Exam Review Flashcards

1
Q

What is strategy?

A
  • a set of goal-directed actions a firm takes to gain & sustain superior performance relative to competitors
  • where, how, and what to compete with
  • it is a pattern/plan that integrates an organization’s major goals, policies, and action sequences into a cohesive whole
    – The outcome of the strategic management process.
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2
Q

What is the strategic management process?

A
  • lays the foundation for sustainable competitive advantage.
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3
Q

When setting the strategy process, strategic leaders rely on what three approaches?

A
  1. strategic planning
  2. scenario planning
  3. strategy as planned emergence
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4
Q

If a company wants to gain competitive advantage in a competitive industry, what should it do?

A
  • firm must provide EITHER
    1. goods or services consumers value more highly than those of its competitors
    2. OR goods or services similar to the competitors’ at a lower price
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5
Q

What’s the first step in gaining a competitive advantage?

A
  • strategic leaders have a strong influence in setting an organization’s vision, mission, and values
    – Part 1 of AFI framework: Analyzing
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6
Q

What are strategic commitments?

A
  • firm actions that are costly, long term oriented, and difficult to reverse which back up the firm’s strategy.
    – if firms make strategic commitments to compete in a industry, rivalry among competitors is likely to be more intense
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7
Q

What is a product oriented vision statement?

A
  • defines a business in terms of a good or service provided
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8
Q

What is a customer oriented vision statement?

A
  • defines a business in terms of providing solutions to customer needs
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9
Q

Why is it better for firms to keep their vision statements customer oriented rather than product oriented?

A

a company can more easily adapt to changing environments

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10
Q

What is the advantage of a product oriented vision statement?

A
  • forces managers to take a more myopic (short sighted) view of the competitive landscape
  • can be an advantage to ‘unify’ a team and improve organizational effectiveness for product development short term
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11
Q

How do strong ethical values benefit a firm?

A
  • ethical standards and norms underlay the vision statement and provide stability to strategy, thus laying the groundwork for long-term success
    – once the company is pursuing its vision and mission in its quest for competitive advantage, they serve as guard rails to keep the company on track
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12
Q

What is strategic leadership?

A
  • executives’ use of power and influence to direct the activities of others when pursuing an organization’s goals
    – their support of the vision leads to competitive advantage
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13
Q

What are the 5 levels of the leadership pyramid?

A
  • executive
  • effective leader
  • competent manager
  • contributing team member
  • highly capable individual
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14
Q

What’s a level 5 manager?

A

executive

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15
Q

What’s the difference between corporate & business strategy?

A
  • Corporate: where to compete as to industry / markets / geography
  • Business: how to compete. Three generic business strategies are available: 1. cost leadership, 2. differentiation, 3. value innovation
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16
Q

What is corporate strategy?

A
  • involves decisions that senior management makes and the actions it takes in the quest for competitive advantage
    – it concerns the scope of the firm, which determines the boundaries of the firm along the industry value chain, products and services, and geography
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17
Q

What are the functions of general managers in strategic business units?

A
  • they must answer business strategy questions relating to how to compete in order to achieve superior performance
    – must manage and align the firm’s different functional areas for competitive advantage
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18
Q

What are the different types of strategies? (application)

A
  1. intended
  2. unrealized
  3. bottom-up
  4. realized
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19
Q

What is intended strategy?

A
  • a top-down strategic plan, the outcome of a rational and structured, top-down strategic plan
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20
Q

What is unrealized strategy?

A
  • the result of unpredictable events
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21
Q

What is bottom-up strategy?

A
  • describes any unplanned strategic initiative bubbling up from deep within the organization
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22
Q

What is realized strategy?

A
  • generally formulated through a combination of its top-down strategic intentions and bottom-up emergent strategy
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23
Q

What does a good stakeholder strategy look like?

A
  • an integrative approach to managing a diverse set of stakeholders effectively to gain and sustain competitive advantage
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24
Q

What are the 5 stages of stakeholder impact analysis?

A
  • identify stakeholders
  • identify stakeholders’ interests
  • identify opportunities and threats
  • identify social responsibilities
  • address stakeholder concerns
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25
Q

What are the different kinds of responsibilities of a firm? (economic responsibility)

A
  • gain & sustain a competitive advantage
  • investors expect an adequate return for their risk capital
  • creditors expect the firm to repay its debt
  • consumers expect safe products and services at appropriate prices & quality
  • suppliers expect to be paid in full and on time
  • governments expect the firm to pay taxes and manage natural resources such as air and water under decent stewardship
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26
Q

What are some of the external forces in a firm’s task environment?

