In companies where intellectual capital is crucial to good strategy execution

Question: In companies where intellectual capital is crucial to good strategy execution, which of the following is generally not among the practices that companies use to establish a talented knowledge base? A Providing promising employees with challenging, interesting, and skill-stretching assignments and also rotating them through jobs that not only have great content but also span functional and geographic boundariesB Expecting employees to take full responsibility for staying up to date, thereby minimizing the need to train or retrain employeesC Coaching average performers to improve their skills and capabilities, while weeding out underperformers and benchwarmersD Encouraging employees to challenge existing ways of doing things, to be creative and innovative in proposing better ways of operating, and to push their ideas for new products or businessesE Fostering a stimulating and engaging work environment such that employees will consider the company a great place to work
Question: Diversification merits strong consideration whenever a single-business company A Has integrated backward and forward as far as it canB Is faced with diminishing market opportunities and stagnating sales in its principal businessC Has achieved industry leadership in its main line of businessD Encounters declining profits in its mainstay businessE Faces strong competition and is struggling to earn a good profit
Question: According to integrated social contracts theory A Universal ethical principles apply in those situations where most all societies – endowed with rationality and moral knowledge – have common moral agreement on what is wrong and thereby put limits on what actions and behaviors fall inside the boundaries of what is right and which ones fall outsideB Commonly held views about what is morally right and wrong form a contract with society that is binding on all individuals, groups, organizations, and businesses in terms of establishing right and wrong and in drawing the line between ethical and unethical behaviorsC Universal ethical principles or norms leave some moral free space for the people in a particular country (or local culture or even a company) to make specific interpretations of what other actions may or may not be permissible within the bounds defined by universal ethical principlesD Universal ethical norms always take precedence over local ethical normsE All of the above
Question: Once company managers have decided on a strategy, the emphasis turns to A Converting the strategy (and any associated strategic plan) into actions and good resultsB Empowering employees to revise and reorganize value chain activities to match the strategyC Establishing policies and procedures that instruct company personnel in the ways and means of executing the strategyD Developing a detailed implementation plan that sets forth exactly what every department and every manager needs to do to proficiently execute the company’s strategyE Building the core competencies and competitive capabilities needed to execute the strategy
Question: A company’s culture is typically grounded in and shaped by A Its core competencies and competitive capabilitiesB Its long-term strategic success or lack thereofC The degree to which top management is committed to achieving market leadershipD Its core values and the bar it sets for ethical standardsE The company’s strategic intent and its reward system
Question: Putting together a capable top management team A Should take top priority in building competitively valuable core competenciesB Is particularly important when the firm is pursuing unrelated diversification or making a number of new acquisitions in related businessesC Is important in building an organization capable of proficient strategy execution but is nearly always less crucial than doing a superior job of training and retraining employeesD Entails filling key managerial slots with smart people who are clear thinkers, good at figuring out what needs to be done, and skilled in making it happen and delivering good resultsE Is particularly essential for executing a strategy to keep a company’s costs lower than rivals and become the industry’s low-cost leader
Question: The areas that information systems need to cover include all but which one of the following? A Financial performance dataB Corporate culture dataC Customer dataD Operations dataE Employee data
Question: Which of the following is an important appeal of a related diversification strategy? A Related diversification is an effective way of capturing valuable financial fit benefitsB Related diversification offers more competitive advantage potential than does unrelated diversificationC Related diversification offers significant opportunities to strongly differentiate a company’s product offerings from those of rivalsD Related diversification is more likely to pass the cost-of-entry test and the capital gains test than unrelated diversificationE Related diversification is typically more profitable than unrelated diversification, which is a major factor in helping related diversification pass the attractiveness test
Question: Which of the following is not characteristic of a compensation and reward system designed to help drive successful strategy execution? A Tying incentives to performance outcomes directly linked to good strategy execution and financial performanceB Keeping the time between achieving the target performance outcome and the payment of the reward as short as possibleC Making sure that the performance targets that each individual or team is expected to achieve involve outcomes that the individual or team can personally affectD Generous rewards for people who turn in outstanding performancesE A reward system that involves 50 percent non-monetary rewards and a work environment that avoids placing pressure on managers and employees to perform at high levels
Question: Information systems provide managers with a means for monitoring A Daily team performance in real timeB The performance of empowered workers to see that they are acting within the specified limitsC Daily and weekly operating statisticsD All of theseE None of these
Question: According to the school of ethical relativism A Concepts of ethically right and ethically wrong are relative across countries and cultures but are universal within countries or culturesB Individuals and businesses have a basic right to moral free space and that it is inappropriate to specify ethically permissible and ethically impermissible actions and behaviorsC There are important occasions when local cultural norms and the circumstances of the situation determine whether certain behaviors are right or wrongD Concepts of right and wrong as applied to business situations are always a function of each company’s own set of values, beliefs, and ethical convictions (as stated in the company’s code of ethical conduct)E Standards of what is ethically right and ethically wrong as applied to business behavior are determined solely by whatever business norms prevail in a particular country/culture/society and these business norms are certain to vary across countries/cultures/societies
Question: The backbone of identifying, studying, and implementing best practices is A Business process reengineeringB A corporate culture that has a core value of operating excellenceC BenchmarkingD Six Sigma quality control techniquesE Innovative application of TQM techniques
Question: Paying bribes and kickbacks to grease business transactions A Violates ethical principles of right and wrong in all countriesB Is ethically acceptable according to the principle of ethical universalism and ethically unacceptable according to the principle of ethical relativismC Is acceptable to immoral managers but not to amoral managersD Is one of the thorniest ethical problems that multinational companies face because paying bribes is normal and customary in some countries and ethically or legally forbidden in othersE Is more acceptable in dealing with a company’s suppliers than in dealing with a company’s customers
