Q&A Hero

Q: Metrics can A) be the basis for specific goals and plans. B) define the value proposition of business models. C) assess the health of companies by using tools such as balanced scorecards and performance dashboards. D) do all of the above.

Q: (p. 457) The United States is not a party to the Kyoto Protocol.

Q: A comparison of the costs of a project against the benefits best defines A) IRR. B) benefits metric. C) cost-benefit analysis. D) feasibility justification.

Q: (p. 455) Ozone-depleting gases such as chlorofluorocarbons are tiny, tough molecules that defy natural breakdown processes.

Q: (p. 454) Radon is an inert, colorless, and odorless gas found in soil and rock formations.

Q: Not all EC investments need to be formally justified. Each of the following is a case where formal evaluation may not be needed except A) when the value of the investment is relatively small for the organization. B) when competitors have made that type of investment. C) when the relevant data are not available, are inaccurate, or are too volatile. D) when the EC project is mandated and must be done regardless of the costs and benefits.

Q: (p. 453) Indoor air in developed nations contains a mixture of pollutants including combustion by-products from cooking such as carbon monoxide and asbestos.

Q: Basic reasons companies invest in IT and EC include each of the following except A) improve business processes. B) increase customer satisfaction and retention. C) reduce time-to-market. D) justify new marketing campaigns.

Q: One basic way to categorize different EC investments is to distinguish between investments in infrastructure and investments in specific EC applications because benefits from infrastructure investments A) are made for the long-term. B) depend on the EC applications. C) are very complex. D) have a low return.

Q: (p. 452) Acid rain is caused primarily by two air pollutants, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide.

Q: CIOs need to effectively communicate the value of proposed EC projects in order to gain approval for each of the following reasons except A) companies now realize that EC is not necessarily the solution to all problems. B) some large companies, and many public organizations, mandate a formal evaluation of requests for funding. C) the success of EC projects may be assessed in order to pay bonuses to those involved with the project. D) demand for expanding or initiating e-business projects is no longer strong so there are fewer requests for funding.

Q: (p. 451) The maximum achievable control technology is a performance standard used by the Environmental Protection Agency to control emissions of hazardous air pollutants.

Q: Developing economies often face power blackouts, unreliable telecommunications infrastructure, undependable delivery mechanisms, and a relatively few customers who own computers and credit cards. These limitations can be overcome when predicting EC investment payoffs by using a combination of break-even analysis and NPV.

Q: (p. 450) Hazardous air pollutants are chemical emissions that pose a health risk of serious illness such as cancer or birth defects with small inhalation exposures.

Q: Critical elements that can affect the value of EC across cultures are perceived trust, consumer loyalty, regulation, political influences, and even the content of online ads.

Q: (p. 449) Gases that evaporate from liquid or solid carbon-based compounds are known as condensibles.

Q: Leveraging intangible assets, capabilities, relationships, and unleashing dormant assets is a critical success factor for EC.

Q: (p. 448) The largest source of carbon monoxide is electric utilities burning coal and oil.

Q: Mass customization enables manufacturers to create specific products for each customer based on the customer's exact needs.

Q: (p. 447) When Congress passes an environmental law, Environmental Protection Agency employees write the detailed, specific rules needed to make it work.

Q: Structured management is a holistic management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients.

Q: (p. 446) According to the theory of land ethic, humans are part of an ethical community that includes not only other human beings but all elements of the natural environment.

Q: Business process reengineering is the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization.

Q: (p. 445) According to the theory of dualism, humans and nature are one.

Q: Reengineering eliminates the intermediaries between sellers and buyers.

Q: (p. 442) Nonpolluting economic growth that raises standards of living without depleting the planet's resources of the earth is called sustainable development.

Q: (p. 441) The ecosystem is home to multiple biospheres.

Q: New technologies require new organizational structures and procedures.

Q: Reduced time-to-market is a cloud computing advantage.

Q: (p. 440) One disability-adjusted life year (DALY) equals one lost year of healthy life.

Q: Turnkey computing is the provision of computational resources on demand via a computer network.

Q: (p. 439) Disease caused by industrial pollution is far more significant than disease caused by older, non-industrial forms of pollution.

Q: Vendors dropping a product or going out of business is a disadvantage to purchasing an EC system.

Q: (p. 437) Superfund refers to a federal program that was set up in 1980 to clean up toxic waste sites.

Q: The higher purchase price is a disadvantage of purchasing an EC system.

Q: What has Congress done to curb land pollution?

Q: Discuss some of the provisions of the Clean Water Act.

Q: Performance value is the likelihood a segment of source code can be used again to add new functionalities with slight or no modification.