A
  • ones that managers do have some influences over, such as the composition of their strategic groups (a set of close rivals) or the structure of the industry
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27
Q

What is the PESTEL framework for the external environment?

A
  • Political
  • Economic
  • Sociocultural
  • Technological
  • Ecological
  • Legal
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28
Q

Political (PESTEL analysis)

A
  • the processes and actions of government bodies that can influence the decisions and behavior of firms
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29
Q

Economic (PESTEL analysis)

A
  • external environment are largely macroeconomic, affecting economy wide phenomena
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30
Q

Sociocultural (PESTEL analysis)

A
  • capture a society’s cultures, norms, and values
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31
Q

Technological (PESTEL analysis)

A
  • capture the application of knowledge to create new processes and products
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32
Q

Ecological (PESTEL analysis)

A
  • broad environmental issues such as natural environment, global warming, and sustainable economic growth
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33
Q

Legal (PESTEL analysis)

A
  • the official outcomes of political processes as manifested in laws, mandates, regulations, and courts
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34
Q

How is the task environment different from the general environment?

A
  • both are external factors, but managers have some influence over a task environment, and they do not in a general environment
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35
Q

Economies of scale are cost advantages that accrue to firms with _____?

A

larger output
- because they can spread fixed costs over more units, employ technology more efficiently, benefit from a more specialized division of labor, and demand better terms from their suppliers

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36
Q

What are Porter’s 5 forces?

A
  1. threat of entry
  2. power of suppliers
  3. power of buyers
  4. threat of substitutes
  5. rivalry among existing competitors
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37
Q

How are cumulative learning and experience effects of a company most likely to affect the 5 forces?

A
  • threat of new entrants will be low
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38
Q

What are the drawbacks of the 5 forces model?

A
  1. only a point-in-time snapshot of a moving target (static model, NOT dynamic)
  2. one cannot determine the changing speed of an industry or the rate of innovation
  3. must repeat analysis over time to create a more accurate picture of their industry
  4. must also consider industry dynamics
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39
Q
  • What is true of strategic groups?
A
  • the set of companies that pursue a similar strategy within a specific industry
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40
Q

What are the differences between tangible and intangible resources?

A
  • Tangible: physical attributes (land, capital, labor, buildings) and can be bought on the open market; physical attributes and can be sold on an open market
  • Intangible: no physical attributes (culture, knowledge, reputation) and cannot be bought on the open market
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41
Q

What are the different types of resource characteristics?

A
  1. resource heterogeneity
  2. resource immobility
  3. resource substitution
  4. costly-to-imitate resource
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42
Q

What is resource heterogeneity?

A
  • bundle of resources and capabilities that differ across firms
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43
Q

What is resource immobility?

A
  • resources tend to be “sticky” and don’t move easily from firm to firm
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44
Q

What is resource substitution?

A
  • unable to develop or buy at a REASONABLE price
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45
Q

What is costly-to-imitate resource?

A
  • one of the 4 key criteria in the VRIO framework
  • resource is costly to imitate if firms that do not possess the resource are unable to develop or buy the resource at a comparable cost
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46
Q

What are high entry barriers? What do they look like?

A

factors that can prevent or impede newcomers into a market or industry sector, and so limit competition. These can include high start-up costs, regulatory hurdles, or other obstacles that prevent new competitors from easily entering a business sector.
- economies of sale
- network effects
- customer switching costs
- capital requirements
- advantages independent of size
- government policy
- credible threat of retaliation

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47
Q

What is resource-based view of competition?

A
  • a model that sees certain types of resources as key to superior firm performance
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48
Q

What is perfect competition?

A
  • a perfectly competitive industry is fragmented and has many small firms, a commodity product, ease of entry, and little / no ability for each individual firm to raise its prices
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49
Q

How are the assumptions of the resource-based view different from perfect competition?

A
  • in perfect competition, all firms have access to the same resources and capabilities, ensuring that one firm’s advantage will be short-lived
  • when resources are freely available and mobile, competitors can quickly acquire the same resources that the current market leader utilizes
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50
Q

What are the different components of the resource-based view? - VRIO framework

A
  1. valuable
  2. rare
  3. costly to imitate
  4. firm must be organized to capture the value of the resource
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51
Q

What are the other characteristics of competitive advantage?

