Prin. of Management Exam #2
Those who manage the work on the front lines are most involved with what component of the planning process?
operational planning
The managerial tools for ________ include a SWOT analysis, forecasting, and VRIO analysis.
organizational assessment
Knowing the future is uncertain, Sofia should engage in ________ so her family's business will have a set of goals and tasks that should lead to desired outcomes.
panning
TQM's two core principles are
people orientation and improvement orientation.
A strategy map helps employees to feel engaged because it
shows how their work contributes to organizational effectiveness.
In a SWOT analysis, organizational strengths are
skills and capabilities that give a company advantages in executing its strategies
Micaela is implementing the control process for her insurance agency. Before she begins to monitor performance, Micaela should
Establish Standards
How often should a company revise its strategic plan?
1-2 years
A short-term goal usually spans ________ while a long-term goal typically spans ________.
12 months 1-5 years
________ is a technique used to help groups generate multiple ideas and alternatives for solving problems.
Brainstorming
An organization's ________ expresses the need the firm will fill, the operations of the business, its components and functions, and the expected revenues and expenses.
Business model
In the BCG matrix, Kroger would be in the category of ________ due to being the largest retailer in the relatively stable grocery market.
Cash Cow
Which of the following is part of Deming's PDCA cycle?
Check
Which primary function of management is concerned with ensuring the right things happen at the right time in the right way?
Controlling
________ is defined as monitoring performance, comparing it with goals, and taking corrective action as needed.
Controlling
Executive Office Supply, a small family-owned company, sells high-priced desks, some as expensive as $10,000, to executives in its area. Very few companies have chosen to market this product, and Executive Office Supply has enjoyed record profits over the last 25 years. Because Executive Office Supply is a small, successful company, you would advise them not to utilize strategic planning.
False
When Zappos.com says it aims "to simultaneously deliver happiness to customers, employees, vendors, shareholders, and the community," it is stating its code of ethics.
False
Examining how the organization looks to shareholders is part of which of the balanced scorecard perspectives?
Financial
Bahir's ________ is to sell 80% of his old merchandise prior to ordering more inventory from the wholesaler.
Goal
________ bias causes people to view events as being more predictable than they really are.
Hindsight
Which of these is an example of a means-end chain?
Implementing a cleaning schedule to ensure all parts of the restaurant are deep cleaned each month is a means to earning the highest cleanliness rating during the next health inspection
Which of the following satisfies the SMART goals criteria?
In the next quarter, our Tucson sales agent will increase sales by 10 percent
Kickstarter, a global crowdfunding platform, states that its purpose as an organization is "to help bring creative projects to life." This is the company's
Mission statement
________ can be another term used for a goal.
Objective
As factory supervisor, Miguel wants all 150 workers to complete a required training before the end of the fiscal year which is one month away. He sets a goal of training 15 workers each day. What is Miguel doing?
Planning
CorrectTalk is a company that provides security and communications technology to jails and prisons. Over the last several months, CorrectTalk's profits have dropped and the company seems to be moving in the wrong direction. The owner recognizes that he wrongly assumed that his clients would need more technology and that his installation teams frequently have internal conflict. These issues are a result of
Poor Planning
________ is a technique used to predict future outcomes based on historical data and analytics techniques.
Predictive analytics
The management of a facility that manufactures parts for car brakes has a policy of testing only some of the items in each production run to locate errors, with the ultimate goal of minimizing errors by managing each stage of production. This process is an example of the ________ technique.
Quality control
Breyona keeps a close eye on her company's internal and external environments to identify better ways of doing business and to discover possible opportunities for new products. In which activity is Breyona engaged?
SWOT Analysis
In the BCG matrix, ________ are companies that have high growth and high market share, and are definite keepers.
Stars
The three key principles of ________ are the creation of a unique and valuable position, trade-offs in competing, and creating a "fit" among activities.
Strategic positioning
According to Kaplan and Norton, ________ maps are "visual representations of a company's critical objectives and the crucial relationships among them that drive organizational performance."
