MGMT 351 Test 4

Select the four areas of qualitative competitor analysis. (Select all that apply.)

Capabilities Strategy Goals Assumptions

Which of the following is an example of a goal?

Capture an additional 10% of market share within the next two years.

Which of these are strategic decisions? (Select all that apply.)

Deciding whether to acquire another company Choosing to sign a five-year agreement with a supplier of a critical component

What does it mean that strategic decisions need to be "integrated"?

Decisions made throughout the organization must align with one another.

Which of the following best describes the difference between goals and strategies?

Goals describe desired end states, while strategies describe the means to achieving those end states.

Which of the following statements are true about goals? (Select all that apply.)

Goals must be tightly connected to a firm's strategies. Goals represent the things a company wants to achieve.

______ refers to patterns of thoughts and behaviors that maintain harmony within the group but that also collectively serve to hinder a team's ability to make effective decisions.

Groupthink

Which of these are operational decisions? (Select all that apply.)

How many units of a product to house in inventory, based on sales rates How to reduce product defect rates in order to cut down on costs

Which of these are benefits of scenario planning? (Select all that apply.)

It identifies multiple contingencies and necessary decisions for each. It increases the organization's flexibility to adapt to environmental changes.

What do managers have to consider when making long-term decisions, but NOT when making short-term decisions?

Opportunity costs

______ is a strategy in which a decision maker accepts an available option as satisfactory.

Satisficing

Strategic decisions include which of the following features? (Select all that apply.)

Span across the functional areas of an organization Are typically long-term decisions Are made in a competitive context Are surrounded by uncertainty

How are strategic decisions different from functional policies?

Strategic decisions span all of an organization's functional areas, while functional policies are longer-term decisions made within distinct functional areas.

What is the relationship between internal alignment, external alignment, and strategic fit?

Strategic fit exists when a firm is able to capitalize on its strengths, minimize its weaknesses, leverage opportunities, and protect itself from threats.

Select all of the true statements regarding the five major decision making styles. (Select all that apply.)

The five major decision making styles are autocratic, consult individually, consult the group, facilitative, and delegative. Managers who use a facilitative decision making style must be sure that their input is not weighted more than the input of their subordinates. Managers retain the most control when they use the autocratic style. Subordinates have the most control when managers use the delegative style. The appropriateness of a particular decision making style depends on the situation at hand. Decision making styles vary, based on how much a manager involves subordinates in the decision making process. The appropriateness of a particular decision making style depends on the situation at hand.

A firm achieves strategic fit by assuring that ______.

all of its various policies and activities support each other

Sensitivity analysis is defined as ______.

an investigation of how the benefits or costs of a decision will change with different assumptions

Complete the following sentence with the statement that best represents some of the unique features of strategic decisions. Strategic decisions ______.

are made in competitive and uncertain contexts

The availability heuristic is characterized by the tendency to ______.

base judgments about the probability of an event on how easily the event can be recalled from the memory of similar events

The Abilene Paradox is represented by ______.

behavior in which individuals act contrary to their own wishes and are likely to experience negative feelings about the outcome of the team's decision

The concept of bounded rationality is represented by the ______.

belief that a person's level of rationality in the decision making process is limited by the information she/he possesses

The tendency or inclination to make a certain type of decision making error when confronted with similar decision making stimuli is called ______.

bias

The ______ is the result of an individual's tendency to seek, interpret, and recollect information in a way that supports the person's position or preferences.

confirmation bias

External alignment is defined as ______.

consistency among a firm's policies and activities, to take advantage of the opportunities present in the external environment and to minimize threats

The _____ decision making style involves a manager presenting a problem and seeking potential solutions from subordinates in a group setting.

consult the group

Strategic decisions are inherently cross-functional in nature because they ______.

cut across all functional areas of a company, including manufacturing, HR, and accounting

________ making is the process of making a choice or selecting a course of action to address a specific problem.

decision making

The _____ decision making style involves a manager passing the responsibility for making a final decision on a specific problem to subordinates.

delegate

Which of the following decision making styles requires the highest amount of subordinate involvement?

delegative

A manager's subordinates feel that they're losing hours of productivity every week because of constant group meetings where their input is sought. Of which decision making style is this most likely to be the outcome?

facilitative

The _____ decision making style involves a manager sharing a problem with the group and working with them to reach a consensus on the final decision.

facilitative

Mental shortcuts that use past experiences to speed up the decision making process are called ______.

heuristics

Complete the following sentence with the statement that best describes the concept of organizational strategy. An organization's strategy reflects ______.

how the organization plans to accomplish its goals

Complete the following sentence with the statement that best describes scenario planning. In scenario planning, after constructing multiple scenarios, managers ______.

identify how each scenario could potentially affect the firm, then examine strategic alternatives under various scenarios

With ______ decision making, the responsibility for weighing the information and making a final decision is yours

individual

Coherence among all the functional policies and internal activities of an organization, to take advantage of its strengths and reduce its weaknesses, is known as ______.

internal alignment

______ is characterized by nearly instantaneous judgments about a situation based on past experience and without conscious thought.

intuition

The autocratic decision making style involves managers ______.

making decisions alone, without any input from others

The process of setting organizational goals at multiple levels and evaluating performance against these goals is known as ______.

management by objectives

External alignment is defined as the fit ______.

of HR practices with organizational and environmental considerations

The consult individually decision making style involves managers ______.

presenting a problem and seeking potential solutions from individual subordinates

The ______ decision making approach involves thoughtful analysis using a series of steps triggered when a discrepancy exists between some desired state and a current state as it is understood.

rational

The ______ is the tendency to ignore information regarding the probability of an event in favor of information that seems more representative or relevant to the situation.

representativeness heuristic

Complete the following sentence with the correct description of a goal. A goal ______.

represents what a company wants to achieve; it must be tied to the firm's strategy

______ is characterized by changes in individual team members' behavior that result from interactions and relationships with others.

social influence

The ability to alter activities and operations to deal with changing business conditions is called ______.

strategic flexibility

The "differentiators" component of a strategy refers to ______.

the methods the firm will use to outperform its rivals

Management by objectives is defined as ______.

the process of setting organizational goals at multiple levels and evaluating performance against these goals

The "staging" component of a strategy refers to ______.

the speed at which the firm will expand

Diffusion of responsibility is characterized by ______.

the tendency of individual team members to withhold taking action because they believe others have done so or will in the future

The "vehicles" component of a strategy refers to ______.

the types of investments the company will use to break into various markets and locations

Acceptability in decision making is the degree ______.

to which a decision is likely to meet an overall objective or goal

Consensus in decision making is the degree ______.

to which members of a team generally agree with the team's choice