Exam 3: The Internal Organization: Resources, Capabilities, Core Competencies, and Competitive Advantages

Valuable capabilities allow the firm to exploit strengths or neutralize weaknesses in the internal environment.

The most numerous of the following organizational characteristics are

Analyzing the internal environment enables a firm to determine what it might be able to do by identifying what opportunities exist.

Examples of support activities include all of the following EXCEPT

It is vital for firms to develop

If a firm has a service that is valuable, rare, and costly-to-imitate, but a substitute exists for the service, the firm will

Only capabilities that are valuable, common, costly to imitate, and substitutable can be strategic capabilities.

The sustainability of a competitive advantage depends upon the imitability of the core competence, the availability of substitutes for the core competence, and the rate of obsolescence of the core competence.

Gamma, Inc., has struggled for industry dominance with Ardent, Inc., its main competitor, for years. Gamma has gathered and analyzed large amounts of competitive intelligence about Ardent. It has observed as much of the firm's internal functioning and technology as it can legally, yet Gamma cannot understand why Ardent has a competitive advantage over it. The source of Ardent's success is

Firms and managers can learn from the failure resulting from a mistake-that is, what not to do when seeking competitive advantage.

Several months ago, a restaurant developed a new appetizer that is a hit with customers. Many customers go to the restaurant just for the appetizer and it was at the center of a recent highly positive review by a food critic. Preparation involves common ingredients and average culinary skills levels, but requires a very high oven temperature which significantly increases utility costs. Several competing restaurants have since added their own version of the appetizer to their menu. Which criteria for assessing capabilities/core competencies is met?

A global mind-set is free of the assumptions of a single country, culture, or context.

In the long run, if an organization does not change it will fail.

Acme Auto Repair has a thriving business based on its reputation for high-quality work, honesty, and skilled employees. For continued long-term success, Acme's owner should

In the global market, employees move freely from firm to firm, so they are not an important source of competitive advantage for the firm.

Once a core competence has been identified and perfected, it is forever a source of competitive advantage.

Capabilities that other firms cannot develop easily are classified as

____ of organizational decisions fail.

Managerial decisions concerning resources, capabilities, and core competencies are characterized by three conditions: ambiguity, interconnectivity, and intraorganizational agreement.

By exploiting their core competencies to meet or exceed the standards of global competition, firms create ____ for customers.