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Management
Q:
Developing social capital is risky for an organization because social capital is specific to individuals and remains with the employee, if he or she leaves the organization.
Q:
Social capital is found in the knowledge, skills, and abilities of individual employees.
Q:
Social capital is based on the network of relationships within a firm, not in the skills and abilities of an individual employee.
Q:
Workforces that reflect demographic changes will become more homogeneous over the next few decades with regard to gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality.
Q:
The text suggests that talented professionals are typically most concerned about financial rewards. Money is the top reason why such employees take and leave jobs.
Q:
An internal work opportunity market for employees is one means of increasing employee retention.
Q:
The most effective method of improving retention of top talent at a firm is to intensify its hiring efforts.
Q:
360-degree evaluation systems are not useful due to the need to integrate large amounts of feedback.
Q:
360-degree evaluation and feedback systems address many of the limitations of traditional approaches of evaluating human capital.
Q:
In most effective evaluation and reward systems employees only receive evaluation and feedback from their immediate supervisor.
Q:
Millennials value hard work and will rarely use vacation time.
Q:
The Millennial generation expects employers to provide incentives to attract and retain them. A company that does this will have a competitive advantage.
Q:
Companies have found that referrals from their own employees are generally an effective approach to recruiting top talent.
Q:
One of the most important elements in a good employee is his or her attitude. Firms should follow the adage: hire for attitude, train for skill.
Q:
Technical skills are a necessary and sufficient condition for hiring an employee.
Q:
Knowledge workers are more loyal to their companies than traditional workers.
Q:
Creation of new knowledge typically involves the continual interaction of explicit and tacit knowledge.
Q:
Firms such as Apple and Google will tend to have a higher ratio of market value to book value than industrial companies such as Nucor Steel.
Q:
In the current economy, reliance on the three traditional financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flow) has increased.
Q:
The difference between the market value and book value of a firm is its social capital.
Q:
The more reliance a firm has on intellectual capital, the closer its book value will be to its market value.
Q:
The importance of human capital has decreased in recent years. For this reason, many firms have placed greater attention on attracting talent, but not on developing or retaining it.
Q:
According to the text, for most of the 20th century, managerial efforts were directed more toward the efficient allocation of labor and capital, which are the two traditional factors of production.
Q:
Amazon Prime is credited for helping to increase the Amazon stock price by nearly 300 percent from 2008 to 2010. This is competitive advantage is known as _________.
A. causal ambiguity
B. product rarity
C. service validity
D. substitutability
Q:
Which of the following is not a factor that helps to explain the extent to which employees and managers will be able to obtain a proportionately high level of the profits that they generate?
A. Employees have high bargaining power.
B. The cost of employee replacement is high.
C. The cost of exit is high for an employee.
D. Managers have low bargaining power.
Q:
Employees will be able to obtain a proportionately high level of profits they generate (relative to the firm) if ___________.
A. suppliers are loyal to the firm
B. their expertise is firm-specific
C. the cost to the firm of replacing them is high
D. the firm's resources are path dependent
Q:
A resource is valuable and rare but neither difficult to imitate nor without substitutes. This should enable the firm to attain ____________.
A. no competitive advantage
B. a temporary competitive advantage
C. competitive parity
D. a sustainable competitive advantage
Q:
All of the following are examples of socially complex organizational phenomena EXCEPT:
A. a firm's culture
B. complex physical technology
C. interpersonal relations among a firm's managers
D. leadership and trust
Q:
A variety of firm resources include interpersonal relations among managers in the firm, its culture, and its reputation with its suppliers and customers. Such competitive advantages are based upon ____.
A. path dependency
B. social complexity
C. physical uniqueness
D. tangible resources
Q:
A crash R&D program by one firm cannot replicate a successful technology developed by another firm, when research findings cumulate. This is an example of ____________.
A. social complexity
B. physical uniqueness
C. path dependency
D. causal ambiguity
Q:
A competitive advantage based on inimitability can be sustained for at least some time if it has the following characteristics:
A. psychographic uniqueness, path dependency, causal ambiguity, and substitutability
B. physical uniqueness, path dependency, causal ambiguity, and social complexity
C. rarity, path dependency, causal ambiguity, and social substitutability
D. geographic uniqueness, cause dependency, social ambiguity, and path complexity
Q:
For a resource to provide a firm with the potential for a sustainable competitive advantage, it must have four attributes. Which of the following is not one of these attributes?
