MCQ unknowns Flashcards
Which of the following statements about the relationship between innovation and invention are true?
a) invention is often the result of an individuals effort, innovation typically involves business organisations
The main factor that determines the relative effectiveness of patents in protecting an innovator is:
d) the characteristics of the innovation that is being protected
Monsanto’s NutraSweet artificial sweetener, Pfizer’s Viagra, and Pilkington’s float glass process are innovations that are examples of:
b) strong regimes of appropriability because of the effectiveness of patent protection
Cross functional product development teams, product champions, and incubators are organizational devices used:
b) to reconcile the conflicting requirements of operations and innovations
The different stages of the industry life cycles are defined primarily on the basis of:
a) The rate of growth of industry sales
Which of the following developments is not a typical feature of the transition from the “introductory” to the “growth” phase of the industry life cycle?
c) the shift of production from advanced to emerging countries
A technical standard tends to emerge in an industry if:
d) network effects exist
Which statement best describes the extent to which different industries conform to the same life cycle pattern?
a) The duration of the life cycle varies from industry to industry
The field of “organizational ecology” studies:
b) changes in the population of firms in an industry
Which of the following is not a source of organizational inertia?
d) The hierarchical structure of large firms
When an industry is subject to technological change, the ability of new entrants to displace incumbent firms will be increased if:
a) the technological change represents an architectural innovation rather than a component innovation
The approach that Hyundai Motor and Panasonic have taken to developing organizational capabilities involves:
d) A product sequencing approach in which each product phase is linked to the development of specific capabilities
In 1990, C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel introduced the concept of “core competence.” Their argument was that:
c) strategy should be focused on both developing and exploiting’ distinctive capabilities
To exploit its tangible assets more effectively requires that a firm:
b) economizes on underutilized assets and redeploys assets into more profitable uses.
Intangible resources tend to be more valuable than tangible resources because:
c) the are more likely to provide a sustainable competitive advantage
“Benchmarking” is:
c) a way to compare a firm’s resources and capabilities against those of the competitors
The firm’s ability to appropriate the rents generated by its organizational capabilities:
d) depends on the extent to those capabilities are embedded in team based processes that are heavily dependant upon corporate systems.
When a company has weaknesses relative to competitors among strategically important resources and capabilities, the appropriate strategic response is to:
c) outsource those activities where third parties can offer superior capabilities while positioning the business to reduce vulnerable to remaining weaknesses.
The principal impact of digital technology on business during the next decade is likely to be:
d) external intelligence
Most of the biggest mergers and acquisitions since 2000 have been horizontal—i.e. between companies in the same industry. This reflects the fact that:
c) horizontal mergers and acquisitions offer the greatest potential for value creation through cost reduction and moderating competition
Studies that compare post-merger accounting profitability with the pre-merger accounting profitability of the companies involved show little consistency. This is because:
it to the companies’ performance prior to merging. The problem here is separating
the effects of the merger from the multitude of other factors that influence
companies’ performance over time. returns fails to provide conclusive evidence on the performance outcomes of mergers and acquisition is that:
d) neither a or b - we do not know why studies of the effects of mergers on firm performance have been s inconclusive
In technology-based industries, the most common reason for established companies to acquire small, start-up firms is in order to:
b) acquire capabilities in emerging areas of technology
A major motive for the acquisition of public companies by private equity companies is:
b) to create value through increasing financial leverage
The continuing popularity of mergers and acquisitions among companies despite the lack of empirical evidence of their benefits suggests:
c) both a and b
Strategic alliances frequently play an important role in a firm’s internationalization strategy because:
b) internationalizing firms often lack the local knowledge and access to distribution channels that a local partner can provide
The fundamental issue that Implementing corporate strategy addresses is:
a) how the multibusiness company can best create value for its different businesses
Besides managing the overall corporate portfolio of businesses, corporate management can add value to individual businesses by:
a) managing the individual businesses, exploiting linkages between them, and managing change
A major limitation of the BCG matrix is:
c) neither market growth nor relative market share are reliable indicators of a business future profitability
what are the two dimensions of the Ashridge portfolio?
c) the parents potential to create value and to destroy value in a business
Although sharing resources among the different businesses within the multibusiness corporation can offer substantial cost economies, these savings are often offset by:
c) The costs of coordinating such resource sharing
The general trend of the past four decades has been for companies to divest their “noncore” businesses. Exceptions to this trend include:
c) both a and b
When a company in industry A acquires a company in industry B, Porter’s “better-off” test is satisfied when:
c) the competitive advantage of either or both businesses is increased
Demand-side economies of scope are economies that accrue to customers from buying bundles of different products. Examples of economies of scope include:
c) both a and b
Several decades of empirical evidence indicates that the relationship between diversification and performance:
c) is neither consistent or systematic
Despite the heterogeneity of the goods and services supplied by LVMH (e.g. leather bags and shoes, wine and spirits, fashion clothing, jewelry and watches), we can consider LVMH’s diversification to be into strategically-related industries because:
d) the different businesses all require global marketing to high income consumers, hence draw upon similar management capabilities.
Global industries are those where:
d) both trade and direct investment are high
With internationalization, the threat of new entry into domestic industries are increases because:
c) barriers to entry that would deter domestic firms may be easily overcome by large firms from other countries
The value chain for a product will tend to be dispersed across different countries when:
a) different stages of the value chain require different types of resources and capabilities
The “centralized hub” strategy that Japanese multinationals pursued during the 1970s and 1980s is likely to be most successful in industries with:
b) large economies of scale and limited need for differentiation
The Dutch-based electrical and consumer electronics multinational, Philips, has transferred the headquarters for several of its global business away from the Netherlands. In terms of Bartlett and Ghoshal’s typology of multinational strategies, this represents a transition from:
c) decentralised federation to a transnational
The Dutch-based electrical and consumer electronics multinational, Philips, has transferred the headquarters for several of its global business away from the Netherlands. In terms of Bartlett and Ghoshal’s typology of multinational strategies, this represents a transition from:
c) decentralised federation to a transnational
The costs of national differentiation can be low if:
d) a common basic design and common components are used
McKinsey & Company’s finding that found that successful MNCs are underperforming successful “national
Champions” is evidence of:
a) The benefits of exploiting the benefits of multinationality being outweighed by the cost imposed by the complexity
The growth in the scope of business enterprises for most of the 19th and 20th centuries can be attributed to a drop in administrative costs of firms relative to the transaction costs of market. This resulted from:
d) innovation in information and communications technology and in management
Which of the following factors is not conducive to vertical integration between two adjacent stages of production?
d)
Which of the following factors has not contributed to the trend towards outsourcing in recent decades:
b) increasing emphasis on cost efficiency
- McDonalds–like most other fast-food chains–prefers to franchise rather than directly operate its retail outlets. An advantage of franchising over vertical integration is:
b) franchising subjects the operators of retail outlets to “high-powered” incentives
The main lesson to be drawn from the delays to the launch of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is that, when developing complex products that embody diverse new technologies:
c) the principal firm must possess well developed integration capabilities
