Deck 3: Organizational Environments and Culture

Question 1

A key factor influencing the relationship between companies and their suppliers is:

A) how dependent they are on each other
B) how much they know about each other
C) how compatible their organizational cultures are
D) the type of product being manufactured
E) all of these

Answer 1

A

Question 2

_{3. In terms of environmental complexity, environments have few environmental factors, whereas}
Environments have many environmental factors.

A) non-competitive; competitive
B) simple; complex
C) stable; dynamic
D) scarce; abundant
E) market-oriented; product-oriented

Answer 2

B

Question 3

External environments are the forces and events outside a company that have the potential to influence or affect it.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The two kinds of external organizational environments are the general environment that affects all organizations and the specific environment that is unique to each company.

Question 5

According to its rate of environmental change, an organization's environment can be either stable or dynamic, but not both.

Question 6

The two kinds of external organizational environments are the general environment that affects all organizations and the specific environment that is unique to each company.

Question 7

A company facing a simple environment would:

A) most likely be in the first stage of the environmental cycle
B) exhibit proof of the punctuated equilibrium theory
C) be unable to succeed due to lack of innovation
D) be influenced only by factors in its specific environment
E) have few external factors in the environment that affect it

Question 8

The is the set of key values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by organizational members.

A) industry code of ethics
B) internal environment
C) organizational culture
D) organizational strategy
E) organizational vision

Question 9

Which of the following is a characteristic of successful organizational cultures?

A) adaptability
B) consistency
C) involvement
D) a clear vision
E) all of these

Question 10

A key factor influencing the relationship between companies and their suppliers is:

A) how dependent they are on each other
B) how much they know about each other
C) how compatible their organizational cultures are
D) the type of product being manufactured
E) all of these

Question 11

The is the set of key values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by organizational members.

A) industry code of ethics
B) internal environment
C) organizational culture
D) organizational strategy
E) organizational vision

Question 12

Managers can use behavioral addition and behavioral substitution to:

A) create benchmarks
B) assess the threats and opportunities in the internal environment
C) develop new products
D) locate new markets for existing products
E) modify corporate culture

Question 13

The first step managers use to make sense of their changing environments is:

A) environmental scanning
B) perceptual re-engagement
C) modifying budgets
D) downsizing
E) benchmarking

Question 14

is used to refer to a company's practice of identifying and addressing customer trends and problems after they occur.

A) Consumer confidence forecasts
B) Competitive analysis
C) Reactive customer monitoring
D) Proactive customer monitoring
E) Continuous data mining

Question 15

An organization engaged in affect an organization.

A) a competitive assessment
B) environmental scanning
C) environmental advocacy
D) an internal situational analysis
E) a market audit is searching the environment for important events or issues that might

Question 16

Which of the following is a component of Volkswagen's specific environment and will directly influence how it does business?

A) Renault, a French car maker
B) laws concerning air bags
C) inflation
D) gasoline prices
E) the fact consumers are buying fewer SUVs

Question 17

involves deciding who your competitors are, anticipating competitors' moves, and determining competitors' strengths and weaknesses.

A) Competitive mapping
B) A market audit
C) A SWOT analysis
D) A proactive strategy
E) A competitive analysis

Question 18

Changes in any sector of the general environment:

A) will typically not impact most organizations
B) tend to slow down how quickly an organization moves through the environmental cycle
C) inhibit the innovation process
D) influence customers first and then suppliers
E) will eventually affect most organizations

Question 19

is/are a primary source of organizational culture.

A) The company's founder
B) The organization's competitive strategy
C) The industry in which the organization operates
D) Employees
E) Customers

Question 20

Which of the following is a component of Volkswagen's specific environment and will directly influence how it does business?

A) Renault, a French car maker
B) laws concerning air bags
C) inflation
D) gasoline prices
E) the fact consumers are buying fewer SUVs

Question 21

The best way to manage legal responsibilities is to retain a large staff of legal specialists to defend the company against any charges.

Question 22

Business confidence indices are a viable alternative to economic statistics for management decision making.

Question 23

The general environment consists of the economy and the technological, socio-cultural, and political/legal trends that indirectly affect all organizations.

Question 24

Proactive customer monitoring is defined as identifying and addressing customer trends and problems after they occur.

Question 25

Managers can use behavioral addition and behavioral substitution to:

A) create benchmarks
B) assess the threats and opportunities in the internal environment
C) develop new products
D) locate new markets for existing products
E) modify corporate culture

Question 26

The general environment is unique to each firm's industry and directly affects the way it conducts day-to-day business.

Question 27

Buyer dependence is the degree to which a company relies on a supplier because of the importance of the supplier's product to the company and the difficulty of finding other sources of that product.

Question 28

According to its rate of environmental change, an organization's environment can be either stable or dynamic, but not both.

