Management Process Exam 1
Grand strategies
what is an example of a common approach to corporate-level strategy?
Situational Analysis
A SWOT analysis for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in organization's internal environment and opportunities and threats in its external environment, also called?
Design iteration
A cycle of repetition in which a company tests a prototype of new product or service, improves on that design, and then test the improved prototype. This iterative process is basic to managing innovation
Tariffs
A direct tax on imported goods
Quota
A limit on the number or volume of imported products
growing dog and cat population in the US, scientific research that indicates dogs need less calcium in their diet, a less expensive, more nutritious imported brand of pet food and growing demand for gourmet food
A situational analysis for a manufacturer of pet food might reveal what facts?
Government import standard
A standard established ostensibly to protect the health and safety of citizens, but, in reality, often used to restrict imports
Feminine
According to Hofstede, what is a culture if they care for the weak and quality of life, emphasizing the importance of relationships?
Short-term orientation
According to Hofstede, when people in a culture are oriented to the present and seek immediate gratification, that culture has what?
Declaring victory too soon
According to John Kotter, what would adversely influence refreezing efforts?
Change forces, resistance forces
According to Kurt Lewin, what lead to differences in the form, quality or condition of an organization over time while what support the status quo or the existing state of conditions in an organization?
Bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of customers, threat of substitute products or services, threat of new entrants and character of rivalry
According to Michael Porter, 5 industry forces determine an industry's overall attractiveness and potential for long-term profitability. What are the forces he identified?
Risk-avoiding strategy and risk-seeking strategy
According to strategic reference point theory, managers have what two basic strategic alternatives?
Analyzers, defenders and prospectors
Among companies who use the adaptive strategies, what blend the strategies used by what?
Differentiation
An ad for a major brand of washing machine says "Since our humble beginnings back in 1950, we have been dedicated to building machines with superior cleaning power, reliability and style" This manufacturer is using what kind of positioning strategy?
Strategic dissonance
An organization is experiencing what when there is a discrepancy between upper management's intended strategy and the strategy actually implemented by the lower levels of management
Competitive Inertia
An organization is has been successful in the past and experiencing trouble when they are reluctant to change strategies or competitive practices that have
Reactor
An organization which is a what in terms of its adaptive strategy would NOT follow a consistent strategy?
Regional trading zones
Areas in which tariff and nontariff barriers on trade are reduced or eliminated
High degree of market commonality
As direct competitors, what would FedEx and UPS have?
Create a competitive advantage
Aveda differentiates its products from similar brands by focusing on educating its customers on general skin and hair care. Its salespeople are trained to answer questions and help customers find solutions. They have used customer education and employee training to what?
Prospecting
Because of slowing sales, Arm & Hammer started promoting innovative uses for its baking soda. By searching for new market opportunities, the manufacturer is using what type of adaptive strategy?
Related diversification
Deutsche Bank became the world's largest bank through mergers with Bankers Trust, a transatlantic banking operation. Both companies had similar core capabilities, this is an example of what?
No, size is not criteria for sustainable competitive advantage.
Deutsche Bank is the largest bank in the world. Would this give it a sustainable competitive advantage?
Strategic dissonance
Discrepancies between the company's intended strategy and what is implemented, usually resulting from decisions of middle and lower-level managers is what?
Core firm
Dow Chemical is conducting a SWOT analysis. According to sales, they're the second largest chemical company in the world, BASF being the largest. Both companies use a similar strategy, BASF would be classified as what?
Incremental change
During what phase of a technology cycle do companies innovate by lowering cost and improving function and performance of the dominant design?
Resource similarity
From a competitive standpoint by your direct competitors, what means that the strategic actions your company takes can probably be matched?
Trade barriers
Government imposed regulations that increase the cost and restrict the number of imported goods
Cultural difference
Green Giant not being able to use its character in parts of Asia where a green hat worn by a man signifies an unfaithful wife is an example of what?
Growing internally through direct expansion or creating new businesses
How can companies achieve growth?
Recovery
ICI, the chemical company removed petrochemical products from its production and concentrated on specialty chemicals, a less capital-intensive, less cyclical business. If they're successful in making the needed changes, they will implement what strategy?
