- The primary purpose of strategy is:[See p.4]
a. To maximize shareholder value
b. To achieve success
c. To ensure that all stakeholders benefit from the value created by the firm
d. To be a responsible corporate citizen
b
- The successful careers of both Queen Elizabeth II and Lady Gaga may be attributed to the fact that both:[See pp.4-8]
a. Have used dressing up as a means of attracting attention and establishing identity
b. Have a knack for being in the right place at the right time
c. Have a consistency of direction based on clear goals
d. Have built a loyal fan base based on astute use of the media
c
- For both individuals and businesses, successful strategies are characterized by:[See p.5]
a. Unrelenting commitment to ambitious goals
b. Clear goals, understanding their competitive environment, awareness of internal strengths and weaknesses, and effective implementation
c. Meticulous planning
d. Possessing superior resources that are deployed to build competitive advantage
b
- Strategic goals should be:[See pp.5-9]
a. Simple
b. Consistent
c. Long term
d. All of the above
d
- Ryanair’s strategic position is as Europe’s lowest-cost airline may be attributed to:[See p.11]
a. The willingness of its CEO, Michael O’Leary, to challenge conventional notions of customer and employee satisfaction
b. Its use of secondary airports where costs are lower
c. The high operating costs of major airlines such as British Airways, Lufthansa, and Air France-KLM on short-haul routes
d. An integrated, consistent set of activities designed to maximize productivity and minimize operating costs
d
- The principal similarity between business and military strategy is that:[See p.12]
a. They share the same objective: to annihilate rivals
b. They share common concepts and principles
c. The nature of leadership is much the same whether in a military or business context
d. They are both concerned with tactical maneuvers to establish positions of advantage
b
- Military strategy and business strategy differ in that:[See p.12]
a. There is no concept like tactics in business
b. Military strategy can only be learned through field experience; business strategy can be developed through analytical frameworks
c. The objective of military strategy is to defeat the enemy; most business strategies seek coexistence rather than annihilation
d. None - there is no conceptual difference
c
- The main reason for the transition from corporate planning to strategic management during the late 1970s and 1980s was: [See p.12]
a. The increasing costs of corporate planning departments
b. Disappointing outcomes of corporate diversification
c. A more turbulent business environment that was increasingly difficult to predict
d. Growing disillusionment with central planning
c
- Between the 1980sand 1990s the emphasis of strategic analysis shifted from:[See p.13]
a. Corporate strategy to business strategy
b. Industry analysis to resource and capability analysis
c. Forecasting macro trends to understanding technological change
d. Generic strategies to strategic differentiation
b
- During the 21st century, the complexity of the challenges posed by disruptive, digital technologies and accelerating rates of change have encouraged companies to: [See p.13]
a. Shift their strategic focus towards the growth markets of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
b. Rejecting shareholder value maximization in favor of maximizing stakeholder interests
c. Depend increasingly upon strategic alliances and other forms of collaboration
d. Prefer mergers and acquisitions to organic growth
c
- A description of a company’s organizational purpose is called a:[See p.16]
a. Vision statement
b. Values statement
c. Mission statement
d. All the above
c
- Which of the following is not one of the ways in which a systematic, strategy-making process improves an organization’s decision making:[See pp.15-16]
a. Reducing the number of choices being considered
b. Integrating and pooling the knowledge of different members of the organization
c. Facilitating the use of analytic tools
d. Providing algorithms that generate optimal solutions to strategic problems
d
- When identifying a company’s strategy, its statements of a strategy found in its public documents need to be: [See pp.17-18]
a. Treated with skepticism
b. Checked against the company’s decisions and actions
c. Interpreted using modern techniques of textual analysis
d. Checked against its statements of vision and mission
b
- Business strategy defines:[See p.14]
a. How a firm competes in a particular industry or market
b. Which industries or markets a firm chooses to compete in
c. Both of the above
d. Neither of the above
a
- The principal temporal challenge of that strategic management faces is:[See p.19]
a. The need to match internal organizational change with the rate of change in the external environment
b. The need to compete for today while preparing for the future
c. The need to keep abreast of technological change
d. Increasing responsiveness and innovation
b
- The relationship between design and emergence in strategy making is best described as:[See pp.20-21]
a. An interactive process between strategic planners and line managers
b. A tension between the forces of centralization and decentralization
c. A process in which intended strategy is adapted as it is implemented
d. An example of the agency problem in which the interests of salaried managers displace the interests of owners
c
- The extent to which an organization’s strategy is determined by decentralized emergence rather than by centralized design depends mainly upon:[See pp.21-22]
a. How turbulent and unpredictable is the external environment of the organization
b. How the organization is structured
c. The commitment of the organization to experimentation
d. Whether the organization has a formalized process of strategic planning
a
- The main value of analytical approaches to strategy formulation is: [See pp.22-23]
a. To identify the optimal strategy that a firm should adopt
b. To provide understanding of strategic issues
c. To substitute for manager’s intuition and creativity
d. To ensure that strategic decision making is assigned to the capable people within the organization
b
