Deck 17: Strategy,Technology,and Organizational Design

Question 1

Once information is obtained,managers must establish mechanisms to distribute relevant information to the individuals who need it.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The strategy process should involve individuals at all levels of the firm to ensure that there is a recognizable,consistent pattern - yielding a superior capability over rivals - up and down the firm's hierarchy and across all of its activities.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Firms acquire information in the same ways and at the same rates during their histories.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Vicarious learning involves capturing the lessons of others' experiences.

Question 5

As firms mature,they can acquire knowledge through experience and systematic search.

Question 6

The important mechanisms for retaining useful information are: individuals,culture,transformation mechanisms,formal structures,ecology,external archives,and internal information technologies.

Question 7

In a recent poll of some 750 CEOs,two-thirds of the respondents reported being inundated with change and new competitors.

Question 8

Strategy is both (a)a positioning of the firm in its environment to provide it with the capability to succeed and (b)a pattern in the stream of the firm's decisions.

Question 9

Organizational learning is the process of knowledge acquisition,information distribution,information interpretation,and organizational retention in adapting successfully to changing circumstances.

Question 10

Grafting involves looking outside the firm and bringing back useful solutions to problems.

Question 11

Choosing precisely whom the company will serve will help define an organization's strategy.

Question 12

Mimicry provides workable,if not ideal,solutions to many problems.

Question 13

Mimicry increases the number of decisions that need to be analyzed separately.

Question 14

The strategy process is an ongoing process.

Question 15

Scanning is the process of acquiring individuals,units,and/or firms to bring in useful knowledge to the organization.

Question 16

In terms of information distribution,a primary challenge for large firms is to quickly locate who has the appropriate information and who needs specific types of information.

Question 17

A successful strategy does not evolve in a vacuum but is driven by the goals emphasized,the size and the nature of the technology used by the firm,and its setting as well as by the structure used to implement the strategy.

Question 18

Strategy is the process of positioning the organization in the competitive environment and implementing actions to compete successfully.

Question 19

During a firm's initial years,knowledge is acquired as managers copy,or mimic,what they believe are the successful practices of others.

Question 20

All organizations and managers can learn through experience -- either by doing or by systematically embarking on structured programs to capture lessons from success and failure.

Question 21

As organizations age and begin to grow beyond the simple structure,they become less rigid,inflexible and easy to change.

Question 22

Sustaining a competitive strategy with consistent learning involves more than just a commitment by individuals; it calls for a systematic adjustment of the organization's structure and processes to alterations in the size and scope of operations,the technology selected,and the environmental setting.

Question 23

As managerial scripts become routines in aging organizations,both managers and employees begin to believe their prior successes will continue into the future,without an emphasis on innovation or learning.

Question 24

As compared to other forms of organization design,the simple design tends to minimize bureaucratic aspects and rests more heavily on the leadership of the manager.

Question 25

Large organizations cannot just be bigger versions of their smaller counterparts simply due to the fact that as the number of individuals in a firm increases arithmetically,the number of possible interconnections among them increases geometrically.

Question 26

Operations technology is the combination of machines,artifacts,procedures,and systems used to gather,store,analyze,and disseminate information for translating it into knowledge.

Question 27

Most managers question managerial scripts.

Question 28

The simple design is appropriate for many small firms,such as family businesses,retail stores,and small manufacturing firms.

Question 29

A managerial script is a series of well-known routines for problem identification and alternative generation and analysis common to managers with a firm.

Question 30

Organizational design goes beyond indicating who reports to whom and what types of jobs are contained in each department.

Question 31

The organization's formal structure and the positions in the organization are less obvious but nonetheless important mechanisms for storing information.

Question 32

Successful organizations arrange their internal structures to meet the dictates of their dominant technologies or workflows and information technology opportunities.

Question 33

Jim Sinegal's strategy at Costco is to follow the crowd.

Question 34

The simple organization design is only as effective as is the senior manager.

Question 35

Larger organizations are often more complex than smaller firms,which in turn calls for more sophisticated organizational design.

Question 36

The strengths of the simple design are simplicity,flexibility,and responsiveness to the desires of a central manager.

Question 37

The simple organization design is a configuration involving one or two ways of specializing individuals and units.