Other firms within an industry
In a SWOT analysis, a strategic group is a group of what that top managers choose for comparing, evaluating and benchmarking their company's strategic threats and opportunities?
At the end of the cycle
In the typical S-curve pattern of innovation, increased effort brings only small improvements in technological performance when performance limits of the technology are reached when?
At the beginning and end of the cycle
In the typical S-curve pattern of innovation, increased effort brings only small improvements in technological performance when?
At the midpoint of the cycle
In the typical S-curve pattern of innovation, small amounts of effort will result in significant increases in performance when?
Technological substitution
Innovation streams move from one technology cycle to another through what process? Bulky computer monitors to thin flat-screens
Core capabilities
Internal decision-making routines, problem-solving processes and organization cultures that determine how efficiently inputs can be turned into outputs.
Design competition
Kodak is a company associated with photography. The company has recognized that digital photography is a threat to the future growth of the company. Therefore, the company has decided to become a market leader in digital imaging while still providing customer support for people still using film cameras. The existence of both technologies is an example of what?
Discontinuous change
Kodak recognized digital photography as a threat to their future company growth. They decided to become a market leader in digital imaging, as they tried to compete in the new innovation stream, they entered what?
Subsidies
Long-term, low-interest loans, cash grants and tax deductions used to develop and protect companies or special industries
S-curve
Most technology cycles follow what typical pattern of innovation?
Conducting a situational analysis
NTL is the largest cable company in the UK. They declared bankruptcy and need to engage in restructuring in order to give it more flexibility and allow it to raise capital. Since it has identified the need for strategic change, what would be the organization's next step in this strategy-making process?
Innovation
Organizational what is the successful implementation of creative ideas in organizations
Cost leadership
Positioning strategy of producing a product or service of acceptable quality at consistently lower production costs than competitors can so that the firm can offer the product or service at the lowest price in the industry.
Differentiation
Positioning strategy of providing a product or service sufficiently different from competitors' offerings that customers are willing to pay a premium price for it.
Technological substitution
Purchase of new technologies to replace older ones is an example of what? Discontinuous change in an innovation stream is characterized by this.
Market commonality
Resource similarity and each other are factors that determine the extent to which firms will be in direct competition with.
Technological discontinuity
Scientific advance that creates a significant breakthrough in performance or function, development of digital camera
Retrenchment
Significant cost reductions, layoffs, closing of poorly performing stores, offices or manufacturing plants, or closing or selling entire lines of products or services is a characteristic of what strategy?
Distinctive competence
Specialized Bike Company introduced the first major production mountain bike in 1980. Two-thirds of its profits come from the sale of mountain bikes. It is recognized worldwide for its ability to design and produce superior mountain bikes. What is this ability?
Core Capabilities
Specialized Bike Components introduced the first major production mountain bike in 1980. Since then, the company has maintained a technological leadership in the production of bike and bike accessories and an organizational culture that encourages innovation. Technological leadership and its organizational culture are the company's what?
Stars
Specialized Bike Components introduced the first major production mountain bike. Two-thirds of its profits come from the sale of mountain bikes. Specialized bikes have a large share of a fast-growing market. On the BCG matrix, what would they be?
Unrelated diversification
Starbucks markets CDs, what is this an example of?
Sustainable competitive advantage
Strata golf balls sell exceptionally well because customers perceive its patented three-layer construction to improve handling and increase distance. The patent on these golf-balls gives Top-Flite what?
Strategic reference point
Strategic targets that managers use to measure whether a firm has developed the core competencies it needs to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, sometimes the brand identity.
Organizational development
Takes a long-range approach to change, creates change by educating workers and managers to change ideas, beliefs and behaviors so that problems can be solved in new ways, assumes that top management support is necessary for change, emphasizes employee participation in all stages of the change
Results-driven change
The General Electric workout is a special kind of what?
Dominant design
The accepted market standard
Related diversification
The best approach to portfolio management is what?
Global business
The buying and selling of goods and services to people from different countries
Technological discontinuity
The development of the DVD player was a source of had once been what to companies in the movie industry, just as VHS tapes?
Assess the need for strategic change
The first step in the strategy-making process is to what?
