MGT 300 Exam 2 Breland

In the typical S-curve pattern of innovation, increased effort (i.e., money, research and development) brings only small improvements in technological performance _____.

AT BOTH BEGINNING AND END OF CYCLE

Which of the following is NOT a step in the management by objectives (MBO) process?

Jointly develop operational plans

Which of the following is an advantage of planning?

Planning offers several important benefits: intensified effort, persistence, direction, and creation of task strategies. Managers and employees put forth greater effort when following a plan.

Claire is faced with an issue and wants to come up with a rational decision regarding the issue. Which of the following is the first step Claire should take to make a rational decision?​

define the problem

Which of the following is a characteristic of discontinuous change?

design competition

The manager of a car manufacturing company in the U.S. wants to set up factories in three​ other countries by the end of the year. After he has set this goal, which of the following is the next step he should take in order to achieve this goal?

develop commitment to goal

At which stage of organizational decline does the decline become irreversible?

dissolution

For options-based planning to work, the organization must _____.

have slack resources

A company's purpose statement _____.​

is enduring and inspirational

A technology can become a dominant design if:

it solves a practical problem

Resource similarity and _____ are factors that determine the extent to which firms will be in direct competition with each other.

market commonality

In the typical S-curve pattern of innovation, small amounts of effort will result in significant increases in performance _____.

midpoint of cycle

To protect its farmers, Japan put limitations on the amount of mushrooms and leeks that could be imported from China. This limitation is an example of a(n) _____.

quota

______ are the assets, capabilities, processes, information, and knowledge that an organization uses to improve its effectiveness and efficiency, to create and sustain competitive advantage, and to fulfill a need or solve a problem.

resources

The General Electric workout is a special kind of ____.

results driven change

An Australian manufacturer of surfboards wants to increase awareness of its brand in the U.S. market within the next one year. It wants to host a series of surfboard competitions in California to accomplish this objective. Which of the following types of plans will it use?

tactical plan

A(n) _____ is a direct tax on imported goods.

tariff

After Malta was permitted to join the European Union (EU), the other countries of the EU removed all taxes on the import of goods manufactured in Malta. In this scenario, the EU abolished the _____ for Malta-manufactured merchandise.

tariffs

Souzia, a small tropical country, boycotted the products of an international clothing store because the company manufactures and exports some of its goods from Argonia, the country with which Souzia has long standing political problems. This boycott is an example of _____.

trade barrier

A technology cycle begins with the birth of a new technology and ends when that technology reaches its limits and dies; it is then replaced by newer, substantially better technology.

true

Based on the research evidence, related diversification appears to be a better strategy for portfolio management than unrelated diversification.

true

Corporate-level strategy is the overall organizational strategy that addresses the question "What business or businesses are we in or should we be in?"

true

Creating and executing a plan is one of the most important tasks of a manager.

true

Encouraging worker participation in goal setting, making goals public, and getting top management's support are all recommended ways to increase goal commitment in a company.

true

Global business is defined as the buying and selling of goods and services by people from different countries.

true

If companies focus too much on local adaptation, they run the risk of losing the cost effectiveness and productivity that result from using standardized rules and procedures throughout the world.

true

The biggest disadvantage associated with licensing is that the licensor gives up control over the quality of the good or service sold by the foreign licensee.

true

The evidence clearly shows that how well an expatriate's spouse and family adjust to the foreign culture is the most important factor in determining the success or failure of an international assignment.

true

Before TREX Mobiles launched its latest smartphone, it built a prototype of the phone and tested its performance repeatedly, improving the model each time. This process is called _____.

A design iteration is a cycle of repetition in which a company tests a prototype of a new product or service, improves on the design, and then builds and tests the improved product or service prototype.

____ is the emotional reaction that can occur when disagreements become personal rather than professional.

A type conflict

The acronym GATT stands for the _____.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Which of the following is NOT one of the basic methods for managing resistance to change?

Micromanagement

Which of the following is an aspect of the experiential approach to learning?

