Question 1

Which of the following statements about developing organizational competencies and capabilities is FALSE?

Accepted Answer

A)  Core competencies or capabilities are most often bundles of skills and know-how that grow out of the combined efforts of cross-functional work groups and departments performing complementary activities at different locations in a firm's value chain. 
B)  Evolving changes in customer needs and competitive conditions often require tweaking and adjusting a company's portfolio of competencies and intellectual capital to keep its capabilities freshly honed and on the cutting edge. 
C)  Normally, core competencies and competitive capabilities emerge incrementally as a company (1) acts to bolster skills that contributed to earlier successes, or (2) acts to respond to customer problems, new technological or market opportunities, and the competitive maneuvers of rivals. 
D)  Building organizational capabilities is best and most cost-effectively accomplished by hiring a cadre of people with the right talent and expertise, putting them together in a single work group, and then teaming the work group with key strategic allies/partners to mesh the skills, expertise, and competencies needed to perform the desired capabilities with some proficiency. 
E)  The key to leveraging a core competence into a distinctive competence (or transforming a capability into a competitively superior capability) is concentrating more effort and talent than rivals on deepening and strengthening the competence or capability so as to achieve the dominance needed for competitive advantage.

Question 2

The classic way to coordinate the work efforts of internal organization units is to:

Accepted Answer

A)  establish a corporate culture where teamwork is a core value and decisions are made by general consensus among team leaders in the affected work units. 
B)  have closely related activities report to a single executive who has the authority and organizational clout to coordinate, integrate, and arrange for the cooperation of units under their supervision. 
C)  have the heads of support activities report to the heads of primary, strategy-critical activities. 
D)  establish monetary incentives that reward people for being cooperative team players. 
E)  have frequent meetings among the heads of closely related activities and work units to establish mutually agreeable deadlines.

Question 3

Which of the following is part of strategy-supportive resources and capabilities?

Accepted Answer

A)  Recruiting and retaining talented employees 
B)  Instituting organizational arrangements 
C)  Establishing lines of authority 
D)  Creating reporting relationships 
E)  Deciding how much authority to delegate

Question 4

Which of the following is a disadvantage of a decentralized organizational structure?

Accepted Answer

A)  Increasing the size of the corporate bureaucracy 
B)  Reducing a company's response times to changing external events 
C)  Discouraging lower-level managers and rank-and-file employees from exercising initiative 
D)  Putting the organization at risk if higher-level management is unaware of their actions 
E)  Creating more layers of management

Question 5

A company must do all of the following to match structure to strategy EXCEPT:

Accepted Answer

A)  choose a basic organizational design and modify it to fit the company's particular business. 
B)  supplement the design structure with coordinating mechanisms. 
C)  institute networking and communication arrangements to support strategy execution. 
D)  set up "ideal" organizational arrangements despite having to disturb existing relationships. 
E)  knit the efforts of outsourced groups together.

Question 6

Explain what is involved in building capabilities internally.What steps are required? How much time does it take? How hard is it? Support your answer.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Explain what is involved in building capabilities...

Question 7

Which of the following is generally NOT among the common practices that companies use to staff jobs with talented people,particularly if intellectual capital greatly aids good strategy execution?

Accepted Answer

A)  Careful screening and evaluation of job applicants, along with continuous training and retraining programs for employees that continue throughout their careers 
B)  Rotating people through jobs that not only have great content but also span functional and geographic boundaries 
C)  Eliminating the bottom 10 percent of the lowest-performing employees each year to increase the overall quality performance metrics to above-average industry standards 
D)  Encouraging employees to challenge existing ways of doing things, to be creative and innovative in proposing better ways of operating, and to push their ideas for new products or businesses 
E)  Fostering a stimulating and engaging work environment such that employees will consider the company a great place to work

Question 8

Which of the following statements about recruiting and retaining capable employees is FALSE?