A. rare
B. valuable
C. easy for competitors to substitute
D. difficult for competitors to imitate
Q:
__________ are the competencies or skills that a firm employs to transform inputs into outputs.
A. Tangible resources
B. Organizational capabilities
C. Reputational resources
D. Intangible resources
Q:
Apple combines and packages proven technology in new and innovative ways. This is an example of its use of ____________.
A. tangible resources
B. intangible resources
C. organizational capabilities
D. strong primary activities
Q:
Typically embedded in unique routines and practices that have evolved and accumulated over time such as effective work teams is which of the following:
A. tangible resources
B. intangible resources
C. reputational resources
D. organizational capabilities
Q:
In the resource-based view of the firm, examples of tangible resources include:
A. financial resources, human resources, and firm competencies
B. financial resources, physical resources, and technological resources
C. financial resources, physical resources, and the capacity to combine intangible resources
D. outstanding customer service, innovativeness of products, and reputation
Q:
The three key types of resources that are central to the resource-based view of the firm are:
A. tangible resources, intangible resources, and organizational structure
B. culture, tangible resources, intangible resources
C. tangible resources, intangible resources, and organizational capabilities
D. tangible resources, intangible resources, and top management
Q:
The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm combines two perspectives:
A. the primary and support activities of the firm
B. the interrelationships among the primary activities of the firm and corporate management
C. the internal analysis of the firm and the external analysis of the industry and competitive environment
D. the industry and the competitive environment
Q:
In a retail service industry, which of the following is not a primary value-chain activity?
A. purchasing goods
B. operating stores
C. partnering with vendors
D. human resource management
Q:
A marketing department that promises delivery faster than the ability of the production department to produce is an example of a lack of understanding of the _____________.
A. organizational culture and leadership
B. interrelationships among functional areas and firm strategies
C. need to maintain the reputation of the company
D. synergy of the business units
Q:
For firms such as CarMax, information systems have been a source of competitive advantage. Their proprietary information system captures, analyzes, interprets, and disseminates information about all cars on the CarMax lot. Which of the following can be attributed to this information system?
A. decrease in uncertainties in hard to forecast areas such as inventory management
B. decrease in operational efficiency
C. reduced customer service
D. decrease in sales
Q:
Although general administration is often viewed only as overhead expense, it can become a source of competitive advantage. Examples include all of the following EXCEPT:
A. negotiating and maintaining ongoing relations with regulatory bodies
B. marketing expertise increasing the revenues of the firm and enabling it to enter new markets
C. effective information systems contributing significantly to overall cost leadership strategy for the firm
D. top management providing a key role in collaborating with important customers
Q:
According to value-chain analysis, which of the following would be considered part of the general administration in a firm?
A. human resource management
B. technology development
C. information systems
D. procurement
Q:
Human resource management consists of activities involved in the recruiting, hiring, training, development, and compensation of all types of personnel. It supports _______________.
A. only individual primary activities
B. both individual primary and support activities and the entire value chain
C. only individual support activities
D. mostly support activities but does have some impact on primary activities
Q:
Which of the following lists consists of support activities?
A. human resource management, technology development, customer service, and procurement
B. human resource management, customer service, marketing and sales, and operations
C. customer service, information systems, technology development, and procurement
D. human resource management, technology development, procurement, and firm infrastructure
Q:
Which of the following is a support activity?
A. inbound logistics
B. technology development
C. operations
D. customer service
Q:
Customer service includes ________.
A. product promotion
B. parts supply
C. product distribution
D. procurement of critical supplies
Q:
___________ is/are associated with collecting, storing, and distributing the product or service to buyers. They consist of warehousing, material handling, delivery operation, order processing, and scheduling.
A. Services
B. Outbound logistics
C. Inbound logistics
D. Operations
Q:
XYZ Corp. is focusing on the objective of low-cost, high quality, on-time production by minimizing idle productive facilities and workers. The XYZ Corp. is taking advantage of a __________ system.
A. Last In, First Out (LIFO)
B. First In, First Out (FIFO)
C. Just-In-Time (JIT)
D. Highly mechanized
Q:
Which of the following is not an advantage of Just-In-Time inventory systems?