Question 38

Managers often initiate small,incremental improvements based on existing solutions instead of creating new approaches to identify an underlying problem.

Question 39

Process technology is the combination of resources,knowledge,and techniques that creates a product or service output for an organization.

Question 40

A traditional way of ordering parts is known as the "two-bin" system.One bin is always kept in reserve.Once an individual opens the reserve bin,he or she automatically orders replacements.

Question 41

In many organizations,the initial implementation of information technology displaced the most routine,highly specified,and repetitious jobs but it did not alter the fundamental character or design of the organization.

Question 42

The adhocracy emphasizes centralized decision making.

Question 43

An adhocracy is characterized by few rules,policies,and procedures; substantial decentralization; shared decision making among members; extreme horizontal specialization; few levels of management; and virtually no formal controls.

Question 44

Information technology has spawned a whole new series of corporations called e-businesses.

Question 45

In a virtual organization,success depends upon the members of the constellation remaining the same over time.

Question 46

According to the model by Boal and Hooijberg,tensions exist between stakeholders and stockholders and the internal environment and the external environment.

Question 47

Being at the hub of a network can provide a greater opportunity to innovate and gain greater financial returns.

Question 48

Complex decision support systems do little to aid middle and lower-level managers in analyzing problems and making decisions.

Question 49

An adhocracy is notoriously efficient.

Question 50

Starting from the bottom,organizations can be separated into three major zones: 1)the production zone,2)the employee zone,and 3)the process zone.

Question 51

From an organizational standpoint,information technology (IT)has the potential to add capability.

Question 52

From an organizational standpoint,information technology (IT)can be used as a partial substitute for some operations as well as some process controls.

Question 53

James D.Thompson classified technologies as retentive,meditative,and short-linked based on the degree of interdependence among the work activities.

Question 54

The adhocracy is particularly useful when the tasks facing the firm vary considerably and provide many exceptions.

Question 55

A firm typically has much more choice in the composition of its general environment than its specific environment.

Question 56

The composition of a top-management team can have a major influence on how an organization operates in terms of the shared culture,decision-making,and management styles,and even on the ethical foundation of day-to-day workplace behaviors.

Question 57

Joan Woodward divided technology into three categories: small-batch production,mass production,and continuous-process technology.

Question 58

Many e-businesses adopted a variation of the adhocracy as their design pattern because the thinking was that e-business was fundamentally different from the old bricks and mortar operations.

Question 59

Organizations using continuous-process technology produce one or a few products through an assembly-line system.

Question 60

Two common classifications of operations technology that have received considerable attention are Thompson's classification and Woodward's classification.

Question 61

The design of small firms is directly influenced by its __________,whereas larger firms have many more __________.

A)leadership; leaders
B)employees; employees
C)culture; diverse cultures
D)environment; different environments
E)core operations technology; core operations technologies in a wide variety of much more specialized units

Question 62

As organizations age and begin to grow beyond the simple design structure,they become __________.

A)more like competitive firms
B)flexible and agile
C)unwieldy
D)larger in size and scope
E)more rigid,inflexible and difficult to change

Question 63

All of the following are data interpretation problems EXCEPT:

A)self-serving interpretations.
B)the almost universal ability among managers to interpret events,conditions,and history to their own advantage.
C)data is viewed as sound information and readily applied with an organization.
D)managers and employees alike often see what they have seen in the past or see what they want to see from the information.
E)rarely do managers and employees look at the data and see what is or can be.

Question 64

The __________ should involve individuals at all levels of the firm to ensure that there is a recognizable,consistent pattern - yielding a superior capability over rivals - up and down the firm's hierarchy and across all of its activities.

A)organization's competitive assessment process
B)environmental positioning analysis
C)risky shift assessment
D)strategy process
E)success management evaluation

Question 65

Firms that are successful at __________ must adjust to the ever-changing competitive world as they develop internal capabilities to match their intentions and shape their competitive landscape.

A)co-evolution
B)retrenchment
C)mutual relationship management
D)labor management cooperation
E)inside outside management

Question 66

Of the following,which is NOT true regarding organizational design and strategic decisions?

