quiz 2
Which of the following examples reflects the strongest vision?
A strong vision pervades the organization with a sense of winning and motivates employees at all levels to aim for the same target.
Jill is exploring multiple suppliers in order to find the best price. However, instead of calling all eight potential suppliers, she only reaches out to the first three and bases her selection on those instead of contacting all suppliers. Jill's action best describes the concept of
Cognitive limitations tend to lead us to choose the "good enough option" that satisfies our immediate needs, rather than to search for an optimal solution.
A traditional top-down strategic planning process typically begins with
In a traditional top-down strategic planning process, strategic planners first provide careful analyses of internal and external data and apply it to all quantifiable areas: prices, costs, margins, market demand, head count, and production runs. Based on a careful analysis of these data, top managers reconfirm or adjust the company's vision, mission, and values before formulating corporate, business, and functional strategies.
Which of the following strategy plans might work best in an industry that is considered a fast-changing environment with new laws going into effect regularly?
In scenario planning, top management envisions different scenarios, to anticipate plausible futures in order to derive strategic responses.
As the CEO of a conglomerate, Sarah Cane exhibited her strong commitment toward the company's core value that customers' well-being is more important than profit when she convinced the board of directors to liquidate the company's pesticide subsidiary. The pesticide brand sold by her company was a major revenue earner in lesser-developed nations, but studies indicate that it is a carcinogen. Eva persuaded the board that the company had to be responsible toward society. In this scenario, Sarah has demonstrated
In this scenario, Sarah has demonstrated strategic leadership. Strategic leadership pertains to executives' use of power and influence to direct the activities of others when pursuing an organization's goals.
When young start-up entrepreneurs make claims like, "We will be the Uber of X, where X is any other category than ride hailing" or "We will be the Airbnb of Y, where Y is any other category than hospitality services" they are best illustrating which of the following cognitive biases?
Representativeness refers to the cognitive bias of drawing conclusions based on small samples, or even from one memorable case or anecdote.
The former CEO of Sam's Club, a division with its own profit-and-loss responsibility, Rosalind Brewer, reported to Walmart's CEO, C. Douglas McMillon, who as corporate executive oversees Walmart's entire operations. Sam's Club, therefore, is a ________ of Walmart.
Strategic business units, or SBUs, are the standalone divisions of a larger conglomerate, each with its own profit-and-loss responsibility. Sam's Club is the SBU of Walmart.
TransNational Inc. is a large conglomerate that operates in 17 different countries. The corporate executives at the headquarters have decided that the company's objective for the next two years will be to increase its customer equity, or the value of potential future revenues generated by all its customers in a lifetime. Based on this guideline received from the top management team, the product leader of the home audio division has decided to adopt a cost-leadership strategy in all of his 17 units. Thus, the decision made by the product leader best illustrates a ________ strategy.
The given decision made by the product leader best illustrates a business strategy. General managers in strategic business units must answer business strategy questions relating to how to compete in order to achieve superior performance. Within the guidelines received from corporate headquarters, they formulate an appropriate generic business strategy (cost-leadership, differentiation, or integration) in their quest for competitive advantage.
After carefully assessing the market potential for solar-powered mobile devices, the top-level executives of We Know Inc. decided that the company would be launching a line of solar-powered tablets within the next two years. This would mean that the tablet division would need to immediately begin research and development efforts. Which of the following strategies in the planned emergence model does this best illustrate?
Top-level executives design an intended strategy—the outcome of a rational and structured, top-down strategic plan.
Deep Earth Gardening has a vision of helping every American learn how to grow their own food. Its management team recently unveiled the mission statement "A garden at every home." What is wrong with this mission statement?
A mission describes what an organization does; it defines how the vision is accomplished and is often introduced with the preposition by. Deep Earth Gardening's mission statement does not indicate how the company will achieve its goal of helping to place a garden at every home, and is thus more suited as a vision statement.
Maria is the Chief Operating Officer of the start-up Apps4U. In which of the following scenarios does Maria exhibit strategic leadership?
Strategic leadership pertains to executives' use of power and influence to direct the activities of others when pursuing an organization's goals. Power is defined as the strategic leader's ability to influence the behavior of other organizational members to do things, including things they would not do otherwise. Maria's ability to influence the behavior of the marketing department to target a new, underserved customer segment enables Apps4U to achieve a competitive advantage.
The production head at the All Paints and Surface Corp. would frequently stay back after office hours and experiment with new color combinations even though this was part of the new product development team's job. As a result of these experiments, he came up with two new interior paint colors, foggy morning and mint julep. The new colors proved popular among test groups, and quickly became some of Omnitone's best-selling products. Which of the following strategies does this scenario best illustrate?
This scenario best illustrates an emergent strategy. An emergent strategy describes any unplanned strategic initiative undertaken by mid-level employees of their own volition. If successful, emergent strategies have the potential to influence and shape a firm's strategy.