A
  1. path dependence
  2. casual ambiguity
  3. social complexity
  4. better expectations
  5. IP protection
52
Q

Competitive advantage characteristic: Path dependence

A
  • describes a process in which the options in a current situation are limited by decisions made in the past
  • often, early events-sometimes even random ones-significantly affect outcomes
53
Q

Competitive advantage characteristic: Casual ambiguity

A
  • describes a situation in which the cause and effect of a phenomenon are not readily apparent
54
Q

Competitive advantage characteristic: Social complexity

A
  • describes situations in which different social and business systems interact
  • there is frequently no casual ambiguity about how individual systems such as supply chain management or new product development work in isolation
55
Q

Competitive advantage characteristic: Better expectations

A
  • better expectations of the future value of a resource allow a firm to gain a competitive advantage
  • if these better expectations can be systematically repeated over time, they can help a firm develop sustainable competitive advantage
56
Q

Competitive advantage characteristic: IP protection

A
  • critical intangible resource (patents, designs, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets)
57
Q
  • What makes a valuable resource difficult to imitate?
A
  • cost
  • uniqueness
  • path dependency
  • casual ambiguity
  • social complexity
58
Q

What is true of a resource stock?

A
  • the firm’s current level of intangible resources
59
Q

How do you use the value chain to think about competitive advantage?

A
  • a firm’s activities are one of the key internal drivers of performance differences across firms
  • activities are distinct actions that enable firms to add incremental value at each step by transforming inputs into goods and services
  • to help a firm achieve competitive advantage, each distinct activity performed needs to either add incremental value to the product or service offering or lower its relative cost
60
Q

What is SWOT analysis? be able to identify

A
  1. Strengths
  2. Weakness
  3. Opportunities
  4. Threat
61
Q

What is core rigidity?

A
  • a former core competency that turned into a liability because the firm failed to hone, refine and upgrade the competency as the environment changed
62
Q
  • Know what examples of what constitutes the different resources a firm could have
A
  • any asset that a firm can draw on when formulating and implementing a strategy
63
Q

What are the different financial ratios?

A
  1. return on revenue
  2. cost of goods sold
  3. revenue resource development
  4. expense revenue
64
Q

Financial ratios: know the different components & where they show up: return on revenue

A
  • net profit/revenue
    – profitability ratio
65
Q

Financial ratios: know the different components & where they show up: cost of goods sold

A
  • starting inventory + purchases - ending inventory
    – income statement
66
Q
  • Financial ratios: know the different components & where they show up: revenue resource development
A
67
Q
  • Financial ratios: know the different components & where they show up: expense revenue
A
68
Q

What is true of accounting data?

A
  • all accounting data are historical and thus backward-looking
69
Q

What is good/bad about accounting data?

A
  • do NOT consider off-balance sheet items
  • accounting data focuses on mainly tangible assets, which are no longer the most important
70
Q
  • What does the return on risk capital include?
A
  • from an investors’ or shareholders perspective, the measure of competitive advantage that matters the most
  • -stock price appreciation plus dividends received over a specific period.
71
Q

What is market capitalization?

A
  • a firm performance metric that captures the total dollar market value of a company’s total outstanding shares at any given point in time
72
Q

How do you compute market capitalization?

A
  • # of shares outstanding * stock price
73
Q

What are opportunity costs?

A
  • value of the best forgone alternative use of the resources employed
  • example: you spend time and money going to a movie, you cannot spend that time at home reading a book, and you can’t spend the money on something else.
74
Q

What is economic value created?

A
  • difference between value (V) and cost (C)
    – (V-C)
75
Q

What is reservation price?

A
  • the maximum price a consumer is willing to pay for a product or service based on the total perceived consumer benefits
76
Q

What are the advantages of a balanced scorecard?

A
  • communicate and link the strategic vision to responsible parties within the organization
  • translate the vision into measurable operational goals
  • design and plan business processes
  • implement feedback and organizational learning to modify and adapt strategic goals when indicated
77
Q

What is accounting profitability approach to valuing?

A
  • using financial data and ratios derived from publicly available accounting data such as income statements and balance sheets
  • accurately assessing the performance of their firm and benchmarking their firm’s performance their firm’s performance to competitors is key
78
Q

What is economic value created approach?