Question 29

External environments are the forces and events outside a company that have the potential to influence or affect it.

Question 30

Managers often do a poor job of identifying potential competitors.

Question 31

Under conditions in which the rate of both environmental change and complexity go up while environmental resources become scarce, environmental uncertainty can be expected to increase.

Question 32

Resource scarcity is the degree to which an organization's external environment has an abundance or lack of critical organizational resources.

Question 33

The two kinds of external organizational environments are the general environment and the specific environment.

Question 34

In contrast to the general segment of the external environment that DIRECTLY influences an organization, changes in the specific segment of an organization's external environment INDIRECTLY affect the way a company conducts its business.

Question 35

Which of the following is an example of a mechanism used to sustain organizational culture after an organization's founders are gone?

A) recruiting practices
B) employee turnover
C) cultural myths
D) organizational policies
E) none of these

Question 36

Managers often prefer economic statistics to business confidence indices as tools for managerial decision making because of their inherently greater accuracy.

Question 37

Changes in any sector of the general environment eventually affect most organizations.

Question 38

The specific segment of an organization's external environment is unique to its region of the country.

Question 39

Environmental complexity refers to the degree of change in the external factors that affect organizations.

Question 40

Employees tend to feel a greater sense of ownership and responsibility in companies with organizational cultures characterized by:

A) delegation
B) adaptability
C) employee involvement
D) consistency
E) managerial empathy

Question 41

After the company founders are gone, stories and heroes can help to sustain the founder's values, attitudes, and beliefs in the organizational culture.

Question 42

A decrease in either buyer dependence or supplier dependence can lead to opportunistic behavior.

Question 43

Managers can make sense of their changing external environments by completing all three of the following steps:
environmental scanning, interpreting environmental factors, and acting on threats and opportunities.

Question 44

In terms of external organizational environments, the environment is unique to each company.

A) global; national
B) customer-driven; production-driven
C) general; specific
D) informal; formal
E) specific; general

Question 45

_{36. According to the theory, companies go through long, simple periods of environmental stability, followed by}
Short, complex periods of dynamic, fundamental environmental change, finishing with a return to environmental stability.

A) environmental change theory
B) theory of environmental dynamics
C) punctuated equilibrium theory
D) theory of resource scarcity
E) environmental cycle

Question 46

Which of the following companies is most likely operating in a dynamic environment?

A) a video game manufacturer
B) a bakery
C) a brewery, winery, or distillery in the liquor industry
D) a manufacturer of pet food
E) a cereal manufacturer

Question 47

Organizational culture refers to the set of key values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by organizational members.

Question 48

All events outside a company that have the potential to influence or affect it occur in the environment.

A) specific
B) external
C) formal
D) potential
E) national

Question 49

When used together, the combination of behavioral substitution, behavioral addition, and changing visible artifacts is extremely likely to achieve the desired changes in organizational culture.

Question 50

Over the past 20 years, which of the following is an industry that has experienced both the stable and dynamic environments predicted by punctuated equilibrium theory?

A) the airline industry
B) the baking industry
C) the video game industry
D) the breakfast cereal industry
E) the landscaping industry

Question 51

Advocacy groups cannot directly regulate organization practices.

Question 52

Because external environments can be dynamic, confusing, and complex, managers use a three-step process to make sense of the changes in their external environments. Those steps are (1) environmental scanning, (2) interpreting environmental factors, and (3) acting on threats and opportunities.

Question 53

A primary source of organizational culture is the company founder.

Question 54

Successful organizational cultures seem to be based solely upon consistency (i.e., "strength" of the organizational culture).

Question 55

The three techniques used by advocacy groups to influence companies are public communications, media advocacy, and product boycotts.

Question 56

What are the two types of external organizational environments?

A) general and the specific
B) public and private
C) global and the national
D) organizational and the interpersonal
E) market-specific and the product-specific

Question 57

The term behavioral multiplication refers to the process of having managers and employees perform new behaviors that are central to and symbolic of the new organizational culture that a company wants to create.

Question 58

Advocacy groups are typically composed of concerned citizens who have a strong feeling about a common issue even though the members' viewpoints differ significantly.

Question 59

Extensive research demonstrates clearly that organizational culture is strongly related to organizational success.

Question 60

Organizational heroes can be used to make sense of organizational events and changes.

Question 61

_{40. In terms of environmental complexity, environments have few environmental factors, whereas}
Environments have many environmental factors.

A) non-competitive; competitive
B) simple; complex
C) stable; dynamic
D) scarce; abundant
E) market-oriented; product-oriented

Question 62

Consider a hamburger fast-food chain that began operations prior to World War II. In which of the following would have been part of its specific environment after the start of World War II?

