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Question
Assume a firm is at a cost disadvantage with rivals because its internal costs are higher than rivals. Identify five strategic moves that it can make to restore cost parity.
Answer
Answer may vary
Related questions
Q:
Give at least three nonmonetary examples of motivation and rewards practices that have the capability to foster good strategy execution and explain how they act to produce such a result.
Q:
Why does a company's budget need to be closely linked to the needs of good strategy execution? Why might a change in strategy call for budget reallocations?
Q:
Explain the difference between a centralized and a decentralized organization structure. Which one is more likely to further the cause of good strategy execution? Why?
Q:
What are the eight components of strategy execution?
Q:
The purpose of managing by walking around is to
A. learn more about company operations and see how activities are really being done.
B. gather information about what is happening from people at different organizational levels and learn firsthand how well the strategy execution process is proceeding.
C. give employees a chance to make suggestions for improvement.
D. gather information about what strategy to follow and to learn what competitors are doing.
E. be visible and accessible to employees.
Q:
Proficient strategy execution requires executive managers to
A. be current with events and closely monitor progress, put constructive pressure on the organization for operating excellence, and initiate corrective action when necessary to improve performance and achieve desired results.
B. understand all the tasks required to implement the strategy so as to ensure staff will not shortchange any strategic-critical activity.
C. attach great importance to gathering statistics that define every task effort and ensure limited variability.
D. initiate a problem-solving search to ensure obstacles to success are identified.
E. All of these.
Q:
Which one of the following is a substantive culture-changing action that a company's managers can undertake to alter a problem culture?
A. Identifying aspects of the present culture that pose problems
B. Revising policies and procedures in ways that will help drive cultural change and replacing senior executives who may be stonewalling needed organizational and cultural changes
C. Empowering employees to adopt whatever new work practices they believe will be an improvement
D. Making a concerted effort to turn the company's core competencies into distinctive competencies
E. Shifting from decentralized to centralized decision making so as to give senior executives more authority and control in driving cultural change
Q:
In moving to alter a problem culture, management should
A. identify which aspects of the present culture are supportive of good strategy execution and which ones are not.
B. specify what new actions, behaviors, and work practices should be prominent in the "new" culture.
C. talk openly about the problems of the present culture and how new behaviors will improve performance.
D. employ visible, forceful actionsboth substantive and symbolicto ingrain a new set of behaviors, practices, and cultural norms.
E. All of these.
Q:
Changing a problem culture
A. is one of the toughest managerial tasks because of the tendency of company personnel to cling to familiar practices and ways of doing things.
B. is best done by instituting an aggressive program to train employees in the ways and beliefs of the new culture to be implanted.
C. is best done by selecting a team of key employees to lead the culture change effort.
D. requires writing a new statement of core values and describing in writing the kind of culture that is needed.
E. can be done quickly only if managers tie incentive compensation to exhibiting the desired new cultural behaviors and if managers visibly praise people who exhibit the desired new cultural traits.
Q:
Companies with change-resistant cultures
A. are typically opposed to performance-based incentive compensation and employee empowerment.
B. are prone to be preoccupied with avoiding risks, are unlikely to pursue bold actions to capture emerging opportunities, have a widespread aversion to continuous improvement in performing value chain activities, and prefer following rather than leading market change.
C. are often overly gung-ho about looking outside the company for best practices, new managerial approaches, and innovative ideas.
D. tend to be preoccupied with making sure the company has a safe, follow-the-industry-leader type of strategic vision and it avoids risky business strategies.
E. are typically run by amoral managers who have little regard for high ethical standards.
Q:
The guidelines for designing an incentive compensation system that will help drive successful strategy execution include
A. making the payoff for meeting or beating performance targets a major, not minor, piece of the total compensation package.
B. having a bonus and incentive plan that applies to managers only (employees should generally not be included in incentive pay plans but should have attractive wages and salaries).
C. having an outside wage and salary expert administer the system, so that there is no doubt as to its fairness and impartiality.
D. basing the incentives on group performance rather than individual performance.
E. making minimal use of nonmonetary incentives and rewarding people for diligently performing their assigned duties.
Q:
Total quality management (TQM) emphasizes all but which one of the following?
