Chapter 3 - Terms

Question 1

Advocacy groups

Answer 1

concerned citizens who band together to try to influence the business practices of specific industries, businesses, and professions

Question 2

Behavioral addition

Answer 2

the process of having managers and employees perform new behaviors that are central to and symbolic of the new organizational culture that a company wants to create

Question 3

Behavioral substitution

Answer 3

the process of having managers and employees perform new behaviors central to the new organizational culture in place of behaviors that were central to the old organizational culture

Question 4

Business confidence indices

Answer 4

indices that show managers’ level of confidence about future business growth

Question 5

Buyer dependence

Answer 5

the degree to which a supplier relies on a buyer because of the importance of that buyer to the supplier and the difficulty of finding other buyers for its products

Question 6

Cognitive maps

Answer 6

graphic depictions of how managers believe environmental factors relate to possible organizational actions

Question 7

Company mission

Answer 7

a company’s purpose or reason for existing

Question 8

Competitive analysis

Answer 8

a process for monitoring the competition that involves identifying competition, anticipating their moves, and determining their strengths and weaknesses

Question 9

Competitors

Answer 9

companies in the same industry that sell similar products or services to customers

Question 10

Complex environment

Answer 10

an environment with many environmental factors

Question 11

Consistent organizational culture

Answer 11

a company culture in which the company actively defines and teaches organizational values, beliefs, and attitudes

Question 12

Dynamic environment

Answer 12

an environment in which the rate of change is fast

Question 13

Environmental change

Answer 13

the rate at which a company’s general and specific environments change

Question 14

Environmental complexity

Answer 14

the number and the intensity of external factors in the environment that affect organizations

Question 15

Environmental scanning

Answer 15

searching the environment for important events or issues that might affect an organization

Question 16

External environments

Answer 16

all events outside a company that have the potential to influence or affect it

Question 17

General environment

Answer 17

the economic, technological, sociocultural, and political/legal trends that indirectly affect all organizations

Question 18

Industry regulation

Answer 18

regulations and rules that govern the business practices and procedures of specific industries, businesses, and professions

Question 19

Internal environment

Answer 19

the events and trends inside an organization that affect management, employees, and organizational culture

Question 20

Media advocacy

Answer 20

an advocacy group tactic that involves framing issues as public issues; exposing questionable, exploitative, or unethical practices; and forcing media coverage by buying media time or creating controversy that is likely to receive extensive news coverage

Question 21

Opportunistic behavior

Answer 21

a transaction in which one party in the relationship benefits at the expense of the other

Question 22

Organizational ceremonies

Answer 22

gatherings in which symbolic acts commemorate or celebrate notable achievements or changes

Question 23

Organizational culture

Answer 23

the values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by organizational members

Question 24

Organizational heroes

Answer 24

people celebrated for their qualities and achievements within an organization

Question 25

Organizational stories

Answer 25

stories told by organizational members to make sense of organizational events and changes and to emphasize culturally consistent assumptions, decisions, and actions

Question 26

Product boycott

Answer 26

an advocacy group tactic that involves protesting a company’s actions by persuading consumers not to purchase its product or service

Question 27

Public communications

Answer 27

an advocacy group tactic that relies on voluntary participation by the news media and the advertising industry to get the advocacy group’s message out

Question 28

Punctuated equilibrium theory

Answer 28

the theory that companies go through long periods of stability (equilibrium), followed by short periods of dynamic, fundamental change (revolutionary periods), and then a new equilibrium

Question 29

Relationship behavior

Answer 29

the establishment of mutually beneficial, long-term exchanges between buyers and suppliers

Question 30

Resource scarcity

Answer 30

the abundance or shortage of critical organizational resources in an organization’s external environment

Question 31

Simple environment

Answer 31

an environment with few environmental factors

Question 32

Specific environment

Answer 32

the customers, competitors, suppliers, industry regulations, and advocacy groups that are unique to an industry and directly affect how a company does business

Question 33

Stable environment

Answer 33

an environment in which the rate of change is slow

Question 34

Supplier dependence

Answer 34

the degree to which a company relies on a supplier because of the importance of the supplier’s product to the company and the difficulty of finding other sources of that product

Question 35

Suppliers

Answer 35

companies that provide material, human, financial, and informational resources to other companies

Question 36

Technology

Answer 36

the knowledge, tools, and techniques used to transform inputs into outputs

Question 37

Uncertainty

Answer 37

extent to which managers can understand or predict which environmental changes and trends will affect their businesses

Question 38

Visible artifacts

Answer 38

visible signs of an organization’s culture, such as the office design and layout, company dress code, and company benefits and perks, such as stock options, personal parking spaces, or the private company dining room