HRM 412 Midterm Doc Review

Question 1

Strategy Defined

Answer 1

Strategy refers to the goals and policies designed to achieve competitive advantage in a particular marketplace.

Question 2

mission statements

Answer 2

A vision statement imagines in detail what the company will become if successful

If the organization were to achieve all of its strategic goals, what would it look like ten and twenty years from now?

What is our core purpose? What business are we in? What values will guide us?

Question 3

effective mission statements should:

Answer 3

1. clearly identify the purposes of the organization
2. differentiate the firm from other companies in the industry. make it unique

3.define the business of the company

4.identify and explain the firm’s relationships/obligations

5. explain how it will contribute to society

Question 4

three grand strategies

Answer 4

cost leadership
differentiation
focus strategy

Question 5

cost leadership

Answer 5

-cost leadership involves selling your products and services at a lower cost
-technological innovations, low-cost labor

Question 6

differentiation

Answer 6

-providing unique products and services in ways that are widely valued by buyers
-high quality, extraordinary service, innovative designs, technological capability, or an unusually positive brand image

Question 7

focus strategy

Answer 7

-either a cost advantage or a differentiation advantage in a narrow market segment
-“niche strategy”
-The goal is to exploit a narrow segment of a market by appealing specifically to it

Question 8

SWOT method

Answer 8

-Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

-Decision makers examine the organization’s competitive advantages relative to its internal strengths and weaknesses, its external opportunities and threats, and potential competitor actions, then formulate a strategy.

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Question 9

strategic alignment with HR processes

Answer 9

-all of the human resource functions and other business operations need to be coordinated in ways that support each other. called “strategic alignment”

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example: incentive systems that are tied to individual effort, such as commissions and piece rates, are very appropriate for jobs in sales and agricultural harvesting, but they would be quite inappropriate for jobs in a refinery that involve monitoring dials.