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Chapter 1
The Strategic Management Process
TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS
2. External stakeholders are groups or individuals outside the organization that have a
particular interest in and a major impact on the organization.
Answer: T
3. Strategic management begins with the creation and execution of strategies, followed
by the definition of goals that can be met by following these strategies.
Answer: F
9. Strategic thinking deals with the rigid and systematic parts of the strategic
management process.
Answer: F
B. Implementation of strategies
C. Analysis of the internal environment
D. Strategic restructuring
E. All of these are true
Answer: E
11. Domain direction and navigation pertain to which aspect of the strategic management
process?
A. Corporate strategy formulation
B. Human resources strategy formulation
C. Strategy implementation
D. Business strategy formulation
E. Functional strategy formulation
Answer: D
13. Which of the following is not a major activity of the strategic management process?
A. Analysis of the internal and external environments
B. Establishment of strategic direction
C. Formulation of strategies
D. Production scheduling
E. Implementation of strategies
Answer: D
D. Stockholders
E. Board of directors
Answer: A
16. All of the following are members of an organization’s task environment except:
A. Activist groups
B. Managers
C. Suppliers
D. Financial intermediaries
E. Local communities
Answer: B
17. Opportunities:
A. Allow a firm to take advantage of organizational strengths, overcome
weaknesses, or neutralize threats
B. Are the same for all firms in an industry
C. Are related only to new customers and new markets
D. Are a firm’s resources and capabilities
E. None of these
Answer: A
18. Threats:
A. Come only from the broad environment
B. Typically cannot be overcome
C. Can stand in the way of organizational competitiveness and stakeholder
satisfaction
D. Are generally the result of moving too slowly against competitors
E. None of these
Answer: C
E. None of these
Answer: B
26. What is the most logical relationship between a sustainable competitive advantage and
an organizational strength?
A. A sustainable competitive advantage is a strength that is difficult for
competitors to imitate
B. A strength cannot be duplicated while a sustainable competitive advantage is
easily copied
C. Every strength leads to a sustainable competitive advantage
D. Every sustainable competitive advantage leads to a strength
E. There is no relationship between these two concepts
Answer: A
35. All of the following are associated with the global business environment except:
A. Increasing interdependencies between countries
B. Reduced competition among firms
C. Reduced global stability
D. High levels of technological innovation
E. Increased flow of knowledge, goods and services across international borders
Answer: B
36. Entrepreneurship:
A. Can occur both within firms and independently of them
B. That occurs within firms is sometimes called intrapraneurship
C. Is a process that may lead to the creation of new value
D. Involves recognizing or creating an opportunity, assembling resources
to pursue it, and managing those resources to bring the new venture into being
E. All of the above
37. The characteristics of strategic thinking include all of the following except:
A. A systems perspective
B. Allows the organization to seize unanticipated opportunities
C. It involves hypothesis testing
D. It is based on consideration of the future and does not consider the past at all
E. These are all characteristics of strategic thinking; there is no exception
While there are many routes to competitive advantage, they all involve
A. Building a brand name image that buyers trust
B. Delivering superior value to buyers and building competencies and resource strengths in performing value
chain activities that rivals cannot readily match
C. Achieving lower costs than rivals and becoming the industry's sales and market share leader
Answer:B
The biggest and most important differences among the competitive strategies of different companies boil
down to
A. How they go about building a brand name image that buyers trust and whether they are a risk-taker or risk-
avoider
B. The different ways that companies try to cope with the five competitive forces
C. Whether a company's market target is broad or narrow and whether the company is pursuing a competitive
advantage linked to low cost or differentiation
Answer:c
Which of the following is not one of the five generic types of competitive strategy?
A. A low-cost provider strategy
B. A broad differentiation strategy
C. A best-cost provider strategy
D. A focused low-cost provider strategy
E. A market share dominator strategy
Answer:e
Which one of the following generic types of competitive strategy is typically the best strategy for a company
to employ?
A. A low-cost leadership strategy
B. A broad differentiation strategy
C. A best-cost provider strategy
D. A focused low-cost provider strategy
E. There is no such thing as a "best" competitive strategy; a company's "best" strategy is always one that is
customized to fit both industry and competitive conditions and the company's own resources and competitive
capabilities
Answer:e
A low-cost leader can translate its low-cost advantage over rivals into superior profit performance by
A. Cutting its price to levels significantly below the prices of rivals
B. Either using its low-cost edge to underprice competitors and attract price sensitive buyers in large enough
numbers to increase total profits or refraining from price-cutting and using the low-cost advantage to earn a
bigger profit margin on each unit sold
Chapter 1: The Strategic Management Process
C. Going all out to use its cost advantage to capture a dominant share of the market
Answer:b
The major avenues for achieving a cost advantage over rivals include
A. Revamping the firm's value chain to eliminate or bypass some cost-producing activities and/or out-
managing rivals in the efficiency with which value chain activities are performed
B. Having a management team that is highly skilled in cutting costs
C. Being a first-mover in adopting the latest state-of-the-art technologies, especially those relating to low-cost
manufacture
Answer:a
Which of the following is not an action that a company can take to do a better job than rivals of performing
value chain activities more cost-effectively?
A. Striving to capture all available economies of scale and learning/experience curve effects
B. Trying to operate facilities at full capacity
C. Adopting labor-saving operating methods
D. Improving supply chain efficiency
E. Outsourcing all production-related activities
Answer:e
Which of the following is not one of the ways that a company can achieve a cost advantage by revamping its
value chain?
