Key Terms Ch 2

Question 1

One firm buying another

Answer 1

Acquisition

Question 2

Conditions that prevent new companies from entering an industry

Answer 2

Barriers to Entry

Question 3

The process of comparing an organization’s practices and technologies with those of other companies

Answer 3

Benchmarking

Question 4

Creating supplies of excess resources in case of unpredictable needs

Answer 4

Buffering

Question 5

The immediate environment surrounding a firm; includes suppliers, customers, rivals, and the like

Answer 5

Competitive Environment

Question 6

Information that helps managers determine how to compete better

Answer 6

Competitive Intelligence

Question 7

Strategies used by two or more working organizations working together to manage the external environment

Answer 7

Cooperative Strategies

Question 8

Companies that stay within a stable product domain as a strategic maneuver

Answer 8

Defenders

Question 9

Measures of various characteristics of the people who make up groups or other social units

Answer 9

Demographics

Question 10

A firm’s investment in a different product, business, or geographic area

Answer 10

Diversification

Question 11

A firm selling one or more businesses

Answer 11

Divestiture

Question 12

Entering a new market or industry with an existing expertise

Answer 12

Domain selection

Question 13

The process of sharing power with employees, thereby enhancing their confidence in their ability to perform their jobs and their belief that they are influential contributors to the organization

Answer 13

Empowerment

Question 14

Searching for and sorting through information about the environment

Answer 14

Environmental Scanning

Question 15

Lack of information needed to understand or predict the future

Answer 15

Environmental Uncertainty

Question 16

All relevant forces outside a firm’s boundaries, such as competitors, customers, the government, and the economy

Answer 16

External Environment

Question 17

Those who purchase products in their finished form

Answer 17

Final Consumer

Question 18

Methods for adapting the technical core to changes in the environment

Answer 18

Flexible Processes

Question 19

Method for predicting how variables will change the future

Answer 19

Forecasting

Question 20

Strategies that an organization acting on its own uses to change some aspect of its current environment

Answer 20

Independent Strategies

Question 21

Goods and services organizations take in and use to create products or services

Answer 21

Inputs

Question 22

A customer who purchases raw materials or wholesale products before selling them to final customers

Answer 22

Intermediate Consumer

Question 23

The general environment; includes governments, economic conditions, and other fundamental factors that generally affect all organizations

Answer 23

Macroenvironment

Question 24

One or more companies combining with another

Answer 24

Merger

Question 25

Organizations that are affected by, and that affect, their environment

Answer 25

Open System

Question 26

The patterns of attitudes and behavior that shape people’s experience of an organization

Answer 26

Organizational Climate

Question 27

The set of important assumptions about the organization and its goals and practices that members of the company share

Answer 27

Organizational Culture

Question 28

The set of important assumptions about the organization and its goals and practices that members of the company share

Answer 28

Outputs

Question 29

Companies that continually change the boundaries for their task environments by seeking new products and markets, diversifying and merging, or acquiring new enterprises

Answer 29

Prospectors

Question 30

A narrative that describes a particular set of future conditions

Answer 30

Scenario

Question 31

Leveling normal fluctuations at the boundaries of the environment

Answer 31

Smoothing

Question 32

An organization’s conscious efforts to change the boundaries of its task environment

Answer 32

Strategic Maneuvering

Question 33

The managing of the network of facilities and people that obtain materials from outside the organization, transform them into products, and distribute them to customers

Answer 33

Supply Chain Management

Question 34

Fixed costs buyers face when they change suppliers

Answer 34

Switching Costs