Deck 3: The Environment and Corporate Culture

Question 1

The general environment affects organisations both directly and indirectly and it includes social, economic, legal-political, international, and technological factors that influence all organisations about equally.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

If BHP Group provides gold for Gold Corporation, then Gold Corporation is considered a customer of BHP Group.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

BHP Group, Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals, Newcrest Mining, South32 and Evolution Minings are the biggest mining companies in Australia. These companies are competitors of each other.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The external environment creates uncertainty for organisation managers, who must respond by designing the organisation to adapt to the environment or influence the environment.

Question 5

Environmental characteristics that influence uncertainty depends upon the number of factors that affect the organisation and the extent to which those factors change. In effect, when external factors change rapidly, the organisation experiences very high uncertainty.

Question 6

There are two basic strategies for coping with high environmental uncertainty: adapting the organisation to the changes in the environment and influencing the environment to make it more compatible with organisational needs.

Question 7

Boundary spanners play two significant roles in an organisation: they detect and process information about changes in the environment, and they represent the organisation's interest to the environment.

Question 8

The internal culture of an organisation must fit the needs of the external environment and its strategies. When this fit occurs, highly committed employees create a high-performance organisation that is tough to beat.

Question 9

The fundamental values that characterise organisational culture can be understood through the visible manifestations of symbols, stories, heroes, slogans and ceremonies.

Question 10

The 'achievement culture' emerges when an organisation values competitiveness, personal initiative and achievement .

Question 11

A cultural leader defines and articulates important values that are tied to a clear and compelling mission.

Question 12

An organisation's general environment is made up of the following factors except:

A) competitors
B) sociocultural factors
C) international environment
D) natural environment
E) economic factors

Question 13

Pidoo's Ventures recently opened stores in Italy and the UK, and plans to expand its operations to South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt . This is an example of Pidoo's ventures focusing of the ____________ dimensions of the general environment.

A) internal
B) sociocultural
C) economic
D) international
E) natural

Question 14

The strategies used by managers to adapt to strategic issues include:

A) boundary-spanning roles
B) SWOT analysis
C) product leadership
D) differentiation
E) none of these choices.

Question 15

RMG Group is using business intelligence, Big Data analytics and other activities to get as much information as possible about their rivals to promote organisational competitive. This activity is related to which growing area of boundary spanning?

A) competitive intelligence
B) robotics
C) forecasting and planning
D) mergers and acquisition
E) none of these choices.

Question 16

The deep-level of the corporate culture consists of:

A) expressed values, underlying assumptions and deep beliefs
B) office layout
C) corporate symbols
D) corporate slogans
E) none of these choices.

Question 17

When the marketing department of Alpha Electronics emphasises that 'We're happy when you're happy' in their advertising, they are:

A) utilising a symbolic statement to communicate their value
B) communicating the company's values to customers
C) using a slogan to present their values to customers and employees
D) utilising a hero for the purpose of conveying values
E) using customers to harass the employees.

Question 18

Organisations pay careful attention to both cultural values and business performance to create a high-performance culture that:

A) is based on a solid organisation mission or purpose
B) embodies shared adaptive values that guide decisions and business practices
C) encourages individual employee ownership of both bottom-line results and the organisation's cultural backbone
D) all of these choices.

Question 19

One of the ways through which a cultural leader can influence organisational culture is by?

A) controlling all aspects associated with cultural change
B) articulating a vision for organisational culture that employees can believe in
C) creating a symbolic culture
D) embracing change
E) increasing employees' compensation package.

Question 20

An organisation that focuses primarily on bottom-line results and pays little attention to organisational values belongs to which quadrant in the text?

A) Quadrant A
B) Quadrant B
C) Quadrant C
D) Quadrant D

Question 21

An organisation is able to manage demands for its products or services, and influence public opinion about itself via _______________ and ___________________, respectively.

Question 22

The _______________ defines and articulates important values that are tied to a clear and compelling mission.

Question 23

List the two types of components of the external environment and give three examples each.

Question 24

Adapting to the environment is one of the strategies used by organisations to cope with the high environmental uncertainty. List three strategies used in this exercise.

Question 25

Name the various factors that can be observed to interpret an organisation's culture.

Question 26

Describe the various strategies used by managers to deal with the uncertain or turbulent environment.

Question 27

List and briefly describe the four categories of corporate culture, and defend the type that you think offers organisations the most competitive advantage.

Question 28

Organisations are forming partnerships as a way of responding to the tough global competition, the constant changing technology and the shifting government regulations. Managers in these partnering organisations shift from adversarial orientation to a partnership orientation. Describe the various characteristics of a partnership orientation.