Accepted Answer

A)  The quality of an organization's people is always an essential ingredient if critical value chain activities are to be performed competently. 
B)  Recruiting and retaining capable employees is a particularly important organization-building task in enterprises where superior intellectual capital is a key resource and also a basis for competitive advantage. 
C)  Recruiting and retaining capable employees are usually much more important to good strategy execution and the achievement of true operating excellence than is assembling a capable top management team. 
D)  It is very difficult for a company to competently execute its strategy and achieve operating excellence without a large band of capable employees who are actively engaged in the process of making ongoing operating improvements. 
E)  In many industries, adding to a company's talent base and building intellectual capital is more important to good strategy execution than additional investments in plants, equipment, and capital projects.

Question 9

Executing strategy is a make-things-happen task that tests a manager's ability to perform all of the following EXCEPT:

Accepted Answer

A)  manage the people, talents, and business processes of an operations-driven activities company. 
B)  direct organizational change and achieve continuous improvement in operations and business processes. 
C)  create and nurture a strategy-supportive culture. 
D)  meet or beat performance targets consistently. 
E)  focus on market conditions and the company's resources and capabilities.

Question 10

Diversified companies striving to capture the benefits of synergy between separate businesses have to be aware of all of the following challenges EXCEPT:

Accepted Answer

A)  giving business-unit heads full rein to operate independently. 
B)  having pieces of strategically relevant activities and capabilities scattered across many departments, with each pursuing its own priorities, projects, and agendas. 
C)  centralizing performance of functions requiring close coordination at the functional level. 
D)  serving the interests of individual businesses and not the company as a whole. 
E)  forming cross-business strategic fit by enforcing close collaboration.

Question 11

While ultimate responsibility for implementing and executing strategy falls upon the shoulders of senior executives:

Accepted Answer

A)  top-level managers still have to rely on the active support and cooperation of middle and lower-level managers in pushing needed changes in functional areas and operating units. 
B)  the pivotal and most decisive strategy-implementing actions are carried out by frontline supervisors who have the day-to-day responsibility of seeing that key activities are done properly. 
C)  it is a company's employees who most determine whether the drive for good strategy execution will succeed or fail. 
D)  the success or failure of the implementation/execution effort hinges chiefly on doing an effective job of empowering employees to make day-to-day operating decisions that support good strategy execution. 
E)  the success or failure of the implementation/execution effort hinges chiefly on a company's reward system and whether its policies and procedures are strategy-supportive.

Question 12

When an organization is referred to as a line and staff structure or a flat structure,it is normally considered:

Accepted Answer

A)  a simple structure. 
B)  a functional structure. 
C)  a matrix structure. 
D)  a multidivisional structure. 
E)  a departmental structure.

Question 13

In companies where intellectual capital is crucial to good strategy execution,which of the following is generally NOT among the practices companies use to establish a talented knowledge base?

Accepted Answer

A)  Providing promising employees with challenging, interesting, and skill-stretching assignments and also rotating them through jobs that not only have great content but also span functional and geographic boundaries 
B)  Providing employees promotions, salary increases, performance bonuses, stock options, and other perks 
C)  Coaching underperformers and benchwarmers to improve their skills and capabilities 
D)  Encouraging employees to challenge existing ways of doing things, to be creative and innovative in proposing better ways of operating, and to push their ideas for new products or businesses 
E)  Fostering a stimulating and engaging work environment such that employees will consider the company a great place to work

Question 14

Core competencies and competitive capabilities are usually:

Accepted Answer

A)  lodged in the narrow skills and specialized work efforts of a single department, as opposed to the combined expertise and capabilities of specialists scattered across several departments. 
B)  observed to stem from collaborative efforts with strategic allies. 
C)  bundles of skills and know-how that most often grow out of the collaborative efforts of cross-functional work groups and departments performing complementary activities at different locations in a firm's value chain. 
D)  found to result in competitive advantage when they involve highly specific technologies and are grounded in a company's own deep technical expertise. 
E)  built rapidly, usually in conjunction with important product innovations.