A
  • difference between a buyer’s willingness to pay for a product / service and the firm’s total cost to produce
79
Q

What is triple bottom line approach?

A
  • combination of economic, social, and ecological concerns (or profits, people and planet) that can lead to a sustainable strategy
80
Q

What is balanced scorecard?

A
  • strategy implementation tool that harnesses multiple internal and external performance metrics to balance financial and strategic goals
81
Q

What is a subscription-based model?

A
  • users pay for access to a product or service whether they use the product or service during the payment term or not
82
Q

What are the subscription-based strategies?

A
  1. razor/razorblades
  2. pay as you go
  3. freemium
  4. wholesale
  5. agency
  6. bundling
83
Q

What is the razor / razor blade model?

A
  • initial product is often sold at a loss or given away for free to drive demand for complimentary goods
84
Q

What is the pay-as-you-go model?

A
  • users pay for only the services they consume
    – you pay whenever you need it and are charged a premium for the use of it
    – example: water
85
Q

What is the freemium model?

A
  • free for basic, upgrades for premium features or add-ons
86
Q

What is the wholesale model?

A
  • sell products to retailers at a fixed price
    – retailers are free to set their own price on any product and profit from the difference
87
Q

What is the agency model?

A
  • the producer relies on an agent or retailer to sell the product, at a predetermined percentage commission
    – the producer may also control the retail price
88
Q

What is the bundling model?

A
  • sells product/service for which demand is negatively correlated at a discount
    – demand for two products is negatively correlated if a user values one product more than another
89
Q

What is strategic trade-off?

A
  • choices between a cost or value position
  • such choices are necessary because higher value creation tends to generate higher cost
90
Q
  • What do we mean by a generic business strategy?
A
  1. Differentiation- seeks to create higher value for customers than the value that competitors create
  2. Cost Leadership- seeks to create the same or similar value for customers by delivering products or services at a lower cost than competitors
  3. Value innovation- ?
91
Q

Generic business strategy: what are cost drivers?

A
  • the direct cause of a business expense
  • a cost driver is any activity that triggers a cost of something else
92
Q

Generic business strategy: what are value drivers?

A
  • unique features that will increase the perceived value of goods and services in the minds of consumers
93
Q

What are the different kinds of economies?

A
  1. economies of scale
  2. economies of scope
  3. time compression diseconomies
94
Q

What is economies of scale?

A
  • decreases in cost/unit as outcome increases (+)
95
Q

What is economics of scope?

A
  • savings that come from producing 2+ outputs at less cost than producing them individually, despite using the same resources and technology
96
Q

What is time compression diseconomies?

A
  • costs often increase exponentially when companies attempt to build a new competence in a shorter amount of time than it usually takes
97
Q

Generic strategies: what is differentiation strategy?

A
  • seeks to create higher value for customers than the value that competitors create
  • these firms attempt to deliver products or services with unique features while keeping costs at the same or similar levels, allowing them to charge higher prices to their customers
  • the focus of competition in a differentiation strategy tends to be on unique product features, services, new product launches, and on marketing and promotion rather than price
98
Q

Generic strategies: what is cost leadership strategy?

A
  • seeks to create the same or similar value for customers by delivering products or services at a lower cost than competitors
  • this enables the firm to offer lower prices to its customers
  • attempts to optimize all of its value chain activities to achieve a low-cost position
99
Q

Integration-type strategy: what’s it doing & what’s it called?

A
  • horizontal integration: the process of merging with competitors, leading to industry consolidation
    – you do this if the target firm is worth more inside your firm
100
Q

What are some benefits of horizontal integration?

A
  • lower costs: through economies of scale
  • reductions in competitive intensity: changes the underlying industry structure in favor of the surviving firms. Excess capacity is taken out of the market, and competition tends to decrease as a consequence of horizontal integration, assuming no new entrants
  • increased differentiation: horizontal integration can do this by filling gaps in a firm’s product offering, allowing the combined entity to offer a complete suite of products and services
101
Q

What are some examples of horizontal integration?

A
  • Facebook buying Instagram
  • Disney buying Pixar
  • Exxon buying Mobil
102
Q

How long does a patent last?

A

20 years

103
Q

What are the different kinds of alliances?

A
  1. joint venture
  2. cross-boarder
  3. non-equity
  4. equity
104
Q

Why would you use one alliance vs another?