Strategy
The sequence of suppliers that contribute to creating and delivering a product, from raw materials to production to final buyers, is known as the
Supply chain
How is management using controls when they allow decision making at lower levels and encourage employees to work together in teams?
They are decentralizing decision making.
Haya operates a car dealership, and she has been working to come up with ways to overcome the incredibly high competition her business faces. There are six other dealerships within a one-mile radius. So far, Haya has thought of doing a car giveaway event, adding extended warranties on every new car that is sold, or running advertisements through the mail. Haya is at which stage of the decision-making process?
Thinking of alternative solutions
Controls allow top management to decentralize decision making at lower levels within the organization.
True
Jamir's Diner is a popular café that specializes in home-cooked meals, friendly service, and a menu that contains vegan and vegetarian dishes (menu items that no other restaurant in the area offers). Jamir's Diner is engaging in strategic positioning by offering the unique menu items of vegan and vegetarian dishes.
True
Mateo, a florist, recently learned about strategic management and wants to implement this process for his flower shop. Mateo should begin by establishing mission, vision, and values statements.
True
Productivity is defined by the formula of outputs divided by inputs for a specified period of time.
True
The basic idea of a business that explains which customer needs will be met, how the functions and operations will be organized, and how money will flow in and out is called a business model.
True
Twice daily, factory workers at Fabulous Skeins and Yarn select random samples from the production runs and test them for quality, rejecting runs if too many samples fall outside a standard range of acceptability. These workers are engaged in statistical process control.
True
With satisficing, managers look for alternatives until they find one that is satisfactory, not optimal.
True
Executives, often referred to as the "C-Suite," should focus their decision making on which of the following?
What products and services shall we offer
You have an idea for a company that sources fruits from local farms to make fresh juices that will be sold on a subscription-based service to households within a 100-mile radius. How will you know if your company has a sustainable advantage?
You will produce and deliver juice more effectively than competitors
A decision tree is
a graph of decisions and their possible consequences; it is used to create a plan to reach a goal
Satisficing is the tendency of
a group to settle on a decision that is "good enough"
Which of the following best defines Kaizen?
a philosophy of small continuous improvement that seeks to involve everyone at every level of the organization
Ichiro is an on-site coordinator for the International Olympics Committee. Ichiro is good at his job because he regularly seeks new ideas and contrary opinions. He tolerates ambiguity well while being quite task-focused. Ichiro's decision-making style is best described as
analytical
Managers can use the VRIO framework to
analyze a firms competitive potential
Decisions are sometimes based on an initial figure due to
anchoring and adjustment bias
James and En-Chi are selling their home. They listed their house three months ago at an extremely high selling price, a price they randomly chose. They do not want to reduce the price to reflect what the market shows their home is really worth. James and En-Chi are participants in ________ bias. Group of answer choices
anchoring and adjustment bias
Bruno knows that one of the reasons people do not return to his home appliance store is because of the slow service. How would a SWOT analysis classify the slow service at Bruno's store?
as a weakness
Zene is a chef and owner of a popular restaurant. Zene frequently visits competing restaurants to observe how they are doing things. He told one of his managers, "I eat dinner at a lot of restaurants because I want to know what is going on. I am always concerned that one of our competitors will surprise us with a new service or menu item, like ours but better." In which activity is Zene engaging?
assessing current reality
After reviewing her department's results, Laurel decided that she needed to cut more costs for the department to meet its profitability goal for the year. Eliminating the unplanned advertising expenses is one way to
correct deviations in the plan
For organizational goal setting to be effective, goals must
be applied organizational wide
Kumail initiated MBO in his company 12 months ago. Now, Kumail about to conduct his first-ever performance appraisals with his employees. Which of the following statements would you offer to Kumail as advice?
be sure to reward employees who meet goals
________ is the process by which a company compares its performance with that of high-performing organizations.
benchmarking
According to Porter, the cost-focus and focused-differentiation strategies have what in common?