Competitive Inertia
The highly fragmented chemical industry in Europe has experienced decreasing profits in an industry reluctant to change the way it conducts business, especially in how it competes against lower-priced US imports. This is an example of what?
Technology
The knowledge, tools and techniques used to transform inputs into outputs.
Retrenchment
To stop declining profitability, a chemical company deleted petrochemical products from its production and concentrated on specialty chemicals, a less capital-intensive, less cyclical business. What type of grand strategy were they using?
Competitive inertia
Top managers are responsible for directing the overall company, they are responsible for what then?
Low resource similarity
Under conditions of advantage, a competitive attack by the stronger rival is more likely to produce sustained competitive what?
Nonsubstitutable
Valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable resources can produce sustainable competitive advantage only if they are what?
FedEx and UPS
What 2 organizations are most directly in competition with each other?
Reactors
What adaptive strategy tends to result in the poorest performance?
Compression
What approach is appropriate for use in more certain environments during periods of incremental change where goals are lower costs and incremental improvements?
Experiential
What approach to innovation assumes that innovation is occurring within a highly uncertain environment and that the key to fast product innovation is to use intuition, flexible options and hands-on experience to reduce uncertainty and accelerate learning and understanding?
Experiential Approach
What approach to innovation assumes that innovation is occurring within a highly uncertain environment and that the key to fast product innovation is to use intuition, flexible options and hands-on experience to reduce uncertainty and accelerate learning and understanding?
Compression
What approach to managing innovation assumes that innovation is a predictable process made up of a series of steps and that compressing the time it takes to complete those steps can speed up innovation?
Individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance/acceptance, short/long-orientation, power distance
What are Hofstede's five cultural dimensions?
Wholly owned affiliate
What are foreign offices, facilities and manufacturing plants that are owned by the parent company?
Global new ventures
What are new companies with sales, employees and financing in different countries that are found with an active global strategy?
Innovation streams
What are patterns of innovation over time that can create sustainable competitive advantage?
Internal conflict, rigid management structures, basis toward the status quo and power struggles
What are some organizational impediments to creativity in a work environment?
Education and communication, participation, negotiation and coercion
What are the basic methods for managing resistance to change?
Core capabilities
What are the less visible internal decision-making routines, problem-solving processes and organization cultures that determine how efficiently inputs can be turned into outputs?
Technological discontinuity, discontinuous change, dominant design and incremental change
What are the phases of a technology cycle within an innovation stream?
Strategic reference points
What are the targets that managers use to measure whether their firm has developed the core competencies that it needs to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage?
Tariff and nontariff barriers
What are the two general kinds of trade barriers?
Grand strategies and portfolio strategy
What are the two major approaches to corporate-level strategy?
Political uncertainty and policy uncertainty
What are the two types of political risk that affect companies conducting global business?
Franchising and licensing
What are the types of cooperative contract?
Creative work environments
What are workplace cultures in which workers perceive that new ideas are welcomed, valued and encouraged?
Knowledge, tools and techniques
What areas do major advances or changes need to be made in for a technology cycle to occur?
Technology cycle
What begins with the birth of a new technology and ends when that technology reaches its limits and dies as it is replaced by a new, substantially better technology?
Netherlands
What country has the largest direct foreign investment in the US?
Sources of innovation
What do companies need to excel at managing in order to successfully manage innovation streams?
Phase model of globalization
What do companies use to successfully enter foreign markets?
Easy access to growing markets and an effective, but cost-efficient place to build an office or manufacturing site
What do countries or regions with an attractive business climate for companies that want to go global have?
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
What does GATT stand for?
Global consistency
What does a multinational company act with that has offices, manufacturing plants and distribution facilities in different countries all which run based on the same rules, guidelines, policies and procedures?
Foreign competition
What does protectionism-the use of trade barriers to protect local companies and their workers-from what?
decreases tariffs and nontariff barriers, puts stricter limits on government subsidies, eliminates tariffs in 10 specific industries and protects intellectual property(trademarks, patents, copyrights)
What does the GATT do?
Shortens the innovation process, provides structure to general chaos that follows technological discontinuity, lets organization know when to take corrective action and builds momentum by giving people a sense of accomplishment
What effect do the use of milestones in the experiential approach to innovation have?