A. 100% accuracy in performing tasks
B. Continuous improvement in all phases of operations
C. Widespread adoption of industry standard operating practices
D. Benchmarking and total customer satisfaction
E. Empowerment of employees and team-based work design
Q:
Reengineering how a firm performs a business process
A. is a tool for pulling the pieces of strategy-critical processes out of different departments and unifying their performance in a single department or cross-functional work group.
B. is the most frequently used tool of total quality management (TQM).
C. requires that a company have many strategic partnerships and alliances with outsiders.
D. is typically cheaper and easier-to-do than using Six Sigma techniques to achieve the same cost savings.
E. is usually a company's most important "best practice" for achieving operating excellence.
Q:
A useful guideline in designing strategy-facilitating policies and operating procedures is
A. to prescribe enough policies to give organizational members clear direction in implementing strategy and to place desirable boundaries on their actions, then empower them to act within these boundaries however they think makes sense.
B. that strictly enforced policies work better than loosely enforced policies.
C. that more policies/procedures work better than few policies/procedures and that strict enforcement always beats lax enforcement.
D. to let individuals act in an empowered and self-directed way, subject only to the constraint that their actions and behavior be ethical and in step with the corporate culture.
E. to prescribe enough policies and procedures that little is left to chance in performing value chain activities; employees should have no leeway to do things in a manner that deviates from the company's best practices standard.
Q:
Which one of the following is not a benefit of prescribing policies and operating procedures to aid management's task of implementing strategy?
A. Painting a set of white lines that provides boundaries for the independent actions of empowered personnel
B. Providing top-down guidance to operating managers, supervisory personnel, and employees regarding how things need to be done
C. Promoting the creation of a work climate that facilitates good strategy execution
D. Helping build employee commitment to adopting best practices and using the tools of TQM and Six Sigma
E. Helping enforce consistency in how particular activities are performed
Q:
The disadvantages of a centralized organizational structure include
A. making the organization sluggish in responding to changing conditions.
B. a loss of top management control.
C. putting too much decision-making authority in the hands of lower-level company personnel.
D. making it hard to fix accountability when things do not go well and putting the organization at risk when bad decisions are made.
E. impeding cross-unit coordination and capture of strategic fits.
Q:
Which one of the following falsely characterizes a centralized organizational structure?
A. Top executives should retain authority over most strategic and operating decisions and keep a tight rein on business-unit heads, department heads, and the managers of key operating units.
B. Strict enforcement of detailed procedures backed by rigorous managerial oversight is the most reliable way to keep the daily execution of strategy on track.
C. Tight control by the manager in charge makes it easy to fix accountability when things do not go well.
D. Most company personnel have neither the time nor the inclination to direct and properly control they work they are performing, and they lack the knowledge and judgment to make wise decisions about how best to do their work.
E. A company that draws on the combined intellectual capital of its people can outperform a company that relies on command and control.
Q:
The primary building blocks within a company's organizational structure
A. are almost always the departments performing such key administrative support functions as finance, accounting, information technology, human resource management, and R&D.
B. can include a functional or departmental structure that includes process, geographic, product, or customer groups performing one or more major processing steps along the value chain.
C. typically consist of an un-empowered employee department, an empowered employee department, teams of front-line supervisors, teams of middle-level managers and administrators, and the group of top-level executives that comprise the company's "executive suite."
D. usually consist of supply chain management, components manufacture, assembly, distribution, and administration.
E. usually consist of two divisionsa division charged with performing primary value chain activities and a division charged with performing support activities.
Q:
Which one of the following is not a means of building and strengthening competitively valuable resources and capabilities?
A. Engaging in experience-building activities such as collaborative efforts in R&D engineering and design.
B. Shifting from decentralized to centralized decision making so as to give senior executives more authority and control in driving cultural change.
C. Acquiring capabilities through mergers and acquisitions.
D. Entering into collaborative partnerships with suppliers, competitors or other companies that possess needed expertise.
E. None of these.
Q:
Which of the following is generally not among the practices that companies use to staff jobs with the best people they can find?