both focus on narrow markets
________ is the idea that proposes that the ability of decision makers to be rational is limited by numerous constraints, such as complexity, time, cognitive capacity, values, skills, habits, and unconscious reflexes.
bounded rationality
Which of the following lists represent ways to improve group problem solving as identified by decision-making experts?
brainstorming, dialectic method, post-mortems
The BCG matrix is a means of evaluating strategic business units based on their
business growth rates and share of the markets
________ is the process of instituting ongoing small, incremental improvements in all parts of an organization.
continuous improvement
A decision is a
choice made from among available alternatives
The ________ model assumes managers will make logical decisions that are the optimal means of furthering the organization's best interests.
classical
When people seek information to support their point of view and discount data that do not, they are subject to ________ bias.
conformation bias
When organizations endeavor (1) to keep their costs (and hence the prices of their products or services) below those of competitors and (2) to target a wide market, they are utilizing a ________ strategy.
cost-leadership
To maximize profitability and competitiveness, firms must
create alignment across all levels of strategy
A local gymnastics studio offers dance, tumbling, trampolines, and competitive cheer training for kids of all ages. To recruit students for these lessons, the studio also hosts birthday parties, afterschool care, and swim lessons. These offerings interact to
create fit among the activities
Reggie's Records uses time-series forecasts, such as past holiday sales and the strength of store sales this year, to predict future sales based on patterns of historical data. Reggie's is using
data analytics
At the strategic level of planning, managers must pay attention to the environment outside the organization, be future oriented, and
deal with uncertain and competitive conditions
A person's ________ reflects the combination of how he or she perceives and responds to information.
decision making style
Over the course of 40 years, Bradley grew his company to six package shipping stores. With his retirement approaching and increased competition from national brands, he decided to reduce the number of locations to two. Bradley's closing of four locations represents a
defensive strategy
Max was recently promoted to production manager at a busy boat factory. As a department manager, Max had proven himself to be very efficient, and he had a logical and practical approach to solving problems. Max has a reputation for being decisive and getting things done. Most of the factory's employees like Max, but they feel he exercises too much control over them. Max most often uses a(n) ________ decision-making style.
directive
Goal displacement, satisficing, and groupthink are
disadvantages of group decision making
Nikos, the office manager of a large optometrist clinic, recently purchased a used copier. It seems as if Nikos becomes more committed to the copier every time it jams, even though employees are having many troubles with it. Nikos is likely struggling with the ________ bias.
escalation of commitment
When Zion wrote the football coach's contract for over two million dollars, he included targets for conference wins and bowl appearances that had to be met before any bonus payments would be released. Zion was trying to avoid ________ bias.
escalation of commitment
In order, the steps of the strategic-management process are
establish the mission, vision, and values statements; assess the current reality; formulate the grand strategy; implement the strategy; and maintain strategic control
When evaluating the alternatives of a decision, managers need to base decisions strictly on cost, quality, and feasibility.
false
Evan accidentally quoted a customer a price for new flooring that was more than $1,000 less than the actual price. His manager had a choice of punishing Evan or providing him coaching and retraining on how to calculate the cost of flooring correctly. His manager chose to retrain Evan, using the ________ control.
feedforward
Duracell, a company well-known for manufacturing alkaline batteries, derives its strategic position from which source?
few needs, many customers
Operational planning should be completed by ________, and tactical planning is done by ________.
first line managers, middle managers
Enright Industrial Leasing has effective control processes, allowing its managers to discover ________ in bookkeeping right away, before a would-be embezzler could seriously affect its business.
irregularities and errors
Growth, stability, and defensive strategies are common ________ strategies.
grand
The advantages of ________ are having a greater pool of knowledge, gaining different perspectives, gaining intellectual stimulation, having a better understanding of decision rationale, and having a deeper commitment to the decision.
group decision making
Jordan likes working in as an insurance underwriter because it has structure and certainty, and the daily work is routine. Jordan probably
has a low tolerance for ambiguity
After a week as an executive assistant, Christopher was thinking about quitting. He was dismayed at the ________ shown by his boss, the CEO, who was overconfident and narcissistic.