Purchasing power
What factor helps companies determine the growth potential of a foreign market?
Resistance
What forces support the status quo?
Adaptive
What industry-level strategy is best suited to changes in the organization's external environment?
Multinational corporation
What is a corporation that owns businesses in two or more countries?
Design iteration
What is a cycle of repetition in which a company tests a prototype of a new product, improves on that design and then builds and tests a new prototype?
Resistance to change will always occur, it is inevitable
What is a fact about resistance to change?
Wholly owned affilitate
What is a foreign office, facility or manufacturing plant owned by a parent company?
Coercion
What is a last resort method of managing resistance to change? the use of formal power and authority to force others to change
Character of rivalry
What is a measure of the intensity of competitive behavior between companies in an industry??
Situational Analysis
What is a mechanism used to examine external threats and opportunities facing a firm and internal strengths and weaknesses?
Direct foreign investment
What is a method of investment in which a company builds a new business or buys an existing business in a foreign country?
BCG matrix
What is a portfolio strategy that managers use to categorize their corporation's business by growth rate and relative market share for help with investment decisions?
Joint venture
What is a strategic alliance in which two existing companies collaborate to form a third, independent company?
It supplants the sole emphasis on activity with a focus on quickly measuring and improving results
What is an advantage of results-driven change approach to managing change?
Licensing
What is an agreement in which a domestic company, the licensor, receives royalty payments for allowing another company, the licensee, to produce the licensor's product, sell its service or use its name in a specified foreign market?
Cooperative contract
What is an agreement in which a foreign business owner pays a company a fee for the right to conduct business in his or her country?
Self-interest
What is one of the sources of resistance to change?
Unfreezing, change intervention and refreezing
What is one of the three steps in the basic process of managing organizational change outlined by Kurt Lewin?
Expatriate
What is someone who lives and works outside of their own country called?
Purchasing power
What is the comparison of relative cost of a standard set of goods and services in different countries?
Uncertainty avoidance
What is the degree to which people in a country are uncomfortable with unstructured, ambiguous, unpredictable situations?
Entry
What is the first step in organizational development intervention?
Planning
What is the first step in the compression approach to innovation?
How well an expatriate's spouse and family adjust to the foreign culture
What is the most important factor in failure or success of an expatriate?
Discontinuous change
What is the phase of a technology cycle characterized by technological substitution and design competition?
Costs
What is the primary disadvantage of using wholly owned affiliates as the means of entering a foreign market?
Speed innovation through early identification of new ideas or problems that wouldn't have been generated until much later
What is the purpose of multifunctional teams?
Reduce uncertainty of those who become expatriates
What is the purpose of pre-departure language and cross-cultural training?
Policy uncertainty
What is the risk associated with changes in laws and government policies that directly affect the way foreign companies conduct business?
Political uncertainty`
What is the risk of major changes in political regimes that can result from war, revolution, death of political leaders, social unrest or other influential events?
Exporting, cooperative contracts, strategic alliances, wholly-owned affiliates
What is the sequence for the phase model of globalization?
Organizational innovation
What is the successful implementation of creative ideas in organizations, like a risk-free trial offer that no one uses?
Risk can be reduced through related diversification
What is true about how portfolio strategy can be used to help managers acquire companies that fit well with the rest of their corporate portfolio?
Dysfunctional consequences can occur when companies are categorized
What is true about portfolio strategy?
Adaptability screening
What is used to assess how well managers and their families are likely to adjust to foreign cultures?
Growth
What kind of grand strategy does McDonald's use as it increases its profits in France by offering uniquely French products?
Imperfectly imitable
What kind of resource is impossible or extremely costly or difficult for other firms to duplicate?
Rare
What kind of resource is not controlled or possessed by many competing firms?
Grand
What kind of strategy is 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?
Imperfectly imitable resources
What must be met if a firm's resources are to be used to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage?
Exporting
What occurs when a company sells domestically produced products to customers in foreign countries?
Focus, cost leadership and differentiation
What positioning strategies did Michael Porter identify?
Focus
What positioning strategy is always paired with one of the other two positioning strategies to produce a specialized product or service?
Focus
What positioning strategy is glassmaker AFG industries using when it positions itself as the primary supplier of glass used in microwave doors and shower doors?