Multifunctional teams

____ is a systematic process of defining problems, evaluating alternatives, and choosing optimal solutions.

Rational decision making

Which of the following should be a key issue for a company once it decides to go global?

Strike the right balance between global consistency and local adaptation.

Identify a common factor of global new ventures?

The bringing of a product or service to several different foreign markets at the same time

_____ is the most important factor in determining the success or failure of an international assignment.

The willingness of an expatriate's spouse and family to adjust to a foreign culture

The _____ is a portfolio strategy that managers use to categorize their corporation's businesses by growth rate and relative market share. This strategy helps them to decide how to invest corporate funds.

bcg matrix

​The managers of a transport company are planning how much money should be allocated to each of its units. They want to cut down unnecessary expenses and put the savings into developing the company. In this context, the managers are formulating a(n) _____.

budget

In any organization, the _____ are the less visible, internal decision-making routines, problem-solving processes, and organizational cultures that determine how efficiently inputs can be turned into outputs.

core capabilities

_____ means producing a product or service of acceptable quality at consistently lower production charges than competitors so that the firm can offer the product or service at the lowest price in the industry.

cost

Levio is a company that makes mobile apps and has decided to become a market leader in the field. Levio can encourage the development of a culture where workers perceive that new ideas are welcomed by offering challenging work and supervisory encouragement. In other words, the company can create a(n) ____.

creative work environment

In the _____ stage of organizational decline, cutbacks and layoffs will have reduced the level of talent among employees.

crisis

The ____ approach to decision-making is a method in which an individual or a subgroup is assigned the role of a critic.

devil's advocacy

​_____ is the rivalry between two companies that offer similar products and services, acknowledge each other as rivals, and act and react to each other's strategic actions.

direct competition

Stellar Mobiles was a popular mobile phone brand. However, when its competitors began switching to smartphones, Stellar realized that it too needed to change in order to survive in the market, and it quickly started developing smartphones. In other words, Stellar Mobiles entered the _____ stage of the technology cycle.

discontinuous change

​_____ is a strategy for reducing risk by buying a variety of items so that the failure of one stock or one business does not doom the entire portfolio.

diversification

_____ are companies that have a small share of a slow-growing market.

dogs

During the latter half of the last decade, flat-screen television sets were gradually replaced by LED television sets; the LED televisions became the new market standard. The latter is an example of a _____.

dominant design

In a situational analysis, a strategic group is a group of _____ that top managers choose for comparing, evaluating, and benchmarking their company's strategic threats and opportunities.

expert managers

A European car manufacturer collaborating with a Chinese car manufacturer for building a new car manufacturing company in China is an example of direct foreign investment.

false

Budgeting is a form of qualitative planning.

false

Results-driven change focuses primarily on changing company procedures, management philosophy, or employee behavior.

false

S.M.A.R.T. goals are Specific, Meaningful, Active, Reachable, and Timely.

false

The General Electric Workout is a special kind of activity-oriented change.

false

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a regional trade agreement between Canada and the United States. No other nations have signed this trade agreement.

false

The only kinds of adaptive strategies are defending, analyzing, and reacting.

false

When companies are performing above or better than their strategic reference points, top management is more likely to choose a daring, risk-taking strategy.

false

When conducting global business, companies should attempt to identify the two types of political risk, which are political uncertainty and economic uncertainty.

false

In the _____ stage of organizational decline, managers typically assume that if they just run a tighter ship, company performance will return to previous levels.

faulty action

According to Hofstede's research on cultural dimensions, _____ cultures emphasize the importance of relationships, modesty, caring for the weak, and quality of life.

feminine

Backward compatibility is an important consideration for software users who are using an accounting program to facilitate their tax preparation and who want to use a newer version that has greater capacity. Therefore, many software manufacturers engage in _____.

generational cahnge

Sodima is a French cooperative that owns the name, the trade secrets, and the patents of Yoplait yogurt. General Mills pays Sodima for the right to sell Yoplait yogurt in the United States. This is an example of _____.

licensing

Which of the following is a commonly used method for increasing goal commitment?