Question 15

Which of the following is TRUE of the capability building process?

Accepted Answer

A)  It requires two things: (1) developing the ability to do something, however imperfectly or inefficiently, and (2) molding these efforts into an organizational ability and as experience grows and personnel perform the activity consistently well and at an acceptable cost, it is transformed into a tried-and-true competence and as they continue to polish and refine their know-how into further improvements, they then create a real competitive capability. 
B)  It entails (1) deciding which value chain activities to perform internally and which ones to outsource; and (2) deciding how much authority to centralize at the top and how much to delegate to down-the-line managers and employees. 
C)  It is essential (1) when the company does not have the ability to create the needed capability internally (perhaps because it is too far afield from its existing capabilities), and (2) when industry conditions, technology, or competitors are moving at such a rapid clip that time is of the essence. 
D)  It involves (1) staffing the organization with people capable of executing the strategy well, (2) developing the resources and building the organizational capabilities needed for successful strategy execution, and (3) creating an organizational structure supportive of the strategy execution process. 
E)  It must (1) supplement the design with appropriate coordinating mechanisms, and (2) institute whatever networking and communications arrangements are necessary to support effective execution of the firm's strategy.

Question 16

A decentralized organizational structure is more likely to further the cause of good strategy execution than is a centralized organization structure.True or false? Justify your answer.

Accepted Answer

The answer of A decentralized organizational structure is more likely...

Question 17

Ultimate responsibility for seeing that a strategy is executed successfully primarily falls upon the shoulders of:

Accepted Answer

A)  a company's chief executive officer, its chief operating officer, and the heads of major units (business divisions, functional departments, and key operating units). 
B)  first-line supervisors who have the day-to-day responsibility of seeing that key value chain activities are done properly. 
C)  the company's board of directors because board members are the final authority in overseeing and conducting daily operations. 
D)  a company's whole management team-each manager is responsible for attending to what needs to be done in his/her respective area of authority and thus should be held accountable for the strategy's success or failure. 
E)  all company personnel because all employees are active participants in the strategy execution process and the caliber of their actions have a huge impact on the ultimate outcome.

Question 18

A firm's organizational structure is comprised of:

Accepted Answer

A)  resource strengths and competitive capabilities that allow it to incorporate attributes at lower costs than rivals whose products have similar attributes. 
B)  the formal and informal arrangement of tasks, responsibilities, lines of authority, and reporting relationships by which the firm is administered. 
C)  excellent marketing and sales skills to convince buyers to pay a premium price for the attributes/features incorporated in its product. 
D)  sustainable distinctive competencies to ensure cost reduction and competitiveness. 
E)  a number of independent functional units involved in some common undertaking, with one unit typically in a more central role.

Question 19

Which of the following is NOT a reason why companies might use outsourcing to improve performance of strategy-critical activities?

Accepted Answer

A)  Improving a company's chances for outclassing rivals in the performance of strategy-critical activities and turning a core competence into a distinctive competence 
B)  Promoting quick establishment of a total quality culture 
C)  Speeding internal decision making and shortening the time it takes to respond to changing market conditions 
D)  Capitalizing on the partnerships with outsiders to enhance its arsenal of capabilities and thus contribute to better strategy execution 
E)  Helping decrease internal bureaucracies and flatten the organizational structure

Question 20

Which of the following statements about implementing and executing a new strategy is true?

Accepted Answer

A)  Executing strategy calls for essentially the same kinds of creative management talent and innovative thinking as does crafting strategy. 
B)  Executing strategy is chiefly a financially driven process aimed at squeezing the most profit out of conducting daily operations. 
C)  Executing strategy is a job for a company's whole management team, not just a few senior managers. 
D)  Executing strategy depends heavily on the caliber of a CEO's business vision, industry and competitive analysis skills, and entrepreneurial creativity. 
E)  Executing strategy tends to be a simpler, quicker management task to perform as compared to crafting a winning strategy.

Exam 10: Building an Organization Capable of Good Strategy Execution