Deck 4: Strategy and Innovation

Question 1

______ is usually defined as the creation of novelty that provides economic value through the creation of new products and services.

A) Invention
B) Innovation
C) Managerial sophistication
D) all of these

Answer 1

B

Question 2

According to Marceau, innovation often requires:

A) the establishment of new work practices
B) money
C) a change of the CEO
D) all of these

Answer 2

A

Question 3

______ is often confused with or mistaken for ______.

A) Innovation/invention
B) New product development/organizational change
C) Change/innovation
D) Invention/managerial change

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The smartphone and the iPad are both examples of:

A) new inventions
B) new brands
C) innovations
D) none of these

Question 5

Innovation often or always involves:

A) money
B) a supporting organizational structure and ethos
C) learning
D) all of these

Question 6

______ means doing new things.

A) Product innovation
B) Service invention
C) Improvisation
D) None of these

Question 7

______ fundamentally changes the products offered.

A) Severe invention
B) Total elimination
C) Radical innovation
D) Rapid invention

Question 8

A ______ is defined as an evolving ecosystem that is created from many interconnected pieces.

A) platform
B) mechanism
C) structure
D) management style

Question 9

According to Schumpeter, which notion describes the 'process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one'?

A) creative absorption
B) creative imaginary
C) creative destruction
D) none of these

Question 10

According to Christensen, what is the reason that sustaining technologies do not produce innovation?

A) They improve the performance of existing products rather than replace them.
B) They need more investment.
C) They are obsolete.
D) all of these

Question 11

Disruptive technologies may result in worse performance (at least in the short term) for:

A) new products
B) existing products
C) services
D) firms

Question 12

Innovation is learning either how to make different things or how to make things differently. The first of these is ______ innovation; the second is ______ innovation.

A) product/process
B) process/product
C) managerial/organizational
D) organizational/managerial

Question 13

______ innovation makes small and continuous improvements to an existing product.

A) Radical
B) Revolutionary
C) Incremental
D) None of these

Question 14

What do we call those companies that control, or at least shape, the structure of overarching systems architecture?

A) platform leaders
B) industry leaders
C) senior architect firms
D) market leaders

Question 15

According to Wirtz et al., which environment is characterized by 'rapid, discontinuous and simultaneous change in demand, competitors, technology and regulation'?

A) high-velocity
B) disproportionate
C) external
D) internal

Question 16

Innovative strategy is not an event or a plan but a continuous process of being alert. In which environment does this mostly stand true?

A) in a stable environment
B) in a foreign environment
C) in a high-velocity environment
D) none of these

Question 17

What do Tidd and Bessant propose as a way of supplementing the problems of the rationalist approach?

A) incremental design
B) discontinuous approach
C) rapid discontinuity
D) revolutionary approach

Question 18

Kamoche and Cunha define ______ as 'the conception of action as it unfolds, by an organization and/or its members, drawing on available material, cognitive, affective and social resources'.

A) organizational design
B) innovation
C) management creativity
D) organizational improvisation

Question 19

According to Weick, what characterizes just-in-time strategies?

A) less investment in front-end loading
B) more investment in general knowledge
C) sophistication in cutting losses
D) all of these

Question 20

According to Mintzberg, why can't the innovative organization rely on deliberate strategy?

A) it is expensive
B) it is difficult
C) it must respond to a complex, unpredictable environment
D) all of these

Question 21

In what environment can companies not rely on planning years ahead but rather need experimentation to stay abreast of innovation?

A) in a macroeconomic environment
B) in a competitive environment
C) in a high-velocity environment
D) in a stable environment

Question 22

What strategy posits that firms must predetermine precise patterns in their activities and then impose them on their work through some kind of formal planning process?

A) deliberate strategy
B) formal strategy
C) intended strategy
D) both formal strategy and intended strategy

Question 23

What is an advantage of large, well-resourced firms in their attempts to innovate?

A) They can easily acquire innovative new and small firms.
B) They have more creative people.
C) Both they can easily acquire innovative new and small firms and they have more creative people.
D) none of these

Question 24

What is an advantage of small firms in their attempts to innovate?

A) They are more creative.
B) They will be better able to take risks, which innovation always entails.
C) They do not care that much about the consequences of their actions.
D) none of these

Question 25

An 'ambidextrous' organization is one which:

A) knows how to innovate
B) focuses simultaneously on its stable routines that serve existing markets and on innovation
C) taps into 'left-brain' and 'right-brain' thinking
D) employs senior managers who think outside the box

Question 26

What is an advantage of small firms in their attempts to innovate?

A) They are often closer to their customers.
B) They have high levels of creativity.
C) Both they are often closer to their customers and they have high levels of creativity.
D) Small firms do not have advantages over large firms regarding innovation.

Question 27

Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO, defines ______ as innovation that is 'powered by a thorough understanding, through direct observation, of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular products are made, packaged, marketed, sold and supported'.

A) market research
B) product development
C) design thinking
D) platform strategy

Question 28

According to Tim Brown, design thinking as a process involves which of the following characteristics?

A) understanding the motivation behind the search for a solution
B) the process of creating, developing and testing ideas
C) a movement between a and b
D) all of the above

Question 29

According to organization theorist Deborah Dougherty, a 'design science' framework identifies which of the following as properties of a large and complex innovative organization?

A) fluidity
B) integrity
C) energy
D) all of these

Question 30

According to Deborah Dougherty, ______ refers to ongoing, dynamic adaptations in product teams, among businesses, and within and across technologies and other capabilities.

A) integrity
B) fluidity
C) energy
D) organizational change

Question 31

According to Dougherty, ______ means that an organization prizes integration both as a principle structuring thought and action and as an outcome of that thought and action.

A) energy
B) fluidity
C) integrity
D) organizational change

Question 32

According to Dougherty, ______ means that innovative organizations need continually to energize, enable and motivate people.

A) energy
B) fluidity
C) integrity
D) organizational change

Question 33

______ create specialist sub-units with unique processes, structures and cultures that are specifically intended to support early-stage innovation, comprising one or more innovation teams within the larger parent organization.

A) Ambidextrous organizations
B) Strategic business units
C) Corporations
D) Heterarchical organizations

Question 34

According to Maguire, Hardy and Lawrence, how do institutional entrepreneurs help establish new (and sometimes challenge old) institutions in the process of their activities?

A) stretching human resources
B) leveraging resources to create new institutions or to transform existing ones
C) integrating human and financial resources
D) through inter-functional co-ordination

Question 35

______ innovation systems are composed of different patterns of institutions and organizational relationships.

A) National
B) Inter-functional
C) Foreign
D) Network-based

Question 36

According to Bessant and Tsekouras, the advantages of shared learning include:

A) potential for learning and reflection from different perspectives
B) shared experimentation, which can reduce cost risks
C) shared experiences which offer space for discussion and inquiry
D) all of these

Question 37

______ is the creation of a new management practice, process or structure that changes the state of the art.

A) Administrative change
B) Management innovation
C) Organizational restructuring
D) All terms above denote the same thing

Question 38

According to Chesbrough and Appleyard, which of the following are strategies that organizations can employ to benefit from open innovation?

A) deployment
B) hybridization
C) self-service
D) all of these