A. Cutting out distributors and dealers by selling direct to customers
B. Replacing certain value chain activities with faster and cheaper online technology
C. Increasing production capacity and then striving hard to operate at full capacity
Answer:c
The best evidence that a company is the industry's low-cost provider is that
A. It sells more of its product/service than its key competitors and is the market share leader
B. It has lower overall per unit costs for its product/service than other competitors in the industry
C. It has lower total operating costs on its income statement than do its competitors
Answer:b
Being the overall low-cost provider in an industry has the attractive advantage of
A. Building strong customer loyalty and locking customers into its product (because customers have such high
switching costs)
B. Giving the firm a very appealing brand image
C. Putting a firm in position to compete offensively on the basis of low price, win the business of price
sensitive customers, set the floor on market price and defend against price war conditions should they arise
Answer:c
In which of the following circumstances is a strategy to be the industry's overall low-cost provider not
particularly well matched to the market situation?
A. When the offerings of rival firms are essentially identical, standardized, commodity-like products
B. When there are few ways to achieve differentiation that have value to buyers
C. When price competition is especially vigorous
D. When buyers have widely varying needs and special requirements and the prices of substitute products are
relatively high
Answer:d
A strategy to be the industry's overall low-cost provider tends to be more appealing than a differentiation or
best-cost or focus/market niche strategy when
A. There are many ways to achieve product differentiation that buyers find appealing
B. Buyers use the product in a variety of different ways and have high switching costs in changing from one
seller's product to another
C. The offerings of rival firms are essentially identical, standardized, commodity-like products
Answer:c
In which of the following circumstances is a low-cost leadership strategy not likely to be particularly
successful?
A. When the industry's product is a standardized commodity
B. When buyers are looking for a good-to-excellent product at a bargain price
C. When the industry is composed of more than three strategic groups and the companies in at least one of
the groups are pursuing full vertical integration strategies
Answer:c
Which of the following is not one of the pitfalls of a low-cost provider strategy?
A. Overly aggressive price-cutting
B. Trying to set the industry's price ceiling
C. Not emphasizing avenues of cost advantage that can be kept proprietary or that relegate rivals to playing
catch up
Answer:b
Chapter 1: The Strategic Management Process
A company that succeeds in differentiating its product offering from those of its rivals can usually
A. Avoid having to compete on the basis of simply a low price
B. Charge a price premium for its product (because buyers see its differentiating features as worth something
extra)
C. Increase unit sales (because of the attraction of its differentiating product attributes)
D. Gain buyer loyalty to its brand (because some, maybe many, of its customers will have a strong preference
for the company's differentiating features)
E. All of the above
Answer:e
Whether a broad differentiation strategy ends up enhancing company profitability depends mainly on whether
A. Many buyers view the product's differentiating features as having value
B. Most buyers have similar needs and use the product in the same ways
C. Unit sales increase and the extra price the product commands exceeds the added costs of achieving the
differentiation
Answer:c
Using a broad differentiation strategy to produce an attractive competitive advantage is least likely to be
based on
A. Developing a superior performing product
B. Offering buyers a product which is superior in quality and reliability as compared to rivals' brands
C. Giving consumers comprehensive support services
D. Providing buyers with a continuing stream of better-designed, better-performing and more stylish products
Chapter 1: The Strategic Management Process
Perceived value and signaling value are often an important part of a successful differentiation strategy
because
A. Of the diversity of buyer needs and preferences
B. Buyers seldom will pay for value they don't perceive, no matter how real the value of the differentiating
extras may be
C. Most buyers are heavily influenced by clever ads that signal value
Answer:b
Which of the following is not one of the four basic routes to achieving a differentiation-based competitive
advantage?
A. Delivering value to customers via competencies and competitive capabilities that rivals don't have or can't
afford to match
B. Incorporating features that raise product performance
C. Incorporating product attributes and user features that lower the buyer's overall costs of using the
company's product
D. Appealing to buyers who are sophisticated and shop hard for the best, stand-out differentiating attributes
Answer:d
A broad differentiation strategy generally produces the best results in situations where
A. Buyer brand loyalty is low
B. Buyer needs and uses of the product are diverse
C. New and improved products are introduced only infrequently
Answer:b
In which one of the following market circumstances is a broad differentiation strategy generally not well-
suited?
A. When buyer needs and preferences are too diverse to be fully satisfied by a standardized product
B. When few rivals are pursuing a similar differentiation approach
C. When the products of rivals are weakly differentiated and most competitors are resorting to clever
advertising to try to set their product offerings apart
Answer:c
Which of the following is not one of the pitfalls of pursuing a differentiation strategy?
A. Trying to strongly differentiate the company's product from those of rivals rather than be content with weak
product differentiation
B. Over-differentiating so that the features and attributes incorporated exceed buyer needs and requirements
C. Trying to charge too high a price premium for the differentiating features
Answer:a
Which one of the following statements about pursuing a broad differentiation strategy is false?
A. Any differentiating feature that works well is a magnet for imitators
B. The best opportunities for achieving strong product differentiation are in the production technology and
marketing portions of the value chain
C. A low-cost provider strategy can defeat a broad differentiation strategy when buyers are satisfied with a
basic product and don't think "extra" attributes are worth paying a higher price
Answer:b
Chapter 1: The Strategic Management Process
C. Price-sensitive buyers
Answer:a
Focused strategies keyed either to low-cost or differentiation are especially appropriate for situations where
A. The market is composed of distinctly different buyer groups who have different needs or use the product in
different ways
B. Most other rival firms are using a best-cost producer strategy
C. Buyers have strong bargaining power and entry barriers are low
Answer:a