A)Historically,executives were told that firms had available a limited number of economically determined generic strategies that were built upon the foundations of such factors as efficiency and innovation.
B)Historically,if the firm wanted efficiency,it adopted the machine bureaucracy.
C)Historically,if the firm wanted innovation,it adopted a more organic form.
D)Today,the world of corporations is much more complex and many senior executives emphasize the skills and abilities that their firms need to compete in a rapidly changing world.
E)All of the above are true regarding organizational design and strategic decisions.

Question 67

All of the following statements are correct with regard to the simple design except:

A)the strengths of the simple design are simplicity,flexibility,and responsiveness to the desires of a central manager.
B)the simple design is appropriate for many small firms,such as family businesses,retail stores,and small manufacturing firms.
C)as compared to other forms of organizational design,the simple design tends to rest more heavily on the leadership of the manager.
D)the simple design is a configuration involving vertical specialization and control.
E)the simple design tends to de-emphasize leadership but emphasizes elaborate formal mechanisms.

Question 68

A firm's organizational design process takes basic structural elements of the firm and molds them to all of the following EXCEPT:

A)a firm's desires.
B)a firm's demands.
C)a firm's constraints.
D)a firm's competitor.
E)a firm's choices.

Question 69

Which of the following is NOT a mechanism that can be used to retain useful information?

A)Individuals
B)Culture
C)Transformation procedures
D)Format structures
E)Distribution channels

Question 70

The organizational design that tends to minimize the bureaucratic aspects of design and rest more heavily on the leadership of the manager is the __________.

A)simple design
B)bureaucratic design
C)concentric design
D)functional design
E)hierarchical design

Question 71

Large organizations cannot just be bigger versions of their smaller counterparts simply due to the fact that as the number of individuals in a firm increases arithmetically,the number of possible interconnections among them __________.

A)increases moderately
B)decreases moderately
C)increases geometrically
D)decreases geometrically
E)is unpredictable.

Question 72

In larger firms,additional complexity calls for more __________.

A)technically-oriented employees
B)sophisticated organization designs
C)emphasis on team reward structures
D)the hiring of more employees
E)paying greater compensation to lower level employees

Question 73

Mimicry is important to a new firm for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:

A)it provides workable,if not ideal,solutions to many problems.
B)it reduces the number of decisions that need to be analyzed separately,allowing managers to concentrate on more critical issues.
C)it shows which leaders are good at following other organizational leads.
D)it establishes legitimacy or acceptance by employees,suppliers,and customers.
E)it narrows the choices calling for detailed explanation.

Question 74

Which of the following is NOT a mechanism that can be used to retain useful information?

A)Individual employees
B)The internal information system
C)Transportation mechanisms
D)Formal structures
E)Ecology

Question 75

Which of the following is NOT a good way to improve process benchmarking?

A)Carefully define the process to be investigated by comparing current operations with best practices either inside or outside the firm.
B)Organize a systematic effort by developing a plan,identifying who will be studied,who will conduct the study,where it will be done,and how it will be conducted.
C)Determine who in your organization will infiltrate competitor firms.
D)After conducting a comparison between your current practices and best practices,prioritize the findings by ease of implementation and projected benefit,recognizing differences in the unit to be copied and your current unit.
E)Consider applicability of the proposed changes - do they make sense and can they be applied.

Question 76

__________ is a process that,in part,involves repositioning the firm in its setting as the setting itself changes,the firm's scale of operations expands,and its technology shifts.

A)Mutual relationship management
B)Labor-management cooperation
C)Inside-outside management
D)Co-evolution
E)Co-management

Question 77

Firms that are successful at __________ must adjust to the ever-changing competitive world as they develop internal capabilities to match their intentions and shape their competitive landscape.

A)co-evolution
B)co-existence
C)mutual relationship management
D)labor-management cooperation
E)inside-outside management

Question 78

Which mechanism to retain useful information within an organization is deemed to be the most important storehouse of information for organizations?

A)Transformation mechanisms
B)Individuals
C)Ecology
D)External archives
E)Internal information technologies

Question 79

Which of the following is NOT a factor which firms should consider in organizational design?

A)Size of the firm
B)A firm's operations
C)A firm's information technology
D)The politics of the firm
E)A firm's environment

Question 80

__________ is both (a)a positioning of the firm in its environment to provide it with the capability to succeed and (b)a pattern in the stream of the firm's decisions.

A)Vision
B)Mission
C)Strategy
D)Structure
E)Technology