hubris
A forecast is a
projection of the future
When an organization considers "Do we have the people, technology, and organizational culture needed to support our strategies?" it is considering the ________ perspective.
innovation learning
When the restaurant owner installed no-slip, padded mats throughout the kitchen, she was considering the ________ perspective.
internal business
After three summers working for a local landscaping business, Scott suggested that his boss add snow removal as an extra service. With this holistic hunch, Scott was acting on ________ that snow removal might be a good addition to the service offerings.
intuition
Nonrational decision-making models, such as ________, describe how managers sometimes make decisions.
intuition
When managers apply the continuous feedback loop known as the planning/control cycle, which management functions are implied?
leading and organizing
The process for motivating employee performance in which the manager and employee jointly set objectives for the employee, the manager develops action plans, the manager and employee periodically review the employee's performance, and the manager makes a performance appraisal and rewards the employee according to the results achieved is known as
management by objective
A(n) ________ links low-level goals, such as providing free estimates within 24 hours, to higher-level goals, such as decreasing the cost of customer acquisition.
means end chain
Michael Porter proposed that business-level strategies originate with the primary competitive forces in the firm's environment; these forces are the threats of
new entrants, substitute products or services, bargaining power of suppliers and buyers, and competitive rivalries.
With the community interested in eating healthy, Karima thought a restaurant centered on her grandmother's Mediterranean-style recipes would be popular. Her decision was uncertain, but it felt "right" to honor her grandmother by opening this restaurant. Karima is enacting
non rational decision making
The three levels of ________ are strategic, tactical, and operational.
planning
To ensure that his plans are moving his company in the right direction, Joaquin can apply a
planning/control cycle
After returning home from a trade show, Ms. Stephenson, the president of a manufacturing company, called a meeting of her production department. Ms. Stephenson explained the company would attempt to eliminate defects and repeated mistakes in employee performance through
quality assurance
Standards are best measured when they are
quantifiable
LaShawn and his partner, Nathan, have decided to update their firm's computer network, although they have no expertise in this area. Recently, they discussed the many constraints on their decision, such as the complexity of technology, limited time and money, imperfect information, and our conflicting goals. These limitations are hindrances to
rational decision making
________ is another term for a defensive strategy.
retrenchment strategy
A SWOT analysis is a
search for the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats affecting an organization
Managers can use an operating plan to
segment strategic goals into short term targets
Which sequence of goals is consistent with "cascading" goals that begin at the top of the organization?
strategic divisional departmental individual
After establishing values statement, what is the next step in planning?
strategic planning
The CEO of Alliance Manufacturing said to her new vice president of finance, "In the past, I had resistance to new ideas by employees who felt that our plans threatened their influence or their jobs. So, when you tell your collections department that we just hired a collection agency to handle bad debt, you may have to sell your collections manager and his associates on using the agency. You should emphasize the fact that nobody is going to be laid off." Selling middle and supervisory managers on changes to overcome their resistance is often a necessary part of
strategy implementation
Tarek's supervisor noticed that he was struggling with the computerized setup for production runs at his new job. The supervisor observed him while he tried it again and gave suggestions for improvement. The supervisor is doing which step of the control process?
taking corrective action
Managers who redo budgets, rethink processes, or revise policies are
taking corrective action, which will constitute a feedback loop
Some managers use ________, which provides four indicators with which organizations can set goals and measure performance.
the balanced scoreboard
When the university's provost sets a major student retention goal, the cascading-goals process would occur if the
the dean set retention goals
To ensure a quality group decision, the manager appointed Elijah to the role of devil's advocate in the decision-making process. What is expected of Elijah?
to take the role of the critic
Why is it important for management to use a balanced scorecard?
to view multiple indicators of performance simultaneously
With the holiday season approaching, Denelle reviews holiday sales from the last five years to determine how much inventory to purchase and how many employees to schedule during peak sales times. Denelle is conducting a
trend analysis
Which of these questions should be answered by your company's mission statement?
what are our major strengths