Q: Discuss greenhouse gases and their effects. What is the Kyoto Protocol?

Q: Interoperability refers to connecting people, data, and diverse systems.

Q: How is indoor air pollution caused?

Q: Unit testing refers to testing the combination of application modules acting in concert.

Q: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set standards to curb emissions of criteria pollutants. What are they?

Q: Usability testing refers to testing application software modules one at a time.

Q: What is the importance of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)?

Q: The average cost curve of regular products is U-shaped and has an optimal lowest point, but with digital products the average cost per unit declines as quantity increases.

Q: Given the diversity of activities involved in e-procurement, the metrics used to measure the value of e-procurement must reflect how well each process is accomplished and take into consideration whether the company is a buyer or seller.

Q: What is speciesism? How does it justify the expansion of rights to nonhuman entities?

Q: In an NPV analysis, analysts convert future values of benefits to their present-value equivalents by discounting future cash flows at the risk-free rate set by the Federal Reserve Bank.

Q: Discuss the theory of dualism.

Q: The ROI method uses a formula that divides the total net benefit by the initial cost. The result is a ratio that measures the ROI for each year or for an entire period.

Q: (p. 442-444) Explain the environmental Kuznets curve. Discuss the factors that explain it. What are the factors that underlie pollution reductions?

Q: In preparing the business case for EC investment, managers should examine the potential additional revenues, such as increased revenues via products or services from a larger global market because of more effective product marketing on the Web.

Q: (p. 441) What do you understand by the term "ecosystem services"? Give an example of an ecosystem service.

Q: (p. 445) Explain the theory of dualism.

Q: Creating a competitive advantage, providing a benefit to society, and improving the company's image are examples of tangible benefits that might be realized from an EC project.

Q: (p. 442) Define sustainable development.

Q: A major difficulty in justifying EC projects is that many costs and benefits are intangible and therefore very difficult to measure.

Q: (p. 441) What is an ecosystem?

Q: Cannibalization occurs when a new EC initiative produces substantial online sales, but traditional sales fall such that no increase in total revenue occurs.

Q: (p. 440) Explain the term "disability adjusted life year" (DALY).

Q: Key performance indicators (KPI) are used to qualitatively track critical metrics or success factors.

Q: (p. 438) Define pollution.

Q: Metrics are used to describe costs, benefits, or the ratio between them and need to be defined properly with a clear way to measure them.

Q: All EC investments need to be formally justified to insure that they align with the company's competitive strategy.

Q: (p. 461) Superfund is the common name for the: A. Medical Waste Tracking Act. B. Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. C. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. D. Toxic Substances Control Act.

Q: Cost-benefit analysis is frequently assessed by return on investment (ROI), which is also the name of a specific method for evaluating investments.

Q: (p. 461) Which Act was passed to take care of the thousands of abandoned toxic waste sites around the country? A. The Toxic Substances Control Act B. The Medical Waste Tracking Act C. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act D. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

Q: (p. 461) The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act: A. is an easy statute to administer and with which to comply. B. demands that regulators keep track of all hazardous waste produced anywhere in the country. C. allows balancing costs against benefits. D. ensures that the thousands of abandoned toxic waste sites around the United States are cleaned up.

Q: Infrastructure investments are made for the short-term because of frequent technological changes.

Q: (p. 460) Which Act gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to manage hazardous waste from "from cradle to grave"? A. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act B. The Toxic Substances Control Act C. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act D. The Federal Water Pollution Control Act

Q: One basic way to categorize different EC investments is to distinguish between investment in infrastructure and investment in specific EC applications.

Q: According to a CIO Insight report, EC justification decreases the credibility of EC projects.

Q: (p. 459) A _____ effluent is a runoff that enters surface waters from diffuse sources. A. nonpoint B. volume C. line D. area

Q: (p. 458) The National Pollution Discharge Elimination System is the permit system used to regulate: A. emission of criteria pollutants. B. emission of hazardous air pollutants. C. industrial effluents from point sources. D. industrial effluents from nonpoint sources.

Q: One reason why EC justification is needed is that companies now realize that EC is not necessarily the solution to all problems.

Q: (p. 458) A discrete source of discharge such as a factory, mine, ship, or pipeline is known as a(n): A. area source. B. line source. C. volume source. D. point source.

Q: After the dot-com bust, most IT executives acquired the knowledge and tools to do ROI calculations on proposed EC investments.

Q: (p. 458) A treated or untreated wastewater discharge from an industrial facility is known as a(n): A. spill. B. surface runoff. C. effluent. D. condensible.

Q: The result of the rush to invest in EC projects and start-up companies was the 2001 to 2003 "dot-com bust," when hundreds of EC startups went out of business and the stock market crashed.