Question: The character of a company’s corporate culture is a product of A The core values and business principles that management preaches and practicesB Its standards of what is ethically acceptable and what is not and the stories that get told over and over to illustrate and reinforce the company’s values, business practices, and traditionsC The company’s approach to people management and the chemistry and personality that permeates its work environmentD The work practices and behaviors that define how we do things around hereE All of these
Question: The most popular strategy for entering new businesses and accomplishing diversification is A Forming a joint venture with another company to enter the target industryB Internal startupC Acquisition of an existing business already in the chosen industryD Forming a strategic alliance with another company to enter the target industryE None of the above – strategic alliances and joint ventures are equally popular and rank well ahead of acquisition and internal start-up in terms of frequency of use
Question: Frequently, a significant part of a company’s culture is captured in A The company’s strategic vision and strategic intentB The stories that get told over and over again to illustrate to newcomers the importance of certain values and the depth of commitment that various company personnel have displayedC How much stretch is built into the company’s financial and strategic performance targetsD The vigor and enthusiasm with which it engages in benchmarking and seeks out best practicesE The company’s track record in taking market share away from rivals
Question: Companies that adopt the principle of ethical relativism in providing ethical guidance to company personnel A Base their standards of what is ethical and what is unethical on the Global Code of Ethical Conduct first developed in 1935 and since subscribed to by the governments of 180 countriesB Quickly find themselves on a slippery slope with no higher order moral compass if they operate in countries where ethical standards vary considerably from country to countryC Have no fair way to judge the ethical correctness of the conduct of company personnelD Have a one-size-fits-all set of ethical standardsE End up allowing each company employee to determine what set of ethical standards to observe
Question: The three components of building a capable organization are A Making periodic changes in the firm’s internal organization to keep people from getting into a comfortable rut, instituting a decentralized approach to decision making, and developing the appropriate competencies and capabilitiesB Hiring a capable top management team, empowering employees, and establishing a strategy-supportive corporate cultureC Putting a centralized decision-making structure in place, determining who should have responsibility for each value chain activity, and aligning the corporate culture with key policies, procedures, and operating practicesD Staffing the organization, building core competencies and competitive capabilities, and structuring the organization and work effortE Optimizing the number of core competencies and competitive capabilities, making sure that all managers and employees are empowered, and maximizing internal operating efficiency
Question: Which of the following statements regarding a company’s social responsibility and sustainability strategy is false? A A company is not demonstrating an adequate degree of social responsibility or endeavoring to be a model corporate citizen unless it spends 5% (or more) of pretax profits on social responsibility initiativesB Social responsibility strategies that have the effect of both providing valuable social benefits and fulfilling customer needs in a superior fashion can lead to competitive advantageC A few companies have integrated social responsibility and/or environmental sustainability objectives into their missions and overall performance targets; they view social performance and environmental metrics as an essential component of judging the company’s overall future performanceD Unless a company’s social responsibility initiatives become part of the way it operates its business every day, the initiatives are unlikely to be fully effectiveE While the strategies and actions of all socially responsible companies have a sameness in the sense of drawing on the same categories of socially responsible behavior, each company’s version of being socially responsible is unique
Question: The classic way to coordinate the work efforts of internal organization units is to A Establish a corporate culture where teamwork is a core value and decisions are made by general consensus among team leaders in the affected work unitsB Have closely related activities report to a single executive who has the authority and organizational clout to coordinate, integrate, and arrange for the cooperation of units under their supervisionC Have the heads of support activities report to the heads of primary, strategy-critical activitiesD Establish monetary incentives that reward people for being cooperative team playersE Have frequent meetings among the heads of closely related activities and work units to establish mutually agreeable deadlines
Question: The corporate strategy process does not entail A Crafting, implementing, and executing plansB Fine-tuning and adjusting corporate vision and objectivesC A continuous process of crafting and executing strategy to fit changing circumstancesD Recycling the linked stages of executing strategyE Any of these
Question: In a strong culture company A Values and behavioral norms are like crabgrass – deeply rooted and hard to weed outB There is wide support for high ethical standards among both managers and employeesC A company has more strategy flexibility because it can change its strategy and be confident that the culture will welcome the strategy changes and be an ally in implementing whatever changes are called forD There is little room for employee empowerment, because independent-thinking empowered employees may well make decisions or engage in actions that weaken the cultureE Management insists that official policies and procedures be followed religiously
Question: The basic premise of unrelated diversification is that A The least risky way to diversify is to seek out businesses that are leaders in their respective industriesB The best companies to acquire are those that offer the greatest economies of scope rather than the greatest economies of scaleC The best way to build shareholder value is to acquire businesses with strong cross-business financial fitD Any company that can be acquired on good financial terms and that has satisfactory growth and earnings potential represents a good acquisition and a good business opportunityE The task of building shareholder value is better served by seeking to stabilize earnings across the entire business cycle than by seeking to capture cross-business strategic fits
Question: A best practice A Is a technique for performing an activity or business process that at least one company has demonstrated works particularly well in terms of delivering some highly positive operating outcomeB Refers to the best-known procedure for performing a specific task or activity so as to achieve the lowest possible costsC Refers to performing activities in a manner that conforms to established industry standardsD Refers to a company’s core competenceE Refers to performing a particular value chain activity in world-class fashion (one unmatched by any other company in the world)
Question: The transaction costs of completing a business agreement, or deal of some sort, over and above the price of the deal can include A The costs of searching for an attractive targetB The costs of evaluating its worthC Bargaining costsD The costs of completing the transactionE All of the above

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