Exam Business - Management

When adopting a(n) ________ approach, a firm applies the domestic marketing mix abroad

It is possible to fine-tune your emotional style by

Which of the following reasons led to the merger of the American Federation of Labor (AF of L) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)?

4

What is the role of the manager in a self-managed work team?

5

Characterize the level of difficulty of changing organizational culture. Identify three approaches that can be used to accomplish that goal

Changing organizational culture is a very difficult process. It requires patience, vigilance, and a focus on changing the parts of an organizational culture that managers can control: behavior and symbolic artifacts. Thus, three ways of changing organizational culture include behavioral addition (having managers and employees perform a new behavior), behavioral substitution (having managers and employees perform a new behavior in place of another behavior), and changing visible artifacts (where artifacts are the visible signs of an organization's culture, such as dress codes). Given the difficulty of changing corporate culture, there is no guarantee that these methods will be successful. However, they are some of the best tools that managers have for changing culture, because they send the clear message to managers and employees that "the accepted way of doing things" has changed.

6

which of the following are the three critical psychological states identified by the job characteristics model?

7

_____ suggests that the firm can be viewed as a nexus of legal contracts (loosely defined) between resource holders.

8

The Vocational Rehabilitation Act requires that employers ________

9

_______ are the needs that a negotiator has that relate to the material outcomes of the negotiation

10

What is an "executive summary?" Why is the executive summary often called the most important part of a business plan?

11

A high LPC score indicates that a worker is productivity oriented

12

________ theory emphasizes that too great an emphasis on the technical system in the manner of scientific management or too great an emphasis on the social system in the manner of human relations will lead to poor job design.

13

For a company's competitive strategy to succeed in delivering favorable performance and the intended competitive edge over rivals, it has to be well-matched to a company's internal situation and underpinned by an appropriate set of resources, know-how, and competitive capabilities. True or false? Explain your answer.

The statement is true. To succeed in employing a low-cost provider strategy, a company must have the resources and capabilities to keep its costs below those of its competitors. This means having the expertise to cost-effectively manage value chain activities better than rivals, leveraging the cost drivers effectively, and/or having the innovative capability to bypass certain value chain activities being performed by rivals. To succeed in a differentiation strategy, a company must have the resources and capabilities to leverage value drivers effectively and incorporate attributes into its product offering that a broad range of buyers will find appealing. Successful focused strategies (both low cost and differentiation) require the capability to do an outstanding job of satisfying the needs and expectations of niche buyers. Success in employing a best cost strategy requires the resources and capabilities to incorporate upscale product or service attributes at a lower cost than rivals. For all types of generic strategies, success in sustaining the competitive edge depends on having resources and capabilities that rivals have trouble duplicating and for which there are no good substitutes.

14

Explain the relationship between competitive context and the alliance decision

A factor in determining whether an alliance is a suitable strategic vehicle is the level of stability or dynamism of a
firm's competitive context. Relative dynamism of an industry context may affect an alliance decision in two ways:
∙ From a practical standpoint, relatively stable environments are much more forgiving of mistakes, such as poor
choices in partners or alliance structures.
∙ Because they make maintenance and management easier, stable environments allow firms to participate in
more alliances. Likewise, although wasted time, effort, and resources are undesirable in any situation, relatively
stable contexts provide firms with the luxury of learning from their mistakes and regrouping.
In dynamic contexts, competitive stakes are typically much higher, and any distraction of a firm's resources or
managerial time and attention can have serious consequences. Such risks place tremendous pressure on firms not
only to choose the right partners (and the right number of partners), but to structure alliances so that they
contribute to the development and enhanced value of its resources and capabilities.

15

Staff departments should not influence the process of setting performance standards

16

Explain the important contingencies of power.

The four important contingencies of power are substitutability, centrality, visibility, and
discretion. Substitutability refers to the availability of alternatives. Conversely, power decreases as the number of alternative sources of the critical resource increases. Substitutability refers not only to other sources that offer the resource but also to substitutions for the resource itself. Nonsubstitutability is strengthened by controlling access to the resource. Professions and labor unions gain power by controlling knowledge, tasks, or labor to perform important
activities. Centrality refers to the power holder's importance, based on the degree and nature of his or her interdependence with others. It increases with the number of people dependent on you, as well as with how quickly and severely they are affected by that dependence. Power also increases one's visibility. One way to increase visibility is to take people-oriented jobs and work on projects that require frequent interaction with senior executives. Employees also gain visibility by being, quite literally, visible. Some people strategically locate themselves in more visible work areas, such as those closest to the boss or where other employees frequently pass by. Discretion refers to the freedom to exercise judgment—to make decisions without referring to a specific rule or receiving permission from someone else.

17

The document that governs the relationship between a franchisor and the franchise is the:

18

Union Pacific Railroad uses information technology to track the fuel efficiency of every engineer. This is an example of a company increasing efficiency and productivity while also protecting __________________

19

The Irish social partnership "experiment" over the past 30 years has resulted in:

20

A(n) ________ organization is highly formalized and centralized.

21

________ set predetermined times to ship given quantities of needed products at a given price.

22

Moving down the experience curve:

23

Which of the following is not an implication of transformational leadership?

24

In a centralized organizational structure

25

What are the potential benefits and risks of strategic alliances? What actions can a firm take to minimize the risks and fully exploit the benefits?

Strategic alliances share the risk of expansion, bring together complementary skills, facilitate entry into a new market, and can set technological standards. However, the partners risk loss of control over proprietary know-how, they must learn to work together in a cooperative fashion, and they must share any profits they earn. To exploit the benefits and minimize the risks, firms should choose a partner wisely, ensuring that the partner is trustworthy, has a common vision, and has complementary skills. To reduce the potential for loss of control, the company should consider walling off the technology, writing contractual safeguards, use cross-licensing agreements to exchange skills, and ask for a credible commitment in advance. Finally, bringing the two firms together is a significant challenge, and can be eased if managers are sensitive to cultural differences, if they build interpersonal relationships across company boundaries, and if they look for opportunities for mutual learning and benefit.

26

The diagnostic typology states that for a mixed blessing stakeholder, a ________ strategy is recommended.