A. Careful screening and evaluation of job applicants
B. Rotating people through jobs that span functional and geographic boundaries
C. Weeding out the 20% lowest-performing employees each year
D. Striving to retain talented, high-performing employees via promotions, salary increases, and other perks
E. Coaching average performers to improve their skills and capabilities
Q:
Building an organization capable of good strategy execution entails
A. staffing the organization, building core competencies and competitive capabilities, and structuring the organization and work effort.
B. decentralizing authority for performing strategy-critical value chain activities, establishing at least two distinctive competencies, and hiring talented employees.
C. investing heavily in employee training, using an empowered organization design and organization structure in order to maximize labor productivity, and employing effective incentive compensation systems.
D. centralizing authority in the hands of a chief strategy implementer so as to create the leadership authority for driving implementation forward at a rapid pace.
E. empowering employees, maximizing internal operating efficiency, and optimizing core competencies.
Q:
Which of the following is not among the types of actions and initiatives undertaken by management in the strategy execution process?
A. Building an organization capable of executing the strategy
B. Instituting policies and procedures that facilitate rather than impede strategy execution
C. Deciding which core competencies and value chain activities to leave as is and which ones to overhaul and improve
D. Pushing for continuous improvement in how value chain activities are performed
E. Tying rewards directly to the achievement of strategic and financial targets and to good strategy execution
Q:
Good strategy execution
A. requires a team effort with managers with strategy-executing responsibility and making all employees active participants in the execution process.
B. requires getting things done effectively and efficiently.
C. allows companywide performance measures to be met.
D. requires middle and lower-level managers to ensure strategy-critical activities are successfully implemented.
E. All of these.
Q:
Once company managers have decided on a strategy, the emphasis turns to
A. converting the strategy into actions and good results.
B. empowering employees to revise and reorganize value chain activities to match the strategy.
C. establishing policies and procedures that instruct company personnel in the ways and means of executing the strategy.
D. developing a detailed implementation plan that sets forth exactly what every department and every manager needs to do to proficiently execute the company's strategy.
E. building the core competencies and competitive capabilities needed to execute the strategy.
Q:
Identify and explain the three common social responsibility programs.
Q:
What is the business case for why a company should pursue ethical strategies?
Q:
Identify and briefly describe the three main drivers of unethical strategies and unethical managerial and business behavior.
Q:
Which of the following is not something a company should usually consider in crafting a strategy of social responsibility?
A. Actions to benefit shareholders (such as raising the dividend to boost the stock price)
B. Making charitable contributions and donating money and the time of company personnel to community service endeavors
C. Actions to ensure the company has an ethical strategy and operates honorably and ethically
D. Actions to protect or enhance the environment
E. Actions to create a workforce diversity program
Q:
The contention that ethical standards should be governed both by (1) a limited number of universal ethical principles that are widely recognized as putting legitimate ethical boundaries on actions and behavior in all situations and (2) the circumstances of local cultures, traditions, and shared values that further prescribe what constitutes ethically permissible behavior and what does not are the basic principles of
A. the school of ethical relativism.
B. the school of ethical universalism.
C. integrative social contracts theory.
D. the global corruption standards published by Transparency International.
E. the Global Code of Ethical and Social Morality developed by the United Nations.
Q:
A belief in ethical relativism leads to the conclusion that
A. because ethical standards are subjective, it is perfectly appropriate for each company to define and implement its own ethical principles of right and wrong as concerns the use of underage labor and the payment of bribes and kickbacks.
B. ethical standards are determined objectively (rather than subjectively).
C. whether the payment of bribes/kickbacks should be deemed ethical or unethical depends on the moral standards, values, beliefs, convictions, and business norms that prevail in particular cultures, societies, countries, or circumstances.
D. ethical standards are objective and universal; thus, whether the use of underage labor and the payment of bribes and kickbacks should be deemed ethical or unethical definitely is not dependent on the moral standards, values, beliefs, convictions, and business norms that prevail in particular cultures, societies, countries, or circumstances.
E. standards of right and wrong are governed by what is legal in a given country; thus, whether the use of underage labor and the payment of bribes and kickbacks is ethical or unethical is governed by local law.