A
  • strategic alliances are voluntary arrangements between firms that involve the sharing of knowledge, resources, and capabilities with the intent of developing processes, products, or services
    benefits:
  • strengthen competitive position
  • enter new markets
  • hedge against uncertainty
  • access critical complementary assets
  • learn new capabilities
105
Q

What is the joint venture alliance?

A
  • a stand-alone organization created and jointly owned by two or more parent companies
  • the partners contribute equity to a joint venture, they enter a long-term commitment, which in turn facilitates transaction specific investments
    – share the costs and risks of operating in the host country
    – local partner’s knowledge of the host country
    – meet political considerations - JV is only feasible entry mode
    PROS: strongest tie, trust and commitment that can result between the partners
    CONS: can entail long negotiations, long-term solution, managers have 2 bosses
106
Q

What is the non-equity alliance?

A
  • the most common type of alliance, which is based on contracts between firms
  • in a non-equity alliance, firms tend to share explicit knowledge that can be codified (laws/rules)
    PROS: flexible, fast, easy to initiate and terminate
    CONS: weak tie, lack of trust & commitment
107
Q

What is the equity alliance?

A
  • purchase of a stock ownership stake or corporate venture capital investment, or investment in kind such as a plant or equipment
    PROS: stronger tie, trust & commitment can emerge, window to new technologies
    CONS: less flexible, slower, can entail significant investment
108
Q

What is the cross-border alliance?

A
  • an agreement between two or more business organizations from two different countries to pursue a set of common interests
109
Q
  • When would you do a merger & how do you go about doing one?
A
  • when the target firm is worth more inside your firm??
110
Q

What is horizontal integration?

A
  • the process of merging with competitors, leading to industry consolidation, do it if the target firm is worth more inside your firm
111
Q

What is winner’s curse?

A
  • some companies get involved in a bidding war for an acquisition; the winner ends up with the prize but may have overpaid for the acquisition- thus falling victim to the winner’s curse
112
Q

What is the main reason M&As fail?

A
  • miscalculation of the expected synergy (interaction/cooperation)
  • paid too much (winner’s curse)
  • difficulty of integrating 2 firms
    (FULL SYNERGIES NOT ACHIEVED.- i.e you can achieve 5 billion of synergy, but if you promised 10 billion, then you failed)
113
Q

What is organizational design? What are the key building blocks?

A
  • how the firm should organize to turn the formulated strategy into action
    1. specialization
    2. formulation
    3. centralization
    4. hierarchy
114
Q

What is specialization? (OD)

A
  • degree to which a task is divided in separate jobs or labor division
115
Q

What is formalization? (OD)

A
  • extent to which employee behavior is steered by explicit and codified rules & procedures
116
Q

What is centralization? (OD)

A
  • degree to which decision making is concentrated at the top of an organization
117
Q

What is hierarchy? (OD)

A
  • determines the formal, position-based reporting lines and who reports to who
118
Q

What is mechanistic organizational structure?

A
  • characterized by a high degree of specialization and formalization and by a tall hierarchy that relies on centralized decision-making
119
Q

What is organic organizational structure?

A
  • have a low degree of specialization and formalization, a flat org structure, and decentralized decision-making
120
Q

What is the process of organizing for competitive advantage?

A
  • simple structure
  • functional
  • multidivisional
  • matrix
121
Q

What is a functional structure?

A
  • ADVANTAGE: groups employees into distinct functional groups based on area of work, allows for a higher degree of specialization and deeper domain expertise than a simple structure
  • CON: tends to lack cross-functional communication
122
Q

What is organizational culture?

A
  • collectively shared values and norms of an organization’s members; a key building block of organizational design
123
Q

Competitive industry structure

A

elements and features common to all industries. This is largely captured by
- # and size of its competitors
- firm’s degree of pricing power
- type of product or service (commodity or differentiated product)
- height of entry barriers

124
Q

4 types of competitive industry structure?

A
  1. perfect competition
  2. monopolistic competition
  3. oligopoly
  4. monopoly
125
Q

What is monopolistic competition?

A
  • many firms, a differentiated product, some obstacles to entry, and the ability to raise prices for a relatively unique product while retaining customers
    – forces firms to offer products with unique features, allows firms to differentiate products and prices
126
Q

What is oligopoly?

A
  • a few large firms, differentiated products, high barriers to entry, and some degree of pricing power
127
Q

What is monopoly?

A
  • only 1 firm, often a large firm supplying the market, unique products and high barrier to entry into the industry
    – no competition, total price control