To what extent should the company standardize or adapt business procedure?
What question must a company answer about its future once it decides to go global?
North American Free Trade Agreement
What regional trade agreement liberalizes trade between countries more than any other such agreement?
Change intervention
What stage is it especially important to have a vision during?
Unfreezing
What stage of organizational change involves getting people affected by the change to believe that change is needed?
Control, avoidance and cooperative strategies
What strategies can be used to minimize or adapt to political risk?
Stability
What strategy do companies choose when their external environment doesn't change much or after they have struggled with periods of explosive growth?
Retrenchment
What strategy follows a successful growth strategy?
Industry-level
What strategy is a corporate strategy that addresses the question "How should we compete in this industry?"
Defender
What strategy is aimed at protecting favorable strategic positions through seeking moderate, steady growth and by offering a limited range of high-quality products and services to a well-defined set of customers?
Retrenchment
What strategy is analogous to pruning flowers?
Retrenchment
What strategy is used to turn around very poor company performance by shrinking the size or scope of the business?
Avoidance strategy
What strategy is used when a company judges the political risk to be too high in a particular market and decides not to operate there?
Cooperation
What strategy of minimizing or adapting to political risk inherent to global business makes use of joint ventures and collaborative contracts?
Control
What strategy prevents or reduces political risks will lobby foreign governments or international trade agencies to change laws, regulations, or trade barriers that hurt their business in that country?
Corporate-level strategy
What term refers to the overall organizational strategy that addresses the question, "what business or businesses are we in or should we be in?"
Quick, reliable air travel; low cost communication technologies and critical mass of business people with extensive international business experience
What three factors support the emergence of global new ventures?
World Trade Organization
What trade agreement represented the most significant change to the regulations governing global trade during the 1990s?
Company founders successfully develop and communicate the company's global vision from the start and the bringing of a good or service to several different foreign markets at the same time
What two factors do all global new ventures share?
Large system
What type of intervention is used to change the character and performance of an organization?
Maastricht Treaty
What was signed to create a regional trading zone in Europe?
Unrelated diversification
When Clorox bought out Kingsfood Charcoal it was an example of what?
External growth
When Coke acquired a water treatment and bottling plant to produce Dasani, it was an example of what?
Discontinuous change
When automaker learned it took longer than any other car manufacturer to assemble a vehicle, it purchased new, more flexible systems to replace the older ones. What stage of the technology cycle is this?
Secondary, core
When doing an analysis of strategic groups to assess external environmental threats and opportunities,
Generational change
When incremental improvements are made to a dominant technological design such that the improved version of the technology is fully backward compatible with the older version, what occurred?
Nonsubstitutable
When making travel plans, many selected Thomas Cook because they perceive that no other tour company can duplicate the service and satisfaction that they have over its years of operation. They have created a sustainable competitive advantage by using what resources?
At the end of the innovation cycle
When significant improvements in performance can ONLY be gained through radical new designs or new performance-enhancing materials, it is likely that a company is in what part of the S-curve pattern of innovation?
Find it more difficult to be profitable
When the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers is high, companies in the industry will what?
Distinctive competencies, core capabilities
While what are tangible, what are not?
Competitive inertia, strategic dissonance
While what is a problem strongly associated with top managers, what is a problem more likely to be associated with middle and lower-level managers?
Prospectors
Who follows an adaptive strategy of seeking fast growth by searching for new market opportunities, encouraging risk taking and being first to bring innovative new products to the market?
Change agent
Who is the individual who is formally in charge of guiding a change effort?
Character of rivalry
Clorox controls 60% of bleach market. If you were an entrepreneur considering developing and marketing a new brand of bleach, what force from Porter's industry forces would you be concerned about?
Stability
Companies following what strategy are most likely to try to improve the way they sell the same goods or services to the same customers?
Positioning
Cost leadership, differentiation and focus are the 3 types of what strategies?
Organizational innovation
Creativity was needed to improve efficiency without raising costs at one automobile maker. Over the last few years, the company has successfully implemented a creative engineering program that allows its plants to produce more than one type of car from the same assembly line. This successful change to a flexible manufacturing system is an example of what?