A. reduced raw material storage costs
B. minimized idle production facilities and workers
C. reduced dependence on suppliers
D. reduced work-in-process inventories
Q:
Which of the following examples demonstrates how successful organizations manage their primary activities?
A. Motorola has revised its compensation system to reward employees who learn a variety of skills.
B. Hewlett Packard has cut lead time from five days to one by employing JIT inventory management.
C. National Steel improved its efficiency by reducing the number of job classifications.
D. Wal-Mart implemented a sophisticated information system that resulted in reduced inventory carrying costs and shortened customer response times.
Q:
Advertising is a __________ activity. Supply of replacement parts is a __________ activity.
A. support; primary
B. support; secondary
C. primary; support
D. primary; primary
Q:
In assessing its primary activities, an airline would examine ___________.
A. baggage handling
B. employee training programs
C. criteria for lease versus purchase decisions
D. the effectiveness of its lobbying activities
Q:
Inbound logistics include:
A. machining and packaging.
B. repair and parts supply.
C. warehousing and inventory control.
D. promotion and packaging.
Q:
In value-chain analysis, the activities of an organization are divided into two major categories of value activities: primary and support. Which of the following is a primary activity?
A. purchasing key inputs
B. repairing the product for the consumer
C. recruiting and training employees
D. monitoring the cost of producing the product through a cost accounting system
Q:
Which of the following is NOT a limitation of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis?
A. Organizational strengths may not lead to competitive advantage.
B. The SWOT focus on the external environment is too broad and integrative.
C. SWOT gives a one-shot view of a moving target.
D. SWOT overemphasizes a single dimension of strategy.
Q:
In considering the business from the internal business perspective using the balanced scorecard, periodic financial statements are used to indicate the consequences of improved quality, response time, productivity, and innovative products. These consequences include improved sales.
Q:
In considering the business from the internal business perspective using the balanced scorecard, customer-based measures must be translated into indicators of what the firm must do internally to meet customer expectations.
Q:
In considering the business from the customer perspective using the balanced scorecard, company performance is essential.
Q:
In considering the business from the innovation and learning perspective using the balanced scorecard, the ability of the firm to do well is more dependent on its intangible and tangible assets.
Q:
A strength of the balanced scorecard is that it is very easy to implement and that there is little need for executive sponsorship.
Q:
An important implication of the balanced scorecard is that managers need NOT look at their job as primarily balancing stakeholder demands.
Q:
The balanced scorecard enables managers to evaluate their business from only two perspectives: customer and financial.
Q:
A primary benefit of the balanced scorecard is that it complements financial indicators with operational measures of customer satisfaction, internal processes, and the innovation and improvement activities of the organization.
Q:
When using industry norms as a standard of comparison, managers must be sure that the firms used in the comparisons are representative of all sizes and strategies within the industry.
Q:
Historical comparisons are most appropriate during periods of recession or economic boom.
Q:
Leverage ratios provide measures of the capacity of a firm to meet its long-term financial obligations.
Q:
Financial analysis provides an accurate way to assess the relative strengths of firms and can be used as a complete guide to study companies.
Q:
Dell lost its competitive advantage by 2009 in part because it placed its efforts on operational excellence to the exclusion of reinvention, according to Inder Sidhu.
Q:
Amazon Prime is an example of a difficult to imitate capability that gives it competitive advantage over its rivals.
Q:
Employee exit cost is a factor that can increase employee bargaining power and help him or her appropriate profits of the firm.
Q:
Firms that are successful in creating competitive advantages that are sustainable for a period of time do not have to be concerned about profits being retained by employees or managers.
Q:
For a resource to provide a firm with potential sustainable advantages it must satisfy only two criteria: rareness and difficulty in substitution.
Q:
Capabilities that exhibit causal ambiguity are difficult to imitate.
Q:
Path dependency has no impact on the inimitability of resources.
Q:
Products and services that are difficult to imitate help firms sustain their profitability.
Q:
Intangible resources of a firm refer to its capacity to deploy tangible resources over time and leverage those resources effectively.
Q:
Tangible resources are assets that are relatively easy to identify such as financial and physical assets.
Q:
The resource-based view of the firm focuses solely on the internal analysis of the operations of the firm.
Q:
Value-chain analysis can only be applied to manufacturing operations.