college 2 & 3

Question 1

• Resource categories

Answer 1

o	Financial (cash retained earnings)
o	Physical (plant and equipment, location) 
o	Human ( skills and abilities)
o	Organizational (reporting structure, relationships)

Question 2

VRIO framework

Answer 2

value, rare, imitability, organizaition

Question 3

competitive dynamics

Answer 3

1. no response
2. change tactics
3. change strategy

Question 4

Tacit cooperation facilitators

Answer 4

• Small number of firms
• Homogeneous(= same kind) products and costs
• Market-share leader
• High barriers to entry

Question 5

BLS’s

Answer 5

cost leadership

product differentiation

Question 6

How to gain cost advantage

Answer 6

• Policy, learning curve, technological advantage, economies of scale, avoiding diseconomies of scale, low cost access to productive inputs

Question 7

Cost decreases due to volume

Answer 7

• Specialized machines, employee specialization, spreading of overhead, build larger plants

Question 8

Cost Increase due to production volume

Answer 8

• Physical limit to efficient size, managerial diseconomies, worker de-motivation, distance to markets and suppliers

Question 9

Differential low cost access to productive inputs

Answer 9

• Historical
• First mover advantages, first lock up the best sources
• Natural endowment / country/region differences

Question 10

Bases of differentiation

Answer 10

• Product attributes
• Firm – customer relationships
• Firm linkages

Question 11

Hard to imitate strategies

Answer 11

• Historical
• Explicit protection
• Causal ambiguity
• Social complexity

Question 12

industry life cycle

Answer 12

emerging, growth, mature, declining

Question 13

structure and controls for cost leadership

Answer 13

o Organizational structure
 Few layers, simple, focus on narrow range of functions
o Management
 Tight cost control, close supervision, quantit. Cost goals
o Compensation policies
 Rewards for cost reduction, incentives for employees

Question 14

strucutre and controls for product differentiation

Answer 14

o	Organizational structure
	Cross-divisional / cross functional
	Isolated teams
	Willing to explore new opportunities
o	Management
	Managerial freedom
	Less guidelines
	Policy of experimentation
o	Compensation policies
	Reward risks
	Multidimensional performance measures