structured

With respect to organizational decision-making levels, _______ decisions can be programmed directly into operational information systems.

Structured

The managerial level of an organization is also known as the _______ level.

Tactical

Which of the following statements is true about the e-business innovation cycle?

The vertical dimension of the cycle shows the extent to which an organization derives value from a particular information technology, and the horizontal dimension shows time.

What is TRUE about firms pursuing a multi-domestic business strategy?

They are extremely flexible and responsive tot he needs and demands of local markets.

What is TRUE about firms pursuing a home-replication strategy?

They focus on their domestic customers' needs and wants, and merely export their products to generate additional sales.

A firm that enjoys a high degree of global integration AND local responsiveness is perusing a ___________ strategy.

Transitional

Mystic, a Texas-based firm....

Transitional

The __________ business strategy allows companies to leverage the flexibility offered by a decentralized organization.

Transitional

Unilever, which decides when to centralize and when to decentralize depending on the products and the local markets, is an example of a ________ company.

Transitional

A home-replication strategy can be referred to as an international strategy.

True

Any industry that utilizes digital technologies is on a path toward increasingly lower costs, ultimately toward a price of free—or at least "free" for consumers.

True

Choosing and implementing an emerging information system is not sufficient to gain or sustain competitive advantage.

True

Executive-level decisions are referred to as unstructured decisions.

True

For unstructured organizational decisions, few or no procedures to follow for a given situation can be specified in advance.

True

In an organization, managers use value chain analysis to identify opportunities where information systems can be used to develop a competitive advantage.

True

In an organizational setup, a functional area represents a discrete area of an organization that focuses on a specific set of activities.

True

Managerial-level decision making is referred to as semistructured decision making.

True

Most organizations have three general decision-making levels: operational, managerial, and executive.

True

Organizational learning is the ability of an organization to use past behavior and information to improve its business processes.

True

Organizational strategy is a firm's plan to accomplish its mission and goals as well as to gain or sustain competitive advantage over rivals

True

The use of information systems has become one of the primary ways that organizations improve their value chains.

True

Process of analyzing an organization's activities to determine where value is added to products/services.

Value Chain Analysis

A ____________ is the utility that the product/service has to offer to customers.

Value Proposition

A global strategy is associated with ___________.

a high degree of global integration and low degree of local responsiveness.

Tele'Wire, a mobile manufacturer, offers free connections to customers who buy its mobile phones. This cost of connection is actually included in the price of the mobile phone. Tele'Wire is pursuing a(n) ________ approach to applying freeconomics.

cross subsidies

Managers at the tactical level focus on _______.

deploying organizational resources to achieve the strategic objectives of the organization.

Musicmatch Jukebox is an all-in-one music management tool that was first marketed in 1999. Most users can use the Basic/Free version, but a $19.99 upgrade provides extra features such as supertagging and faster ripping and burning. Which of the following explains this approach to applying freeconomics?

freemium approach

According to the disruptive growth engine, executive leadership will allow a firm to ________.

gain credibility and to bridge sustaining and disruptive product development.

In an e-business innovation cycle, after an organization scans the environment for new emerging and enabling technologies, the next step is to ________.

match the most promising new technologies with current economic opportunities.

Which of the following actions of a firm suggests that it is using the freemium approach to applying freeconomics?

offering basic services for free, but charging a premium for special features.

Freeconomics is the leveraging of digital technologies to ________.

provide free goods and services to customers as a business strategy for gaining a competitive advantage.

Web sites like ez-tracks and beemp3 pursue a(n) ________ approach to applying freeconomics when they offer free music downloads for users because reproduction and distribution of these products come at no cost.

zero marginal cost