A) other fast-food restaurants that sell hamburgers
B) its customers who eat burgers at least once a week
C) the meat packing company that supplied its beef
D) government-mandated beef rationing as a result of World War II
E) all of these

Question 63

Fear of a lawsuit prevents many employers from giving totally honest recommendations to former employees. This reflects a change in the component of the general environment.

A) technological
B) social
C) economic
D) political/legal
E) demographic

Question 64

Which of the following is the LEAST aggressive approach likely to be used by an advocacy group?

A) public communications
B) media advocacy
C) product boycotts
D) class action lawsuits
E) picketing

Question 65

In a very strong economy, where the demand for qualified job applicants exceeds the supply, the environmental characteristic of is likely to be particularly salient for many companies.

A) environmental complexity
B) environmental change
C) resource scarcity
D) environmental uncertainty
E) environmental risk

Question 66

_{45. The consists of the economy and the technological, socio-cultural, and political/legal trends that indirectly}
Affect all organizations.

A) economic environment
B) specific environment
C) general environment
D) indirect environment
E) direct environment

Question 67

Changes in any sector of the general environment .

A) will typically not impact most organizations
B) tend to slow down how quickly an organization moves through the environmental cycle
C) inhibit the innovation process
D) influence customers first and then suppliers
E) will eventually affect most organizations.

Question 68

Which of the following is a component of the specific environment that would directly influence a restaurant's day- to-day operation?

A) its regular customers
B) GNP
C) a trend toward eating less fat
D) more rigid enforcement of OSHA laws
E) all of these

Question 69

Which of the following is a component of Coca-Cola's specific environment and will directly influence how it does business?

A) Pepsi-Cola
B) laws concerning sanitation
C) inflation
D) the increased popularity of energy drinks
E) the development of vending machines that accept debit cards

Question 70

The manager of a company that produces a soy-based sausage wants to conduct a competitive analysis. During this competitive analysis, he should look at .

A) companies that produce other brands of pork-based sausage
B) Morningstar, a company that has a complete line of soy-based products
C) companies that produce other forms of breakfast meats like bacon
D) individuals who make their own sausage
E) all of these

Question 71

Environmental is affected by environmental complexity, change, and resources.

A) uncertainty
B) differentiation
C) difficulty
D) essence
E) entrepreneurship

Question 72

Which of the following is NOT a dimension of the political/legal component of the general environment that governs and regulates business behavior?

A) legislation
B) competitive products
C) court decisions
D) regulation
E) customer-initiated lawsuits

Question 73

Tourism was not the only travel-associated industry that was visibly hurt by what happened on 9/11. People decided to vacation at home and sales of luggage and similar travel gear decreased significantly. Sales of home swimming pools increased. This decision to stay at home reflects a change in attitudes toward the perceived safety of long- distance traveling. This is an example of a change in the component of the general environment.

A) technological
B) socio-cultural
C) economic
D) competitive
E) geographic

Question 74

Legislation concerning the disposal of biological wastes, the development of more sophisticated imaging machines, and longer patient life spans would all be part of the for a public hospital.

A) internal environment
B) specific environment
C) socio-cultural environment
D) general environment
E) environmental differentiation

Question 75

A company facing a simple environment would .

A) most likely be in the first stage of the environmental cycle
B) exhibit proof of the punctuated equilibrium theory
C) be unable to succeed due to lack of innovation
D) be influenced by only factors in its specific environment
E) have few external factors in the environment that affect it

Question 76

Managers often prefer to use business confidence indices .

A) to identify socio-cultural trends
B) as predictors of future economic activity when making business decisions
C) which are based on intuition and experience
D) to encourage customers to make long-term buying decisions
E) to improve consumer confidence forecasts

Question 77

Which of the following is a component of a book publisher's general environment and will indirectly influence how it does business?

A) other book publishing companies
B) pornography laws
C) an advocacy group supporting free books for children
D) a trend toward less leisure time
E) paper and ink suppliers

Question 78

A fast-food restaurant chain is famous for its small, square hamburgers. Which of the following would be a component of its socio-cultural environment?

A) a period of business prosperity
B) the development of fully automated drive-through windows
C) a price war with Burger King and McDonald's
D) the fact most consumers prefer eating out rather than at home
E) regulations passed by the Food & Drug Administration

Question 79

More premature babies than ever before are surviving due to improvements in medical knowledge and care. This improved survival rate can be attributed to the component of hospitals.

A) technological
B) socio-cultural
C) economic
D) political/legal
E) demographic

Question 80

Suppose that a Mexican car manufacturer wants to export cars to Guatemala. The fact that the distribution of income within Guatemala is highly unequal and that about 75 percent of the population is below the poverty line would be a(n) component in the manufacturer's general environment.

A) technological
B) socio-cultural
C) economic
D) political/legal
E) demographic