make goal public

_____ planning allows companies to maintain flexibility by making small simultaneous investments in many alternative plans.

options based

Most companies have used the _____ to successfully enter foreign markets.

phase model of globalization

A cosmetics company that is considering entering the South American market would be especially interested in the discretionary income within that region. In this context, which of the following is a determining factor in its global strategy?

purchasing power

Which of the adaptive strategies tends to result in the poorest performance?

reactors

_____ are companies that do not follow a consistent adaptive strategy but instead respond to changes in the external environment after they occur.

reactors

The purpose of predeparture language and cross-cultural training is to _____.

reduce the uncertainty felt by expatriates

​The customers of a restaurant are requested to rate the service of the waiters on a sheet of paper. The rate of each waiter is then compared to the rates of the all the other waiters. This is the method of _____ comparisons.

relative

In the context of managing change, _____ forces support the status quo.

resistance

The development of the DVD player was a source of _____ to companies in the movie industry just as VHS tapes had once been.

technological discontinuity

In terms of innovation streams, what occurred when customers purchased flat-screen computer monitors to replace the older, bulkier monitors?

technological substitution

According to Michael Porter, _____ is one of the five industry forces that determine an industry's overall attractiveness and potential for long-term profitability.

threat of new entrants

The presence of a gap between an existing state and a desired state is no guarantee that managers will make decisions to solve problems.

true

The purpose of the Maastricht Treaty of Europe was to create the European Union with one common currency, the euro, for its members.

true

The three kinds of standing plans are policies, procedures, and rules and regulations.

true

The three steps of the strategy-making process are (1) assess the need for strategic change, (2) conduct a situational analysis, and (3) choose the strategic alternatives.

true

Two factors that help companies determine the growth potential of foreign markets are the purchasing power of the consumers and types of foreign competitors already in the market.

true

Documentary training focuses on _____.​

​identifying specific critical differences between cultures

​Global business:

​is the buying and selling of goods and services to people from different countries.

During the last decade, there was an increase in sales in CDs, DVDs, pen drives, and portable hard discs, as people sought to replace their obsolete floppy discs. In terms of the technology cycle, this is an example of _____.

Discontinuous change is the phase of a technology cycle characterized by technological substitution and design competition.

​The performance scores of each of the employees of a company are compared against a standard score and employees with scores lesser than a particular score are penalized. The company used a(n) _____ method of comparison.

absolute

​_____ is defined as the purchase of a company by another company.

acquisition

A(n) _____ lists the specific steps, people, resources, and time period for accomplishing a goal.

action plan

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 the S-curve pattern of innovation.

at the end of the innovation cycle

Mark was the person who was in charge of the plan to reinvent Supernova Automobiles. He played a major role in making a shift to building solar-powered automobiles from making regular fuel-powered cars. Mark was a(n) ____.

change agent

Which of the following methods for managing resistance to change should only be used as a last resort or under crisis conditions?

coercion

_____ is a discrepancy between a company's intended strategy and the strategic actions managers take when actually implementing that strategy.

competitive intertia

In the context of the strategic reference point theory, the _____ strategy aims to protect an existing competitive advantage.

risk avoiding

_____ are the firms in a strategic group that follow strategies related to but somewhat different from those of the core firms.

secondary firms

Companies often choose a _____ strategy when their external environment doesn't change much or after they have struggled with periods of explosive growth.

stability

Companies that are following a _____ strategy would be most likely to try to improve the way in which they sell the same goods or services to the same customers.

stability

A laptop manufacturer has created a set of methods to deal with specific technical issues raised by customers. These methods are _____.

standing plan

Libra Travels regularly checks the prices at which other travel agencies sell their services to evaluate its position. Libra Travels uses a _____ to measure its competencies.

strategic reference point

_____ 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.

strategic reference points

_____ are long-term, low-interest loans, cash grants, and tax deductions used to develop and protect companies in special industries.

subsidies

_____ plans specify how a company will use resources, budgets, and people to accomplish specific goals within its mission.

tactical

​Management by objectives (MBO) is a management technique often used to develop and carry out .

tactical